Songhai Empire

The Songhai Empire, a major power in the western Sahel during the 1400s and 1500s, ranked among the largest African empires ever. Its name comes from the Songhai people, who formed both the ruling class and the empire’s largest ethnic group. Although a Songhai state had existed around Gao since the 11th century, it was Sonni Ali who made that city the empire’s capital. Other key urban centers included Timbuktu, taken in 1468, and Djenné, conquered in 1475, both hubs of river-based trade. The Sonni dynasty ruled from roughly 1464 to 1493, after which the Askia dynasty took over and held power until 1591.

In the late 1200s, Gao and its region had become a significant trading center, catching the eye of the expanding Mali Empire, which conquered Gao near the century’s end. Mali held the city until the late 1300s. As Mali weakened, the Songhai reclaimed Gao and used Mali’s decline to expand their own rule. Under Sonni Ali, the Songhai Empire surpassed Mali in size, wealth, and strength, absorbing large parts of Mali’s territory. Sonni Ali’s son, Sonni Bāru, was soon overthrown by one of his father’s generals, Muhammad Ture—better known as Askia the Great—who introduced political and economic reforms.

After Askia the Great, a series of plots and coups among his successors led to decline and instability. Relatives tried to govern, but political chaos and civil wars worsened the situation, especially under Askia Ishaq I. A period of stability and military success came during Askia Daoud’s reign. His death sparked a long dynastic struggle, and Askia Ishaq II became the last ruler. In 1590, Al-Mansur exploited the empire’s internal conflict, sending an army led by Judar Pasha to seize control of trans-Saharan trade routes. The Songhai Empire fell after its defeat at the Battle of Tondibi in 1591.

**History**

**Early inhabitants**

Between the 9th and 3rd centuries BCE, several groups came together to form the Songhai identity around the early hub of Kukiya. The Sorko people were among the first to settle near Gao, building small villages along the Niger River. They made boats from cailcedrat wood, fished, hunted from their vessels, and transported goods and people by water. The Gao people also moved in, hunting river animals like crocodiles and hippos. The Do people, skilled farmers, grew crops in the fertile riverbanks. Before the 10th century, more powerful, horse-riding Songhai speakers subdued these settlers and took control. Over time, all these groups adopted the same language, and the area and its people became known as Songhai.

**Gao and Mali**

Little is known about the earliest dynasty, except from an ancient cemetery near the village of Saney, close to Gao. Tombstone inscriptions show this dynasty ruled in the late 11th and early 12th centuries, with rulers called Malik or Malikah (Arabic for king and queen). Other tombstones mention a second dynasty whose leaders held the title zuwa, but only myth and legend describe their origins. The Tarikh al-Sudan, written in Arabic around 1655, records early Songhai history from oral tradition. It says the Za dynasty’s founder, Za Alayaman, came from Yemen and settled in Kukiya. What became of the Zuwa rulers is unknown.

The Sanhaja tribes were early inhabitants of the Niger Bend region. They rode out of the Sahara, setting up trading settlements near the Niger. North African traders later crossed the desert and joined the Tuaregs in these settlements, doing business with river people. As trade grew, Songhai chiefs took charge of the profitable commerce around what would become Gao. Goods included gold, salt, slaves, kola nuts, leather, dates, and ivory.

By the 10th century, Songhai chiefs had made Gao a small kingdom, controlling people along trade routes. Around 1300, Gao’s prosperity attracted the Mali Empire, which conquered the city, profited from its trade, and taxed its kings until about the 1430s. Conflict in Mali’s homeland then made holding Gao impossible. Ibn Battuta visited Gao in 1353, when it was still part of Mali. He wrote: “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. Its people conduct their buying and selling with cowries, like the people of Mālī.”

**Independence**

After Mansa Sulayman died in 1360, disputes over his successor arose.