Kingdoms In Africa Research Paper

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People don’t know much about the History of Kingdoms in Africa. There was three main kingdoms in Africa at different time periods. We had the Kingdom of Ghana, The Kingdom of Mali, and the Kingdom of Songhai. The main one I will focus on is the Kingdom of Mali. It was located in Western Africa, established around the mid 1200’s.
Mali was the greatest Kingdom founded in Africa at the time. The man that founded it was Sundiata Keita. The founder of Mali defeated Ghana and captured their capital in 1240. It’s northern border was south of the Sahara Desert and it was along the Niger River. It spread 1,200 miles from the city of Gao to the Atlantic Ocean. It spread across many African countries, today known as Mali, Niger, Senegal, Guinea, etc. …show more content…

It was decentralized throughout the state. According to Joseph Ki-Zerbo, a Burkinabé writer, the longer a person traveled from Mali the more decentralized The Kings power became. The king ruled managed to keep tax money and nominal control over the Kingdom without upsetting his subjects into revolt.
The Empire grew because of its trade above everyone else. It contained three enormous gold mines inside its borders. The empire taxes every ounce of gold, copper, and salt that entered its borders. By the start of the 14th century Mali was responsible for almost half the Old World’s gold exported from the mines in Bambuk, Boure, and Galam.
Copper was a valued commodity in Imperial Mali. According to the records of Ibn Battuta copper that was traded in bars was mines from Takedda. Takedda was a town/former Kingdom in the Western Sahara in Niger. This was in the north and was traded in the south for gold. Modern sources claim 60 copper bars traded for 100 dinars of …show more content…

It was cut into pieces and spent on goods with close to equal buying power as gold throughout the empire. It was better for the south because they needed it for their diet but it was rare for them to get. The north had a bunch of salt and every year merchants went to Mali with camel loads of salt to sell. One camel load of salt sold for 8-10 mithqals of gold. A source of salt in Mali was salt mining sites located in Taghaza. There was no trees in Taghaza, Only salt mines and sand. Only Musafa servants lived in the area and dug out the salt.
After the death of Mansa Musa his family argued over who would rule next. This caused the empire to decline/weaken at a fast pace. Timbuktu eventually was raided and burned by the Songhai people. The inside problems of Mali continued to get worse as the people who lived in newly conquered land started to rebel. In 1365 the Songhai led the City of Gao in Mali To independence. By 1500 the rebels/invaders had shrunk the empire to the size it had been when the people of Mali lived there/ruled. It is said that the Songhai people settled in Gao but didn’t claim it as their capital until the start of the 11th

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