LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Mali: Mali Empire
built 615 days ago
A[L]though Mali is today one of the poorest countries in the world, it has a long and illustrious past as an integral part of great African empires. The first of these empires was the empire of Ghana, which from the 4th to the 11th century controlled the trans-Saharan caravan routes. Ghana fell under invasions by the Muslim Almoravids, but it was soon supplanted by a the Mandinka empire of Mali. Mali reached its pinnacle of power and wealth during the 14th century, extending over almost all of West Africa and controlling virtually all of the rich trans-Saharan gold trade. It was during this period that Mali's great cities, Timbuktu and Djenne, became fabled centers of wealth, learning, and culture. Mali's power didn't last much longer.
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Mali is the cultural heir to many ancient African empires-Ghana, Malinke, and Songhai-that occupied the West African Savanna. The Ghana Empire, centered in the area along the Malian-Mauritanian frontier and dominated by the Soninke people, was a powerful trading state from about A.D. 700 to 1075. The Malinke Kingdom of Mali had its origins on the upper Niger River in the 11th century. Expanding in the 13th century under the leadership of Soundiata Keita, it reached its height about 1325, when it conquered Timbuktu and Gao. The kingdom began to decline, controlling a small fraction of its former domain by the 15th century. The Songhai Empire expanded its power from Gao during the period 1465 to 1530.
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Mali began as a small Malinke kingdom around the upper areas of the Niger River. It became an important empire after 1235 when Sundjata organized Malinke resistance against a branch of the southern Soninke, who made up the center of the older kingdom of Ghana. The empire developed around its capital of Niani, the city of Sundjata's birth in the southern savannah country of the upper Niger valley near the gold fields of Bure. Unlike the people of the older kingdom of Ghana, who had only camels, horses, and donkeys for transport, the people of Mali ... used the river Niger. By river, they could transport bulk goods and larger loads much more easily than by land. Living on the fertile lands near the Niger, people suffered less from drought than those living in the drier regions further north. Food crops were grown on the level areas by the river, not only for local people but for those living in cities farther north on the Niger River and in oasis towns along the trade routes across the desert.
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The landlocked West African country of Mali is mostly desert or semidesert. Trans-Saharan caravans once enriched Timbuktu and Gao, trading hubs on the Niger River. Descendants of the empires of Ghana, Malinke, and Songhai came under French rule in the late 19th century and gained independence in 1960. In the 1980s economic woes worsened by drought and famine led to deregulation and privatization. Desertification forces nomadic herders south to the subsistence-farming belt. With increased gold mining operations, Mali is becoming a major gold exporter.
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The Mali empire was based on outlying areas--even small kingdoms--pledging allegiance to Mali and giving annual tribute in the form of rice, millet, lances, and arrows. Slaves were used to clear new farmlands where beans, rice, sorghum, millet, papaya, gourds, cotton, and peanuts were planted. Cattle, sheep, goats, and poultry were bred.
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All the polities of historic Mali have been created by an elite from one particular ethnic group, but have to a very great extent incorporated others. Thus, the (Malinké) empires of Sosso and Mali, the (Songhai) dynasty of Askia, the (Moorish) invasion from the north, the (Bambara) kingdom of Ségou, the (Fulani) jihad state of the 19th century and others were all multiethnic ‘patchworks’ built by conquests and alliances. And ethnic identities are further cross-cut/ subdivided by clan/ caste identities as enshrined in family names with their associated traditional occupations. This has left Mali with a valuable heritage of co-existence and accommodating the differences of close neighbours, which has been one of the foundations upon which a sense of common nationhood has been built. As people say, ‘Malians understand each other very well’ – the most famous manifestation of this being what is known in French as ‘cousinage’ – the joking relationship based upon ethnicity and surname which is universal in the nation.
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Mali Empire