Ghana succumbed to attacks by its neighbors in the eleventh century, but its name and reputation endured.

In 1957 when the leaders of the former British colony of the Gold Coast seek an appropriate name for their newly independent state—the first black African nation to gain its independence from colonial rule—they will name their new country after ancient Ghana.

The choice is more than merely symbolic because modern Ghana, like its namesake, is equally famed for its wealth and trade in gold.

Although none of the states of the western Sudan control territories in the area that is modern Ghana, several small kingdoms that later develop in the north of the country are ruled by nobles believed to have immigrated from that region.

The trans-Saharan trade that contributes to the expansion of kingdoms in the western Sudan also leads to the development of contacts with regions in northern modern Ghana and in the forest to the south.

By the thirteenth century, for example, the town of Djenné in the empire of Mali has established commercial connections with the ethnic groups in the savanna-woodland areas of the northern two-thirds of the Volta Basin in modern Ghana.

Djenné is also the headquarters of the Dyula, Muslim traders who deal with the ancestors of the Akan-speaking peoples who occupy most of the southern half of the country.

The formerly dominant Ghana Empire, following internal strife and political intervention of the Almoravids in the eleventh century, had collapsed by the late twelfth century.

A number of smaller neighboring states had rushed to fill the power void, including the Sosso, or Susu, people of the Kaniaga kingdom, and the Mandinka people of the Upper Niger.

The modern Susu, or Sosso people, trace their history to a twelfth- and thirteenth-century Kaniaga kingdom known as the "Sosso."

With the fall of the Ghana Empire, the Sosso Kingdom had expanded into a number of its former holdings.

Under the leadership of Soumaro Kanté, the Sosso had seized Koumbi Saleh, former capital of the Ghana Empire, and expanded outward, conquering the Mandinka among others.

The exiled Mandinka prince Sundiata Keita has organized a coalition of smaller kingdoms to oppose the growing power of the Sosso.

The opposing armies meet in the Koulikoro Region of what is now Mali in about 1235.

Sundiata Keita's forces are victorious, and march on to raze Sosso.

The date is often cited as the beginning of the Mali Empire, which will control most of West Africa for the next two centuries.

The story of the battle is retold in the Epic of Sundiata, widely considered Mali's national epic.

In it, Sumanguru Kanté is an evil sorcerer-king who oppresses the Mandinka people; however, when Sundiata discovers that his sacred animal is the rooster, he is able to wound Sumanguru Kanté with an arrow tipped by a cock's spur.

The Sosso king then flees the field, disappearing into the Koulikoro mountains.

The Almoravids have substantial contacts with the Maghreb, but influences from the black Sudanic kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai play an important role in Mauritania's history for about seven hundred years—from the eighth to the fifteenth century.

Ghana, the first of the great West African Sudanic kingdoms, included in its territory all of southeastern Mauritania extending to Tagant.

Ghana reached its apogee in the ninth and tenth centuries with the extension of its rule over the Sanhadja Berbers.

This large and centralized kingdom controlled the southern terminus of the trans-Saharan trade in gold, ivory, and salt.

The capture of Koumbi Saleh in 1076 by the Almoravids had marked the end of Ghana's hegemony, although the kingdom continues to exist for another one hundred and twenty-five years.

The Mande, under the leadership of the legendary Sundiata, found the second great Sudanic kingdom, Mali.

By the end of the thirteenth century, the Mali Empire extends over that part of Mauritania previously controlled by Ghana, as well as over the remaining Sahelian regions and the Senegal River Valley.

Sundiata and his successors take over Ghana's role in the Saharan trade and in the administration and collection of tribute from vast stretches of the Sudan and the Sahel.

West Africa (1252 – 1395 CE): Mali’s Gold Age, Songhay’s Ascent, and Hausa–Benin City Networks

Geographic and Environmental Context

West Africa includes Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria.

• The Sahelian belt (Senegal–Niger valleys) anchored kingdoms like Ghana (Wagadu) and Takrur.

• The Niger Bend and inner Niger delta supported riverine farming, fishing, and trade, with towns such as Gao rising to prominence.

• The forest–savanna frontiers of modern Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, and Ghana served as entry points for gold, kola, and ivory into Sahelian networks.

• In the east, Hausaland (northern Nigeria) consolidated into a mosaic of town-based polities linked to desert and savanna routes.

Climate and Environmental Shifts

• The onset of the Little Ice Age (~1300) introduced greater rainfall variability in the Sahel; core river basins and floodplains remained productive.

• Caravan viability continued with route adjustments to oasis conditions.

Societies and Political Developments

• Mali Empire reached its zenith: Mansa Musa (r. 1312–1337) centralized power, reformed finances, and performed the celebrated hajj (1324–1325), projecting Malian prestige across the Islamic world; Mansa Sulayman (r. 1341–1360) maintained stability.

