These peoples include the Mbororo (Bororo / Wodaabe), the Tuareg, and the Tubu (Teda and Daza). The Mbororo are part of the wider language group, the Fulani-Peulh in West Africa. These groups adhere to their traditional nomadic culture, territories and identities.

Rapidly growing trade brought a lot of wealth and power to West Africa, just as the Ghana Empire was getting its start. The Ghana Empire, in particular, grew rich from the trans-Sahara trade. It certainly helped that the empire had control over the three major gold fields to the south of them.

The empires of West African people were kingdoms and chiefdoms that kings and queens ruled. This predates European contact as well as the enslavement of Africans. Their kingdoms were present by the first millennium AD. The kingdoms of West Africa were Ghana, Mali, Songhai, and the Kongo.

But many West Africans lived in stateless societies with no government other than that provided by extended families and lineages. In extended families, nuclear families (husband, wife, and children) or in some cases polygynous families (husband, wives, and children) acted as economic units.

These early contacts with Portuguese traders had two significant consequences for West Africa and the Americas. First, direct trade between the Portuguese and the coastal people of West Africa bypassed the routes across the Sahara and pulled the coastal region into a closer relationship with Europe.

The West Africa UN subregion includes the following countries:Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Côte D'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo .

Although primarily agricultural, West Africans held many occupations. Some were hunters and fishers. Merchants traded with other African communities, as well as with Europeans and Arabs. Some West Africans mined gold, salt, iron, copper or even diamonds.