The Songhai Empire, a prominent state in the western Sahel region during the 15th and 16th centuries, stands as one of the largest African empires in history. Known by its historiographical name derived from the Songhai people, its largest ethnic group and ruling elite, the empire left an indelible mark on West African history.
Map of the Songhai Empire.
The Songhai Empire was located in Western Africa south of the Sahara Desert and along the Niger River. At its peak, it stretched well over 1,000 miles from the current modern day country of Niger to the Atlantic Ocean. The Songhai Empire lasted from 1464 to 1591.
Origins and Rise to Power
In ancient times somewhere surmised between the 9th and 3rd centuries BCE, several different groups of people collectively formed the Songhai identity, centered around the developing hub of ancient Kukiya. Among the first people to settle in the region of Gao were the Sorko people, who established small settlements on the banks of the Niger River. The Sorko fashioned boats and canoes from the wood of the cailcedrat tree, fished and hunted from their ships, and provided water-borne transport for goods and people. Another group of people that moved into the area to live off of Niger's resources were the Gao people. The other group known to have inhabited the area were the Do people, talented farmers who raised crops in the fertile lands bordering the river. Before the 10th century, these early settlers were subjugated by more powerful, horse-riding Songhai speakers, who established control over the area.
The earliest dynasty of kings is obscure, and most information about it comes from an ancient cemetery near a village called Saney, close to Gao. Inscriptions on a few of the tombstones in the cemetery indicate that this dynasty ruled in the late 11th and early 12th centuries and that its rulers were given the title of Malik (Arabic for "King"). Other tombstones mention a second dynasty whose rulers bore the title zuwa. Only myth and legend describe the origins of the zuwa.
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The Tarikh al-Sudan (History of Sudan), written in Arabic around 1655, provides an early history of the Songhai as handed down through oral tradition. The Sanhaja tribes were among the early people of the Niger Bend region. These tribes rode out of the Sahara Desert and established trading settlements near the Niger. As time passed, North African traders crossed the Sahara and joined the Tuaregs in their settlements. Both groups conducted business with the people living near the river. As trade in the region increased, the Songhai chiefs took control of the profitable trade around what would later become Gao.
By the 10th century, the Songhai chiefs had established Gao as a small kingdom, taking control of the people living along the trade routes. Around 1300, Gao had become prosperous enough to attract the Mali Empire's attention. Mali conquered the city, profited from Gao's trade, and collected taxes from its kings until about the 1430s. Conflict in the Malian homeland made it impossible to maintain control of Gao. As the Mali Empire started disintegrating, the Songhai reasserted control of Gao. Ibn Battuta visited Gao in 1353 when the town was still a part of the Mali Empire. He arrived by boat from Timbuktu on his return journey from visiting the capital of the empire, writing: Then I travelled to the town of Kawkaw, which is a great town on the Nīl [Niger], one of the finest, biggest, and most fertile cities of the Sūdān. There is much rice there, milk, chickens, fish, and the cucumber, which has no like.
Sunni Ali and Expansion
The Songhai Empire first came into power under the leadership of Sunni Ali. Sunni Ali was a prince of the Songhai. He was being held as a political prisoner by the leader of the Mali Empire who ruled over the Songhai. In 1464, Sunni Ali escaped to the city of Gao and took control of the city. From the city of Gao, he established the Songhai Empire and began to conquer nearby regions including the important trading cities of Timbuktu and Djenne. After the death of Sulayman Dama, Sonni Ali reigned from 1464 to 1492. Unlike the previous Songhai kings, Ali sought to honour the traditional religion of his people, taught to him by his mother of the Dendi people. During his campaigns for expansion, Ali conquered several territories, repelling attacks from the Mossi to the south and conquering the Dogon people to the north. He annexed Timbuktu in 1468 after the leaders of the town asked him to help overthrow the Tuaregs, who had taken the city following the decline of Mali.
When he attempted to conquer the trading town of Djenné, the townspeople resisted his efforts. The invasion of Sonni Ali and his forces negatively impacted Timbuktu. Many Muslim accounts described him as a tyrant, including the Tarikh al-fattash, which Mahmud Kati wrote. Sunni Ali entered Timbuktu, committed gross iniquity, burned and destroyed the town, and brutally tortured many people there. When Akilu heard of the coming of Sonni Ali, he brought a thousand camels to carry the fuqaha of Sankore and went with them to Walata..... Sonni Ali created a policy against the scholars of Timbuktu, especially those of the Sankore region who were associated with the Tuareg.
