Sonni Ali

Disputes over succession had weakened the Mali Empire in the decades following the death of Musa II, mansa of the state from 1374 to 1387, and in the 1430s Songhai, previously a Mali dependency, had gained independence under the Sonni Dynasty.

Around thirty years later, Sonni Sulayman Dama attacked Mema, the Mali province west of Timbuktu, paving the way for his successor, Sonni Ali, to turn his country into one of the greatest empires Saharan Africa has ever seen.

Sonni Ali has reigned from 1464, after the death of Sulayman Dama.

Like Songhai kings before him, Ali is a Muslim.

In the late 1460s, he conquers many of the Songhai's neighboring states, including what remains of the Mali Empire.

Sonni Ali is considered the empire's most formidable military strategist and conqueror.

Under his rule Songhai will reach a size of over 1,400,000 square kilometers.

During his campaigns for expansion, Ali has conquered many lands, repelling attacks from the Mossi to the south and overcoming …

…the Dogon people to the north.

The principal Dogon area is bisected by the Bandiagara Escarpment, a sandstone cliff of up to five hundred meters (sixteen hundred and forty feet) high, stretching about one hundred and fifty kilometers (ninety miles).

To the southeast of the cliff, the sandy Séno-Gondo Plains are found, and northwest of the cliff are the Bandiagara Highlands.

Historically, Dogon villages were established in the Bandiagara area in consequence of the Dogon people's collective refusal to convert to Islam a thousand years ago.

Dogon insecurity in the face of these historical pressures had caused them to locate their villages in defensible positions along the walls of the escarpment.

The other factor influencing their choice of settlement location was water.

The Niger River is nearby and in the sandstone rock, a rivulet runs at the foot of the cliff at the lowest point of the area during the wet season.

Among the Dogon several oral traditions have been recorded as to their origin.

One relates to their coming from Mande, located to the southwest of the Bandiagara escarpment near Bamako.

According to this oral tradition, the first Dogon settlement was established in the extreme southwest of the escarpment at Kani-Na.

Over time, the Dogon had moved north along the escarpment, arriving in the Sanga region in the fifteenth century.

Other oral histories place the origin of the Dogon to the west beyond the river Niger, or tell of the Dogon coming from the east.

It is likely that the Dogon of today combine several groups of diverse origin who migrated to escape Islamization.

It is often difficult to distinguish between pre-Muslim practices and later practices, though Islamic law classifies them and many other ethnicities of the region, (Mossi, Gurma, Bobo, Busa and the Yoruba) as being within the non-canon dar al-harb and consequently fair game for slave raids organized by merchants.

As the growth of cities has increased, the demand for slaves across the region of West Africa has also increased.

The historical pattern has included the murder of indigenous males by Islamic raiders and enslavement of women and children.

Timbuktu, located at the junction of trade routes on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert just north of the Niger River, founded in the eleventh century by Tuaregs as a seasonal settlement, had become a permanent settlement early in the twelfth century and, after a shift in trading routes, had flourished from the trade in salt, gold, ivory and enslaved people.

It became part of the Mali Empire early in the fourteenth century.

In the first half of the fifteenth century, the Tuareg tribes had taken control of Timbuktu for a short period.

Sonni Ali annexed Timbuktu to his expanding Songhai Empire in 1468, after Islamic leaders of the town requested his assistance in overthrowing marauding Tuaregs who had taken the city following the decline of Mali.

The invasion of Sonni Ali and his forces causes harm to the city of Timbuktu, and he is described as an intolerant tyrant in many African accounts.

The Islamic historian Al-Sa'df expresses this sentiment in describing his incursion on Timbuktu: “Sunni Ali entered Timbuktu, committed gross iniquity, burned and destroyed the town, and brutally tortured many people there. When Akilu heard of the coming of Sonni Ali, he brought a thousand camels to carry the fuqaha of Sankore and went with them to Walata.....The Godless tyrant was engaged in slaughtering those who remained in Timbuktu and humiliated them.“ (The Cambridge History of Africa, Vol 5: University Press, 1977, pp 421)

Sonni Ali conducts a repressive policy against the scholars of Timbuktu, especially those of the Sankore region who are associated with the Tuareg.

Timbuktu will develop into an important intellectual and cultural center as well as a commercial hub.

Sonni Ali, setting his sights on the wealthy and renowned trading town of Djenné (also known as Jenne), meets stark resistance.

The first direct mention of Djenné in European sources is in connection with the fourteenth century trans-Saharan trade in gold, salt and slaves, during which Timbuktu had been the major southern terminus.

In a letter written in Latin in 1447 by Antonio Malfante from the Saharan oasis of Tuwat to a merchant in Genoa, Malfante reports on what he had learned from an informant about the trans-Saharan trade.

He lists several 'states' including one called 'Geni' and describes the Niger River: "Through these lands flows a very large river, which at certain times of the year inundates all these lands. This river passes by the gates of Thambet [Timbuktu]....There are many boats on it, by which they carry on trade."(Crone, G.R., ed. (1937), The Voyages of Cadamosto and other documents on Western Africa in the second half of the fifteenth century, London: Hakluyt Society; pp. 87-88)

After a persistent seven-year siege, Sonni Ali is able to forcefully incorporate it into his vast empire in 1473, but only after having starved its citizens into surrender.