• Songhay at Gao expanded autonomy under the Sonni dynasty (pre-Sunni Ali), positioning for later takeover of the Niger Bend.

• Hausa city-states (e.g., Kano, Katsina, Zaria) entrenched urban courts, craft guilds, and caravan diplomacy.

• Jolof confederation rose in Senegambia (mid-14th c.), shaping Atlantic-edge politics.

• Benin Kingdom consolidated the Oba monarchy (late 13th–14th c.), strengthening city walls, palace rituals, and regional trade.

Economy and Trade

• Gold from Bambuk–Buré and Wangara networks sustained Mali’s coin and credit circuits;

• Salt from Taghaza fed the Sahel; copper from Takedda supplied smiths; horses from the Maghreb armed elites.

• Agriculture: Sahel grains; Inland Delta rice/fish; forest kola, pepper, and palm products.

• Urban craft: cloth weaving, leatherwork, metalwork, and manuscript culture in Sahelian towns.

Subsistence and Technology

• Floodplain irrigation and rice paddies in the Inland Delta; millet–sorghum rotations across the Sahel; orchard and garden plots near cities.

• Camel caravans optimized with relay oases; riverine canoes moved grain and fish.

Movement and Interaction Corridors

• Niani–Timbuktu–Gao trunk within Mali; Gao–Air–Takedda; Takrur–Senegal; Hausa–Saharan routes through Air and Ajjer into the Maghreb; Benin–Nupe forest–savanna corridors to the Niger.

Belief and Symbolism

• Islam deepened in courts and trading towns (mosques, jurists, scholars); Timbuktu and Walata matured as centers of learning.

• Indigenous ritual remained strong in rural communities (earth shrines, rainmaking).

• Court pageantry—gold regalia, horse trappings—signaled sovereignty; griots preserved dynastic memory.

Adaptation and Resilience

• Route redundancy across Sahara and Sahel hedged against drought/war.

• Plural economies—grain, rice, fish, gold, salt, kola—spread risk.

• Urban institutions—guilds, mosques, market courts—stabilized exchange; kin/clan systems secured rural production.

Long-Term Significance

By 1395, West Africa was a constellation of powerful states and city networks—Mali at its height, Songhay rising, Hausa and Benin consolidating, Jolof emerging—bound into Afro-Eurasian circuits by gold, salt, and scholarship, and resilient enough to carry this prosperity into the 15th century.

Sundiata Keita, or Mari Djata, in continuing to expand the Mali empire that he has founded, has gained control of the caravan routes across the Sahara and the former Ghanaian monopolies of the region’s lucrative commerce in gold and salt.

Sundiata dies in 1255, celebrated today as a hero of the Mandé people of West Africa in the semi-historical Epic of Sundiata.

Three sons succeed him to the throne of the Mali Empire: Mansa Wali Keita, Ouati Keita and Khalifa Keita; the famous West African ruler Mansa Musa is his grandnephew.

The empire of Mali, centered in the comparatively fertile plateau region between the upper reaches of the Senegal and Niger rivers, is by 1300 the economic center of trade across the Sahara.

Mali is ruled by generals, many of whom are Muslims, and several of whom, beginning in about 1300, make pilgrimages all the way to Mecca.

Sakura, a slave at birth, had been freed and had become a general in the army of Sundiata Keita, legendary founder of the Mali Empire.

After a debilitating struggle for succession between Sundiata's sons Ouati Keita and Khalifa Keita and his grandson Abu Bakr, Sakura seizes control of the throne himself in about 1285.

Near-contemporary historian Ibn Khaldun records that under Sakura's leadership, the Empire made a number of new conquests (most notably of Gao), becoming the dominant political, economic, and military force in the Western Sudan.

Sakura performs the Hajj but on his return from Mecca is killed in about 1300 at Tadjoura near Djibouti by Danakil warriors hungry for his gold.

He is succeeded by Sundiata's nephew Gao.

The Muslim general Musa rules Mali from about 1312.

Mansa Musa, emperor of the sophisticated mercantile state of Mali, makes a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324 and stops in Cairo along the way.

Here, his piety, generosity, and fine clothes make a favorable impression, one enormously enhanced by his entourage of five hundred slaves, each carrying a six-pound (two-point-seventy-two-kilogram) staff of gold, and his following caravan, consisting of one hundred camels, each individually laden with three hundred pounds (one hundred and thirty-six kilograms) of gold.

Emperor Musa Keita I of Mali, famous in North Africa and Europe as the monarch who controls the world's richest gold mines, has also established cordial relations with Muslim rulers in North Africa and become noted for his efforts to spread Islam among his subjects.

The emperor has made his capital, Timbuktu, a great center of commerce and learning, and established internal peace and prosperity.

Mansa Musa dies in 1337; his son, Magha, succeeds him.