By repulsing a Mossi attack on Timbuktu, the second most important city of Songhai, and by defeating the Dogon and Fulani in the hills of Bandiagara, he had by 1468 rid the empire of any immediate danger. He later evicted the Tuareg from Timbuktu, which they had occupied since 1433, and, after a siege of seven years, took Jenne (Djenné) in 1473 and by 1476 had dominated the lakes region of the middle Niger to the west of Timbuktu. He repulsed a Mossi attack on Walata to the northwest in 1480 and subsequently discouraged raiding by all the inhabitants of the Niger valley’s southern periphery.
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Askia Muhammad and the Golden Age
Sonni Ali was succeeded by Askia the Great. In 1493, Askia Muhammad became the leader of the Songhai. He brought the Songhai Empire to its height of power and founded the Askia Dynasty. Askia Muhammad was a devout Muslim. Under his rule, Islam became an important part of the empire. He organized the territories his predecessor conquered and extended his power to the south and the east. Under his rule, the Songhai military possessed a full-time corps of warriors. He opened religious schools, constructed mosques, and opened his court to scholars and poets from throughout the Muslim world. His children went to an Islamic school, and he enforced Islamic practices but did not force religion on his people.
Askia completed one of the Five Pillars of Islam by taking a hajj to Mecca, bringing a large amount of gold. He donated some of it to charity and spent the rest on gifts for the people of Mecca to display his empire's wealth. Askia initiated multiple military campaigns, including declaring Jihad against the neighbouring Mossi. He did not force them to convert to Islam after subduing them. He centralized the administration of the empire and established a bureaucracy responsible for tax collection and the administration of justice. He demanded the building of canals to enhance agriculture, eventually increasing trade.
He too fought the Mossi of Yatenga, tackled Borgu, in what is now northwestern Nigeria (1505)-albeit with little success-and mounted successful campaigns against the Diara (1512), against the kingdom of Fouta-Toro in Senegal, and to the east against the Hausa states. In order to win control of the principal caravan markets to the north, he ordered his armies to found a colony in and around Agadez in Aïr.
Songhai Empire The Rise and Fall of Africa's Greatest Empire
Culture and Society
The Songhai Empire was divided into five provinces each led by a governor. Under Askia Muhammad, all the governors, judges, and town chiefs were Muslims. The emperor had total power, but he also had ministers who ran different aspects of the empire for him. The Songhai culture became a blend of traditional West African beliefs and the religion of Islam. Daily life was often ruled by traditions and local customs, but the law of the land was based on Islam.
The Songhai economy was based on a clan system. The clan a person belonged to ultimately decided one's occupation. The most common occupations were metalworkers, fishermen, and carpenters. The lower castes mainly consisted of immigrants, who, at times, were provided special privileges and held high positions in society. At the top were noblemen and descendants of the original Songhai people, followed by freemen and traders. At the bottom were prisoners of war and enslaved people who mainly worked in agriculture. The Songhai used slaves more consistently than their predecessors, the Ghana and Mali empires.
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Criminal justice in Songhai was based mainly, if not entirely, on Islamic principles, especially during the rule of Askia Muhammad. The local qadis were, in addition to this, responsible for maintaining order by following Sharia law under Islamic domination, according to the Qur'an. An additional qadi was noted as a necessity to settle minor disputes between immigrant merchants. Kings usually did not judge a defendant; however, under exceptional circumstances, such as acts of treason, they felt obligated to do so and thus exerted their authority. Qadis worked locally in important trading towns like Timbuktu and Djenné. The king appointed the Qadi and dealt with common-law misdemeanours according to Sharia law. The Qadi also had the power to grant a pardon or offer refuge. The Assara-munitions, or "enforcers", worked like a police commissioner whose sole duty was to execute sentencing.
The upper classes in society converted to Islam, while the lower classes often continued to follow traditional religions. Sermons emphasized obedience to the king. Timbuktu was the educational capital.
Sonni Ali became a legendary hero in Songhai folklore. A West African storyteller is called a griot.
