Abu Bakr II

Abu Bakr II was the ninth mansa of the Mali Empire. He succeeded his nephew Mansa Mohammed ibn Gao and preceded Kankan Musa I. Abubakari II appears to have abdicated his throne in order to explore "the limits of the ocean"; however, his expedition never returned.

Background

Mansa Abubakari II, sometimes called Abu Bekr II or Mansa Mohammed, was one of two sons of Kolonkan, a sister of the founding emperor Sundjata Keita. He was the last of a mini-dynasty within the Keita clan of emperor's descending from Kolonkan. After his abdication in 1311, the Faga Laye mini-dynasty would control the empire.

Reign

Virtually all that is known of Abubakari II is from the scholar Al-Umari during Kankan Musa I's historic hajj to Mecca. While in Egypt, Musa explained the way that he had inherited the throne after the abdication of the previous ruler. He explained that in 1310, the emperor financed the building of 200 vessels of men and another 200 of supplies to explore the limits of the sea that served as empire's western frontier. The mission was inconclusive, and the only information available on its fate came from a single sailor who refused to follow the other ships once they reached a "river in the sea" and a whirlpool. According to Musa I, his predecessor was undeterred and launched another fleet with himself at the helm. In 1311, the previous ruler temporarily ceded power to Musa, then serving as his kankoro-sigui or vizier, and departed with a thousand vessels of men and a like number of supplies. After the emperor failed to return, Musa became emperor. ["Abbas Hamdani, An Islamic Background to the Voyages of Discovery. Language and Literature" in The Legacy of Muslim Spain (Studien Und Texte Zur Geistesgeschichte Des Mittelalters), 1994, by Salma Khadra Jayyusi (Editor) ]

Debate on Trans-Atlantic Contact

According to Mark Hyman, Abubakari II had no interest in battles, conquests, Koranic recitals but instead he had interest in scholar's stories of a “gourd-shaped world, the big ocean to the west and the new world beyond that”. The mansa interviewed sail-builders from Egypt and Mediterranean cities and decided to build ships on the coast of Senegambia. The preparation for the journey included carpenters, smiths, men who knew navigation, merchants, potters, jewelers, weavers, magicians, diviners, thinkers, and all branches of the Mandinka military. Every vessel tugged a supply-boat with food for two years, dried meat, grain, preserved fruit in ceramic jars, and gold for trade. "Blacks Before America", Mark Hyman, Xlibris Corporatio, 2003. ISBN 1413400116] Key Ships would communicate with drummers, all communications were coordinated from the leading ship of the fleet. "African Presence in Early America", Ivan Van Sertima, Transaction Publishers, 1987. ISBN 0887387152]

Ibn Fadlullah al-Umari (1300-1348), in his encyclopaedic work "Masalik Al-Absar", relates a story obtained from the Mamluk governor of Cairo, Ibn Amir Hajib. While Mansa Musa was visiting Cairo as part of his pilgramate to Mecca, Ibn Amir Hajib asked how he had succeeded to the throne, and this is what Ibn Amir Hajib reported he was told:

:"The ruler who preceded me did not believe that it was impossible to reach the extremity of the ocean that encircles the earth (meaning the Atlantic): he wanted to reach that (end) and was determined to pursue his plan. So he equipped two hundred boats full of men, and many others full of gold, water and provisions sufficient for several years. He ordered the captain not to return until they had reached the other end of the ocean, or until he had exhausted the provisions and water. So they set out on their journey. They were absent for a long period, and, at last just one boat returned. When questioned the captain replied: 'O Prince, we navigated for a long period, until we saw in the midst of the ocean a great river which flowing massively. My boat was the last one; others were ahead of me, and they were drowned in the great whirlpool and never came out again. I sailed back to escape this current.' But the Sultan would not believe him. He ordered two thousand boats to be equipped for him and his men, and one thousand more for water and provisions. Then he conferred the regency on me for the term of his absence, and departed with his men, never to return nor to give a sign of life. ["Abbas Hamdani, An Islamic Background to the Voyages of Discovery. Language and Literature" in The Legacy of Muslim Spain (Studien Und Texte Zur Geistesgeschichte Des Mittelalters), 1994, by Salma Khadra Jayyusi (Editor) ]

The reference just used for the quote and the source of the quote leaves out the sentence which precedes the quote, "We belong to a family where the son succeeds the father in power. [http://www.muslimheritage.com/topics/default.cfm?ArticleID=646#ftn5 which sources the quote from Al-Umari, 1927, Masalik al Absar fi Mamalik el-Amsar, French translation by Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Paris, Paul Geuthner, 1927, pp. 59, 74-75. See also Qalqashandi, Subh al-A'sha, V, 294.] Levtzion comments [The Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Kings of Mali N. Levtzion The Journal of African History, Vol. 4, No. 3. (1963), pp. 341-353.] "He did not say 'my father'. This evidence strengthens the claim that Mansa Musa did not succeed his father."

Ivan van Sertima, a Guyanese scholar teaching at Rutgers University in New Jersey, argues that Abubakari II travelled to the New World in "They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America".

