“A Wonderful Country Inhabited by Blacks”: Ahmad al-Mansur and “His” Conquest of the Bilad al-Sudan
Paper by Saïd Bousbina and Mauro Nobili
Given at the Paradigms of Racialization: Alternative Sources conference on April 18, 2024
Excerpt: Today we are going to deal with a very famous actually episode in the history of African history that is the so-called Moroccan conquest of this late medieval, early modern polity of West Africa that is the so-called Songhay Empire. So we need to understand these within the larger context of the Portuguese expansion on the coast of you know North West Africa as well as the Ottoman expansion into North Africa. Basically the Ottomans arrived all the way to the borders of the Moroccan kingdom. So what happens is that on the 12th of March of 1591 an army that was sent by the Sultan of Morocco, Ahmed Al-Mansur, defeated the Songhay army in Tondibi, that is this location north of the capital city of Gao of Songhay Empire, and eventually destroyed what was left of the Songhay Empire and started a new polity that is referred to sometimes as the state of the Pashas of Timbuktu because the capital was moved in the fabled city of Timbuktu at the gate of the Sahara.
Saïd Bousbina is a Researcher at the University of Provence. Mauro Nobili is an Associate Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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Top Image: A possible portrait of Ahmad al-Mansur, titled “Cherif roi de Fez et de Marroc”, made in 1584.
“A Wonderful Country Inhabited by Blacks”: Ahmad al-Mansur and “His” Conquest of the Bilad al-Sudan
Paper by Saïd Bousbina and Mauro Nobili
Given at the Paradigms of Racialization: Alternative Sources conference on April 18, 2024
Excerpt: Today we are going to deal with a very famous actually episode in the history of African history that is the so-called Moroccan conquest of this late medieval, early modern polity of West Africa that is the so-called Songhay Empire. So we need to understand these within the larger context of the Portuguese expansion on the coast of you know North West Africa as well as the Ottoman expansion into North Africa. Basically the Ottomans arrived all the way to the borders of the Moroccan kingdom. So what happens is that on the 12th of March of 1591 an army that was sent by the Sultan of Morocco, Ahmed Al-Mansur, defeated the Songhay army in Tondibi, that is this location north of the capital city of Gao of Songhay Empire, and eventually destroyed what was left of the Songhay Empire and started a new polity that is referred to sometimes as the state of the Pashas of Timbuktu because the capital was moved in the fabled city of Timbuktu at the gate of the Sahara.
Saïd Bousbina is a Researcher at the University of Provence. Mauro Nobili is an Associate Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Top Image: A possible portrait of Ahmad al-Mansur, titled “Cherif roi de Fez et de Marroc”, made in 1584.
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