MC_A Concise History of Africa

A Concise History of Africa

As with all empires, Songhai eventually declined. Mansur of Morocco, wishing to take control of the gold trade, sent a force armed with guns against Songhai’s more primitive weapons; but governing so vast an empire began to prove irksome for the Moroccans, causing them to relinquish control of the region, leaving it to splinter into dozens of smaller kingdoms. Other states formed, but were not comparable with the empires; the Wolof established themselves in what is now Senegal, and the Hausa created important city states. Eminent Arab geographers and historians, as well as African scholars, wrote of the empires of Ghana, Mali, Songhai and Kanem Bornu, and spoke of the famous

trade routes used by these peoples, describing Ghana, as early as the 11th century, as a highly advanced and prosperous society. The Hausa City State The 14 Hausa kingdoms or states, comprising the “Hausa Seven” and the “Bastard Seven,” were located in what would become northern Nigeria, emerging in the 13th century as vibrant trading centers in competition with Kanem-Bornu and Mali. Except for minor alliances, they functioned independently, and being rivals were never centralized into a single state. Enriched by a further eastward shift in trade, they blossomed in the late 1500s, and cities like Kano, Katsina, and Zinder remain important centers of trade.

The Songhai Empire, 1375–1591 The Songhai were closely related to the Mandé and together they were dominant in the Songhai empire. It was from one of Mali’s former conquests, Gao, that the last major empire would emerge. Although Gao had been occupied by a Songhai dynasty prior to being conquered by Mansa Musa’s forces in 1325, and was its capital city, it was not until much later that the Songhai empire would emerge. It began to rise in 1464 when it conquered much of the weakening Mali empire’s territory, including the cities of Timbuktu and Djenné, reaching its zenith under the Askia dynasty (1492–1592), its first ruler having been the devoutly Muslim Mohammed Touré, known as Askia the Great.

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