Early Modern Africa and The Wider World

EARLY MODERN AFRICA and the WIDER WORLD HIST 1301 | History The Mali Empire In Sudanic West Africa, larger political formations began to develop, starting in the early thirteenth century with the Mali Empire. Sundiata Keita, the man who founded Mali, began to establish his authority over the Mande people's homeland, which was centred on the lush grasslands of the upper Senegal and Niger Rivers, approximately 1235. Sundiata persuaded the other Malinke (sometimes called Mandinke) rulers to cede to him the title of mansa, which in Malinke means "ruler." As a result, he was designated as the only mansa, the Malinke people's religious and political leader. Sundiata then proceeded to conquer all of the Soninke peoples in order to enlarge the Mali realm. A large portion of the old kingdom of Ghana as well as its ostensibly autonomous peripheral vassal nations, Mema and Wagadu, were included in this area. Many of these recently gained lands were governed in an indirect manner, installing pro-Malian monarchist puppet governments in Takrur and Songhai, among other Malian vassal kingdoms, as a political ploy that inflamed tensions. Within a few short years, the empire had spread from the southwest's wooded borders to the Sahel of old Ghana, via the grassland savanna regions of the Malinke and the southern Soninke. The trading cities of the Sahel, which connected the local economy to the extensive transSaharan commerce, had greater significance to the Mali monarchs than the numerous petty kingdoms and chiefdoms scattered over the grasslands. These towns, which included Djenné, Timbuktu, and Gao, were important prizes for the Malian rulers. Economic factors have historically influenced political decisions made by monarchs on all continents, such as annexing neighbouring people. Following the conversion of Sundiata's heirs to Islam, Mali grew to become the biggest Islamic kingdom in West Africa. Mali's capital Niani was situated near the Bure goldfields, allowing its rulers to have direct control over the most precious raw material that was carried over the trans-Saharan trade routes, even if the Niger floodplain served as the country's centre. Mali became well-known due to its incredible riches, which its leaders utilised to draw academics and jurists from around the Islamic world. For instance, the establishment of mosques and schools at Timbuktu by Mansa Musa, the most well-known monarch of Mali in the fourteenth century, converted the city into a centre for trade and learning about Islam. Trans-Saharan trade also aided in the construction of social and religious buildings in Mali as well as other public works projects. Visitors to West Africa frequently made remarks about how impressive the palaces, walled cities, and mosques they saw there were. Leo Africanus, an Amazigh diplomat and writer who was once enslaved and whose real name was al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan, visited Songhai in the sixteenth century and was impressed by Timbuktu's exquisite architecture, especially the king's walled palace and the temple of "stone and mortar" that dominated the city's centre. Though many were amazed by these structures, none were nearly as remarkable as the mosques in Timbuktu. For example, the Sankore mosque's sun-baked brick walls and spiky pyramidal design made it stand out as a distinctive example of West African architecture during the period. The fifteenth century saw the advent of powerful new neighbours, dynastic conflicts, rebellions, and the entry of the Portuguese, among other internal and foreign factors that ultimately brought to the collapse of the Sudanic monarchy and changed the course of history for the Mali Empire. These elements, which will be discussed in more detail later, weakened Mali's economy and political system and made it more vulnerable to instability and collapse. Mansa Musa passed away in 1337, and his heirs were often weaker and less powerful than their well-known ancestor. The Mossi people, who resided south of the Niger bend, invaded and sacked Timbuktu during the short reign of his son, Mansa Maghan. The Mossi attack proved to others that the empire had been weakened, even if the Malians eventually returned to the city and governed it for an additional century. Later, nomadic Tuareg people raided and wreaked damage. For the following forty years, they occupied and ruled Timbuktu. The weakening Malian Empire was under pressure from the north and east due to the assaults by the Tuareg and Mossi. Town uprisings followed these attacks, indicating a more significant change in the geopolitics of the area as other major cities within the empire attempted to revolt against Malian control. Uprisings took place at the main commerce hub of Gao and the salt-producing centre of Takedda between 1374 and 1387. Mansa Musa II was able to put an end to the Tuareg uprising at Takedda, but he was powerless to stop the Songhai of Gao from declaring their independence from Mali. By the 1430s, important commercial cities like Djenné had recovered their independence, and Mali had lost control not just of Timbuktu but also of tributary kingdoms to the north, such Mema. The Portuguese entrance in the fifteenth century complicated matters further, since the trading cities and routes that the mansas relied on for their riches and power were progressively being taken away from the Malian Empire due to weak leadership, rebellions, and raids by the Mossi and Tuareg. In 1444, the Atlantic coasts of Senegal and the Gambia hosted the first Portuguese slave raids in West Africa. This was known as the Senegambian coast. The invasions first took the vassal regions of Mali off surprise, but they quickly recovered and successfully repelled more European incursion. The Portuguese were compelled to sign a peace treaty in 1462, which restricted their commercial activities to the coast of Senegal. In the end, a lot of trade was diverted from the trans-Saharan trade routes in the interior of West Africa thanks to this new, direct trade between a European power and Mande merchants along the coast. Pressure increased on the eastern and northern borders of the Mali Empire as the threat posed by Europe progressively diminished. There, under Sunni Ali's leadership, the Songhai Empire was growing and in a series of victories it was able to take Djenné (1473), Timbuktu (1468), and the former Malian region of Mema (1465). Nearly every territory that the Mali Empire had governed had been lost before the century's conclusion. All that was left was the grasslands around the Mande-speaking heartland. This decreased state of affairs persisted in Mali until the latter part of the seventeenth century, at which point the majority of non-Malinke people reclaimed their freedom and returned to mansa-based governance.