Economy and Trade
Overland trade in the Sahel and river trade along the Niger were the primary sources of Songhai wealth. Overland trade was influenced by four factors: camels, Berber tribe members, Islam, and the structure of the empire. Gold was readily available in West Africa, but salt was not, so the gold-salt trade was the backbone of overland trade routes in the Sahel. Ivory, ostrich feathers, and slaves were sent north in exchange for salt, horses, camels, cloth, and art. The Julla (merchants) would form partnerships, and the state would protect the merchants and port cities along Niger.
The slave trade became an important part of the Songhai Empire. Slaves were used to help transport goods across the Sahara Desert to Morocco and the Middle East. Slaves were also sold to Europeans to work in Europe and the Americas.
Trade routes of the Western Sahara c. 1000-1500.
Government and Administration
Sonni Ali established a system of government under the royal court, later to be expanded by Askia Muhammad, which appointed governors and mayors to preside over local tributary states around the Niger Valley. These local chiefs were still granted authority over their respective domains if they did not undermine Songhai policy. Departmental positions existed in the central government. The hi koy was the fleet commander who performed roles likened to a home affairs minister. Fari Mondzo was the minister of agriculture who administered the state's agricultural estates. The Kalisa farm has been described by historians such as Ki-Zerbo to be the finance minister who supervised the empire's treasury.
The tax was imposed on peripheral chiefdoms and provinces to ensure Songhai's dominance; in return, these provinces were given almost complete autonomy. Songhai rulers only intervened in the affairs of these neighbouring states when a situation became volatile, usually an isolated incident. Under Askia Muhammad, the Empire saw increased centralization. He encouraged learning in Timbuktu by rewarding its professors with larger pensions as an incentive. He also established an order of precedence and protocol and was noted as a nobleman who gave back generously to people experiencing poverty.
Military Organization
The Songhai armed forces included a navy led by a hikoy (admiral), a cavalry of mounted archers, an infantry, and a camel cavalry. They trained herds of long-horned bulls in the imperial stables to charge at the enemy in battle. The Songhai included three military provinces, and an army was stationed in each. It was divided into several garrisons, the kurmina, led by the balama, the central province by the emperor himself and the dendi by the dendi fari. The army of the closest military province was mobilized with that of the emperor. Those remaining on the spot ensured order in the three provinces; the emperor was obliged to be in front of the armed during a war of conquest. Swords, arrows and copper or leather shields made up the arsenal of the Songhai infantry.
The Songhai navy dates to the reign of Sonni Ali, who formed a naval force on the Niger River. The Hi-koi was the commander of the fleet. The state had a large network of ports headed by fishermen such as the Goima-Koi in Gao and the Kabara-Farma in Kabara. They were tasked with various duties which included monitoring the state's fleet and the collection of entrance, as well as exit fees.
Decline and Fall
In 1528, Askia's children revolted against him, declaring his son Askia Musa king. Following Musa's overthrow in 1531, the Songhai Empire went into decline. The peace and prosperity of Askia Dāwūd’s reign (1549-82) was followed by a raid initiated by Sultan Aḥmad al-Manṣūr of Morocco on the salt deposits of Taghaza. In the mid-1500's the Songhai Empire began to weaken due to internal strife and civil war.
During this period, Moroccan armies annihilated a Portuguese invasion at the Battle of Alcácer Quibir, but were left on the verge of economic depletion and bankruptcy, as they needed to pay for the defences used to hold off the siege. This led Sultan Ahmad I al-Mansur of the Saadi dynasty in 1591 to dispatch an invasion force south under the eunuch Judar Pasha. The Moroccan invasion of Songhai was mainly to seize and revive the trans-Saharan trade in salt, gold and slaves for their developing sugar industry.
The situation, which continued to worsen under Muḥammad Bāni (1586-88), culminated disastrously for Songhai under Issihak II (1588-91) when Moroccan forces, using firearms, advanced into the Songhai empire to rout his forces, first at Tondibi and then at Timbuktu and Gao. When Emperor Askia Ishaq II (r. 1588-1591) met Judar at the 1591 Battle of Tondibi, Songhai forces, despite vastly superior numbers, were routed by a cattle stampede triggered by the Saadi's gunpowder weapons. Judar proceeded to sack Gao, Timbuktu and Djenné, destroying the Songhai as a regional power. Retaliatory guerrilla action of the pastoral Songhai failed to restore the empire, the economic and administrative centres of which remained in Moroccan hands.
Governing so vast an empire proved too much for the Saadi dynasty. After the empire's defeat, the nobles moved south to an area known today as Songhai in current Niger, where the Sonni dynasty had already settled.
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