- Sahelian kingdom
The Sahelian kingdoms were a series of kingdoms or empires that were centered on the
sahel , the area of grasslands south of theSahara . The wealth of the states came from controlling the trade routes across the desert. Their power came from having large pack animals likecamel s andhorse s that were fast enough to keep a large empire under central control and were also useful in battle. All of these empires were also quite decentralized with member cities having a great deal of autonomy.The Sahel states were limited from expanding south into the
forest zone of theAshanti and Yoruba as mounted warriors were all but useless in the forests and the horses and camels could not survive the heat and diseases of the region.List of the Sahel Kingdoms
*The first major state to rise in this region was the
Kingdom of Ghana . Centered in what is todaySenegal andMauritania , it was the first to benefit from the introduction of pack animals byArab traders. Ghana dominated the region between about 750 and 1078. Smaller states in the region at this time includedTakrur to the west, theMalinke kingdom of Mali to the south, and the Songhai centred aroundGao to the east.
*When Ghana collapsed in the face of invasion from theAlmoravids , a series of brief kingdoms followed, notably that of theSosso ; after 1235, theMali Empire rose to dominate the region. Located on theNiger River to the west of Ghana in what is todayNiger andMali , it reached its peak in the 1350s, but had lost control of a number of vassal states by 1400.
*The most powerful of these states was theSonghai Empire , which expanded rapidly beginning with kingSonni Ali in the 1460s. By 1500, it had risen to stretch fromCameroon to theMaghreb , the largest state in African history. It too was quite short-lived and collapsed in 1591 as a result of Moroccanmusket ry.
*Far to the east, onLake Chad , the state of Kanem-Bornu, founded as Kanem in the 800s, now rose to greater preeminence in the central Sahel region. To their west, the loosely united Hausa city-states became dominant. These two states coexisted uneasily, but were quite stable.
*In1810 theFulani Empire rose and conquered the Hausa, creating a more centralized state. It and Kanem-Bornu would continue to exist until the arrival of Europeans, when both states would fall and the region would be divided betweenFrance andGreat Britain .
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