Proponents of pre-Columbian Africa-Americas contact theories have claimed that Abubakari reached the Americas some time in the early 14th century. The strong consensus among mainstream archaeologists, anthropologists, ethnohistorians, linguists, and other modern pre-Columbian scholars is that there is no evidence of any such voyage reaching the Americas, and that there are insufficient evidential grounds to suppose there has been contact between Africa and the New World at any point in the pre-Columbian era. [For views representative of this consensus, see the considerations on the question advanced in Haslip-Viera "et al." (1997), who for example note "no genuine African artifact has ever been found in a controlled archaeological excavation in the New World". See also the supporting responses in peer-review printed in the article, by David Browman, Michael D. Coe, Ann Cyphers, Peter Furst, and other academics active in the field. Ortiz de Montellano "et al." (1997, "passim.") continues the case against Africa-Americas contacts. Other prominent Mesoamerican specialists such as UCR Riverside anthropology professor Karl Taube are confident that "There simply is no material evidence of any Pre-Hispanic contact between the Old World and Mesoamerica before the arrival of the Spanish in the sixteenth century". (Taube 2004, p.1)]

Notes

References

: cite journal |author=Austen, Ralph A. |coauthors=and Jan A.M.M. Jansen |year=1996 |title=History, Oral Transmission and Structure in Ibn Khaldun's Chronology of Mali Rulers |url=https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/dspace/handle/1887/2778 |format=PDF online reproduction at DSpace Leiden University |journal=History in Africa |volume=23 |issue=1 |pages=pp.17–28 |location=Waltham, MA |publisher=African Studies Association |issn=0361-5413 |oclc=2246846 |doi=10.2307/3171932 |unused_data=|accessdate-2008-04-12: citation |author=Baxter, Joan |date=2000-12-13 |title=Africa's 'greatest explorer' |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1068950.stm |location=Mali |periodical=BBC News Online |publication-place=London |publisher=BBC |accessdate=2008-04-10: cite journal |author=Bell, Nawal Morcos |year=1972 |title=The Age of Mansa Musa of Mali: Problems in Succession and Chronology |journal=International Journal of African Historical Studies |location=New York |publisher=Africana Publishing, for the Boston University African Studies Center |volume=5 |issue=2 |pages=pp.221–234 |issn=0361-7882 |oclc=48537235 |doi=10.2307/217515: cite book |author=Cooley, William Desborough |year=1841 |title=The Negroland of the Arabs Examined and Explained; or, An Inquiry into the Early History and Geography of Central Africa |location=London |publisher=J. Arrowsmith |oclc=4760870: cite journal |author=Haslip-Viera, Gabriel |coauthors=Bernard Ortiz de Montellano, and Warren Barbour |year=1997 |month=June |title=Robbing Native American Cultures: Van Sertima's Afrocentricity and the Olmecs |url=http://www.hallofmaat.com/modules.php?name=Articles&file=article&sid=73 |format=Reproduced online |journal=Current Anthropology|volume=38 |issue=3 |pages=pp.419–441|location=Chicago, IL |publisher=University of Chicago Press, sponsored by Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research |doi=10.1086/204626 |issn=0011-3204 |oclc=62217742 |accessdate=2008-04-10: cite journal |author=Levtzion, Nehemia |year=1963 |title=The Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Kings of Mali |journal=Journal of African History |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |volume=4 |issue=3 |pages=pp.341–353 |issn=0021-8537 |oclc=1783006 : cite book |author=Levtzion, Nehemia |year=1977 |chapter=The western Mahgrib and Sudan |title=The Cambridge History of Africa: Vol. 3, From c. 1050 to c. 1600 |edition=reprinted 2001|editor=Roland Anthony Oliver (volume ed.) |others=John Donnelly Fage and Roland Oliver (series general eds.) |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=pp.331–462 |isbn=0-521-20981-1 |oclc=185545332: cite book |author=Masonen, Pekka |year=2000 |title=The Negroland Revisited: Discovery and Invention of the Sudanese Middle Ages |series=Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, Ser. Humaniora, nowrap|no. 309 |location=Helsinki |publisher=Finnish Academy of Science and Letters |isbn=951-41-0886-8 |oclc=45681680 : cite journal |author=Ortiz de Montellano, Bernard |coauthors=Gabriel Haslip-Viera, and Warren Barbour |year=1997 |month=Spring |title=They Were "NOT" Here before Columbus: Afrocentric Hyperdiffusionism in the 1990s |journal=Ethnohistory |volume=44 |issue=2 |pages=pp.199–234 |location=Durham, NC |publisher=Duke University Press, issued by the American Society for Ethnohistory |issn=0014-1801 |oclc=42388116 |doi=10.2307/483368: cite book |author=Taube, Karl |authorlink=Karl Taube |date=2004 |title=Olmec Art at Dumbarton Oaks |url=http://www.doaks.org/OlmecArt.pdf |format=PDF online reproduction |series=Pre-Columbian Art at Dumbarton Oaks, nowrap|no. 2 |publisher=Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection; Trustees of Harvard University |location=Washington, D.C. |isbn=0-884-02275-7 |oclc=56096117 |accessdate=2008-04-10

External links

* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/rams/4audio3.ram Malian praise singer Sadio Diabate, singing about Abubakar II] - BBC World Service Audio

See also

* Keita Dynasty
* Mali Empire
* Pre-Columbian Africa-Americas contact theories