Mali Empire
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- The Mali empire was founded in the year 1235 by Sundiata Keita after he won a war against the Susu kingdom. In the centuries to come the Mali empire would grow to be one of the largest states in Africa's history, thanks to it's legendary kings known as the mansas. Sundiata Keita has also been called the lion prince.
- Another great Malian king was Abubakari II. He was always amazed by what lay at the other side of the ocean and ordered the construction of 400 ships equipped with food, water and medicine for up to 2 years. Sadly, only one ship returned and the captain had reported that the fleet had encountered a large whirl pool before vanishing. This however did not deter Abubakari and instead of giving up he had 2,000 ships built this time. Unlike the previous expedition this fleet was commanded by Abubakari himself. He was joined by artists, musicians, magicians, scientists, sailors, and many others. Unfortunately like the previous fleet before it this fleet would never return to Mali. Many African historians however believe that the fleet did make it to the Americas or more specifically South America however this has yet to be confirmed. However these two maritime voyages are well recorded in the oral traditions of Mali and written records in North Africa.
- Mali's greatest king was Mansa Musa I. In the years 1324-1325 he made his world famous pilgrimage to Mecca. He was joined by 60,000 subjects. 12,000 of his subjects carried 4 pounds of gold bars and he had 80 camels and each of them carried 300 pounds of gold dust. His journey attracted so much attention from all over the Arab world and Europe that Europeans would end up putting pictures of Mansa Musa on their maps. He had given away so much gold on his journey that the gold markets in Cairo, Medina and Mecca declined significantly and would not recover for another 10 years. In order to fix this problem Mansa Musa borrowed large sums of gold from money lenders in Cairo at very high interest. Because of this Mansa Musa became the only human being in history to directly control the price of gold in the Mediterranean. Mansa Musa is estimated to have been worth $400 billion, which makes him the richest human being in history. After traveling to Mecca he ordered the construction of several buildings including the famous Sankore University, which may have had up to 700,000 manuscripts and the Hall of Audience, and a royal palace. The Sankore mosque at it's apex was capable of holding 25,000 students and was one of the top libraries in the world and in history. Under Mansa Musa's reign the Mali empire contained 400 cities/towns and was the second largest empire Earth at its height after the Mongol Empire. It would reach an area of 1,294,944 kilometers or around the size of Western Europe.
- The military of the Mali empire consisted of 100,000 soldiers which included horesmen, swordsmen, archers, and javelin throwers. The navy was made up of ships and war canoes which could measure 80 feet long and hold up to 120 armed warriors. The skill of the Malian soldiers was legendary. When the Portuguese started raiding the coast of West Africa in the 1440s and 1450s they met unstoppable resistance from the Mali imperial navy even though the Malians came only armed with arrows and javelins while the Portuguese came armed with guns and cannons. Eventually the Portuguese had to resort to peaceful trade along the West African coast. In this way the Mali empire stopped Europe's first attempts to start the transatlantic slave trade along the coast of Africa. It must be noted that in the 1400s the Mali empire was in a period of decline. Even in the year 1599 when the Mali empire was extremely weak and no longer in it's imperial form they were still able to launch an attack on the Moroccans occupying Djenne which resulted in 2 battles in where the Mali army nearly triumphed and won the respect of the Moroccans. This Mali army was nothing like the military of Mansa Musa and was even betrayed by one of its most needed allies before the battle began.
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