Susu people
Nation | Active
1108 CE to 2057 CE
The Susu people are a major Mande ethnic group living primarily in Guinea.
Smaller communities are also located in the neighboring country of Sierra Leone.
The Susu are descendants of the thirteenth century Mali Empire.
They move to their present location after 1725, when the Fulani attempt to dominate them in the Fouta Jalon.The Susu people are farmers, traders and fishermen.
The Susu live mainly in the coastal areas of Guinea and Sierra Leone.
Their houses are made with mud or cement blocks, and thatched or tin roofs depending on their means.h
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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.