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Success of Mali and Ghana

             On the continent of Africa which historically had little more than isolated tribes and endless open countryside two of the most successful empires emerged from the empty savannah. The territory of the two kingdoms stretched over all of West Africa and the influence of the kings spread far beyond their boarders. The wealth of Ghana and Mali, unmatched by any government in the world, allowed vast palaces to be built in honor of the kings. The unprecedented achivements of Ghana and Mali can be attributed to their strong military, the fortunate geographic position and efficient organization of both kingdoms.
             The military of both Ghana and Mali offered protection of the boarders and the trading system. The force loyal to the king of Ghana was said to be two-hundred thousand men strong with forty thousand of them archers, a formidable army to say the least. The other one hundred sixty thousand men carried spears, shields and swords. The surrounding peoples scarcely dared to threaten the powerful warriors of Ghana and Mali. The army also discouraged traders from cheating or ripping anyone off for fear of swift and decisive retribution. This allowed the Muslim traders from the north and the southern gold traders to have faith in the dumb barter system. In this way the army protected the wealth and the people of Mali and Ghana.
             The unique and fortunate area that the two empires occupied was beneficial to their wealth and power. The empires stretched from the Atlantic Ocean nearly to lake Chad, south of the Sahara and north of the tsetse fly's northern boundary. The kingdoms were located on the only rout between the gold fields near the niger river and the salt mines of the Sahara. Because of the size of the armies of Mali and Ghana the traders were happy to pay the import-export taxes of the two empires. In effect the empires were making themselves the middleman of the salt gold trade which became immensely profitable.


Essays Related to Success of Mali and Ghana

1. Pre-Colonial Africa

... , more than the artisans, who fed the population and constituted the majority of the laboring class. Out of caste prejudice, however, as can easily be deduced from the preceding, they could not lower themselves so far as to form an alliance with the malcontent slaves, especially since the latter were disorganized and had no chance of success. If such an alliance had come to be in ... the course of African history, it would have led to a peasants' and slaves' revolt, a jacquerie , of the kind Egypt experienced toward the close of the Middle Kingdom, or the sort common to Western history ...

  • Word Count: 5359
  • Approx Pages: 21
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

2. Globalization

... by blood kinship that formed a village and then a kingdom. The kingdom of Ghana (war chief) was made up of Soninke people who were ruled by a king assisted by a council of ministers that appealed to the supernatural. The kingdom of Mali is a better organized and powerful empire made by the Mandinke, subject of Kangaba kingdom, built on the foundation of the now collapsed empire Ghana. African civilizations begin just like the earlier ... /political community of Muslims. If state and religion goes hand in hand and is so instrumental in the unification of an empire, how come there needed b...

  • Word Count: 2504
  • Approx Pages: 10
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3. Slavery in Africa

... even married his slave women. "It is also known that the rulers if the Western Sudanic empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai used slave labor on their royal plantations (Bah 75)." Songhai used slave labor in agricultural production. Mali used slaves in their military as well as in their administration. There was even an instance where slaves stopped a succession crisis. Slaves played a ... as a means for exchange for slaves. The African middlemen took responsibility for raiding, capturing and transporting Africans from the internal parts of the continent to the coast where they could be s...

  • Word Count: 1383
  • Approx Pages: 6
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

4. African Sleeping Sickness

... , Cote d"Ivoire, Central African Republic, Guinea, Mozambique, Tanzania, & Chad. African sleeping sickness can also be found in low endemic levels in Benin, Burkina-Faso, Gabon, Ghana, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Togo, & Zambia. Because of poor disease surveillance and reporting, epidemiological information in Burundi, Botswana, Ethiopia, Liberia, Namibia, Rwanda, Senegal, & Sierra-Leone is poorly understood. Sleeping sickness is a daily threat to more than 60 ... animal trypanosomiasis. The two human and animal forms of the disease remain a major obstacle to the development...

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5. Islam

... its greatest influence in the Western Sudan of Africa in the three kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai. These three successor kingdoms became increasingly Islamic and a culture and language mix called Swahili resulted. In South Africa, the Great Zimbabwe's control of gold allowed its people to come in contact with the Islamic community. The enormity of the spread of Islam was in part because of their openness to diverse cultures. Three ... an enormity far beyond Muhammad's imagination. Islam was destined to become a world religion and to create a civilization that stretched from one en...

  • Word Count: 816
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