The Mali Empire (1230-1400s) was an empire in West Africa. It stood roughly where Senegal and Mali are today. At its height in the 1300s it was one of the richest in the world and had one of the greatest seats of learning of its time, Timbuktu.
Mali came after the Ghana Empire, on whose remains it was built, but before the Songhay Empire, which took it over bit by bit.
The empire stretched across the grasslands south of the Sahara along the Niger and Senegal rivers. In those days the land was not so dry and trade went by land not by sea, so twice as many people lived there back then. The main sign that times used to be different are the huge mosques that the empire left behind.
Size: In the early 1400s the Mali Empire had about as much land and as many people as America did east of the Mississippi River in 1880. Timbuktu in those days was bigger than London, and it was not even the capital!
Making a living: Most people were farmers. They grew rice, beans, sorghum, millet, peanuts, papaya and cotton. Some people were slaves. Herdsmen raised cows, goats and sheep. Its smiths worked copper, iron and gold. To the north were salt mines and to the south, gold. Mali got rich mainly from its gold and from trade between the Muslim world to the north and Africa to the south and south-east. It stood along important caravan routes.
At its height Mali produced more gold than anywhere else in the world. When its greatest ruler, Mansa Musa, passed through Egypt on his way to Mecca in 1324, the value of gold dropped by a fourth. He had that much gold.
Religion: unlike the old Ghana empire before it, the top people in Mali were mostly Muslim. They helped to spread Islam to that part of the world.
Language: Arabic, the language of the holy book, the Koran, was the language of its scholars and poets. Mali’s gold and its use of Arabic is what helped to make Timbuktu a great seat of learning. Students came from as far away as the Middle East.
The people: The empire ruled the Mandingo, Fulani, Tuareg, Wolof and Soninke. The Wolof lived in the west, the Soninke in the north, the Tuareg beyond them in the sands of the far north and the Mandingo lived throughout the empire. The Fulani and Tuareg were herdsmen, the rest were mainly farmers.
The main cities were along the Niger River and had on the order of 100,000 people each. Going from west to east they were: Niani (the capital), Jenne (or Djenne), Timbuktu (the seat of learning) and Gao.
The empire started to weaken in the early 1400s. The city of Gao in the east rose up against it, then the Tuaregs in the north and the Wolof in the west. Gao became the seat of a new empire, the Songhay.
– Abagond, 2009.
See also:
- Timbuktu
- Songhay Empire
- Islam
- Koran
- Guinea coast
- Creoles – some of those of New Orleans have roots that go back to this empire
- Quiloa
fascinating! thanks for this article 🙂
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We need to get together for beers, first the archaeology/Lenai Lennape overlap now this. In 1994 I spent four weeks in Mali to visit a friend in the Peace Corps. Landed in Bamako, one of my traveling friends had a slight run in with the gendarme because the passport had US dates, not Euro (DD/MM/YY) but it was resolved. We spent a few days in Bamako, big city, really dirty, cool markets, especially the magic one. Then we headed north along the only paved road by bus to a village where my friends girlfriend worked (also for the PC).
From there we went to Mopti, spent a couple of days in that town (I highly recommend, full of ex-pats, NGOs, Asian business men and traders out on the Mali frontier, kind of wild westish…we hired a guide and went out to Dogon country for a week + of hiking amongst their villages along the Bandiagara Faliase. We never went to Timbouctou as we were forewarned that it was well past any former glory and had to skip on Djienne as well since the Touaregs tribes in the north were rebelling and had taken an NGO (Dutch dude I think) hostage. (He was released unharmed). I’d love to go back and see how the country has fared in the last 14 years.
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I actually commented before I read the article. I didn’t realize that the Mandinka tribe descended from the Mali empire, when we were there the main ethnic group was the Bambara, at least they referred to themselves as such, which wikipedia tells me is a sub-group of Mandinka. The interesting thing is so are the Fulani but they are vastly different people.
It’s hard to quantify this in any way other than personal observation but the Fulani people seemed to be better looking. Perhaps it was personal taste, perhaps luck of the draw in which we saw few Fulani and the one’s we did were better looking than the Bambara that we saw frequently. It might have been perception as well, Fulani villages were very clean and organized, Bambara villages not so much. I watched some Fulani women sweeping the sand in their village clear of twigs and leaves and such. The Bambara tended to discard items where ever they had finished with it. (i.e. If they were eating oranges they would just throw the peels on the ground and walk away). I also think the Fulani are considered wealthy (being herders) compared to the Bambara who are more farmers and workers.
This is stirring up a bunch of cool memories. I’ll have to dig up the pictures and scan them for you.
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Darn, one last thing. I caught malaria there as well. Long story. Bad experience.
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Cool – that you went to Mali, not that you got malaria. I am jealous. I was thinking of going but that bit about kidnapping (I was thinking Al Qsaeda, not Tuaregs) is a turn-off.
You are not the first to remark on the beauty of the Fulani.
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It is a different world now than it was then. I can’t speak for the place now but Mali didn’t seem to have embraced the strict form of Islam that one might find in the Northern African countries or in parts of Nigeria. My fiance (wife now) was with me and there were no warnings prior to going about dressing conservatively nor any issues with her being unveiled or wearing shorts when we were there. It’s a different breed of Islam and if we hadn’t seen mosques out in the villages you wouldn’t have suspected what religion they practiced. And it is telling that mixed in (sometimes in the same villages even) there are still people practicing animist religions (the chicken was highly regarded) and Christian religions Mali seemed a pretty tolerant place. We actually had an enjoyable hike between two villages accompanied by the equivalent of a Muslim monk or missionary and his pupils. He would go to village to village and give lessons on the Koran in exchange for food and shelter. Total 12th century vibe from that experience.
The Touareg conflict continues still. It’s not really a rebellion but more closely related to what is going on in Mexico and the drug cartels. There’s a lot of banditry, drug trade and such there. I just read that four Europeans were kidnapped in January near the Niger border so it is still dangerous to some extent. But it is about money, not religion.
Like I said, a decade plus might have changed things.
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I dont know if i post this comment in the right blog, ( some ) black people claims that the white man has stolen the africans history and made it “white-history”, im sure its true in many cases.
Now hovever they try to steal a little of the white mans history and even they red indians history, there are videos on YouTube claiming that the original American was black not American Indian. ( Some ) of them also claims they Anglo-Saxons and Vikings were black.
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History as told is way way white, almost as if they were the only people who ever did anything important or had a brain.
I never heard about black Vikings or such. I did read, however, that the oldest bones found in Brazil belonged to black people!
It could be that mankind spread to the Americas almost right away, meaning the first wave was black, later to be wiped out by an Asian wave, which in turn was mostly wiped out by a European wave.
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Sorry I didn’t notice this one earlier, Abagond. Good historical post.
Indeed, I noticed most other glossed over this one as well.
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People You forget the Sosso empire, with Sumangourou Kante, which followed Ghana empire and which is followed by Mali empire
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Interesting, I never knew much about Mali other than where it was in Africa and Timbuktu. I met some people from Mali over the holidays, and I wouldn’t mind visiting Mali, especially with it’s amount of historical significance. I always like going to countries where I know people, so I can have someone as a guide and wearing cloths similar to what people wear there always helps you to “blend in”– so to speak.
It’s always best to have someone who is from the country to show you around to get the most out of your experience and possibly avoid having some bad experiences–definitely do not know much French–so I need to work on that before going.
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I spent two years working as a community health educator in W. Mali with the Peace Corps and I now speak Bambara. I’d love to see a follow-up article with your perspective of the (incredibly unfortunate) current events involving French troops attempting to quell (non-Malian) Islamist terrorism in the country.
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Me too.
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Reblogged this on Project ENGAGE.
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