Mandinka State History
The Mandinka are a major ethnic group in Gambia. They are related to the first people who lived in the Sudanese Belt in the Stone and Iron Ages. The first people who lived on Earth were hunters who made and used knives, axes, scrapers, tools, and needles out of stone and iron.
After that, they made spears, harpoons, sticks, shields, blowguns, bows, and arrows, among other things. Before the year 700, the black people who lived in the Sudanese Belt only lived in a small part of the area. They kept working in farmland and were able to have bigger and denser communities than people whose main job was raising cattle. In the end, they settled in the forests of West Africa.
Beginning around 700 BCE and going through the early Islamic contact period, trade over long distances became more and more important in shaping the economic, social, and political trends of western Sudan. A lot of money was made in some parts of West Africa through trade, which helped build social classes and states.
When the kingdom of Ghana was formed, the Mandinkas were part of the Soninke Clan, which was made up of people who spoke Mande. The people who lived in Mande were also called Manden, Malinke, or Mndinka, for short. All of the former tributary states that made up the empire of Ghana got their freedom back after it fell in 1076.
A small kingdom didn’t start to form until 1235. A Mandinka king named Sundiata Keita ruled the country. He was known for building the strong Mali Empire’s foundations. According to stories told by older people, the Mandinka first moved into Gambia when Sundiata was in charge in the 1300s.
Mandinkas moved to other areas of the country in both peaceful and violent ways. Before the Mali Empire was formed, some people went to the Senegambia area. Early settlers went south and west to find better land for farming, food, and a place to live. Along with these people, some traders and hunters went to Senegambia, which had a lot of water.
The people who moved there farmed and married into the local ethnic groups after they settled down. Sundiata asked for the military missions to be made, and they were. In the 1300s, he sent Tiramang Traore, one of his generals, west to take over Cassamance and Guinea-Bissau. So, Tiramang easily beat the people who lived there and started the Kaabu Empire, which grew to include Gambia.
For the Mandinka, Kaabu became the center of their society. Kansala was the name of its main city. On behalf of the Sundiata, Tiramang also led missions against the nearby Jollof Empire. As the Mandinka people moved from Mali to Gambia, they married people from other groups, which led to the formation of many Mandinka families.
They got married and became part of the Sanneh family. People from Mandinka families like Sanyang, Bojang, Conteh, and Jassey come from people who lived in the Mali Empire. Around the end of the 1300s, the Mandinka ruled over a land area that included Gambia and Futa Jallon.
The Mandinka Empire of Kaabu was made up of a number of different states, such as Kantora, Tumaana, Jimara, Wurapina, Nyamina, Jarra, Kiang, Foni, and Kombo. The Mandinka took over Kombo, which used to be a Jolla state, by force. Sundiata Keita’s other general, Amari Sonko, beat the kingdoms of Baddibu and Barra.
In both countries, Amari set up the Sonko dynasty. The mansas, or chiefs, were responsible for organizing and running the government in the states. Village heads, who were also called al-cadi, ran the local government. They were noble people whose main job was to give out land and make sure the law was followed. Their job was to handle small cases and collect taxes.
In the Mandinka states, trade villages were set up starting in the 1400s. The trade towns were big and had a lot of people living in them. The trade across the Atlantic had an effect on Gambia. It was a key factor in the economic, political, and social growth of the states and the people in general.
In the sixteenth century, the Kaabu Empire was at its strongest. It had a strong government, good trade, and skilled soldiers from the fifteenth century on. During the 1400s, the Portuguese also began to explore West Africa. At that time, the Portuguese did a lot of business with the Mandinka and made a lot of money.
A Portuguese man named Rodrigo Bebello and seven other people in his group met with Mandimansa, the Mandinka king of Kantora state, in 1491. They became friends with each other, which led to the creation of a regular trading system. The Mandinka bought and sold cash, slaves, ivory, and beeswax. People from the interior brought goods and traded them for crystal beads, iron bars, brass pans, guns and ammo, liquor, tobacco, caps, and iron.
Iron bars were used to measure everything that was traded, so there were similar amounts of everything that was traded. Berbers and Moors who had lived in Gambia earlier in the eleventh century were also drawn to the trade in the Mandinka states.
Berbers and Moors, who were Muslims, set up small schools where boys could learn to read and write in Arabic. The Mandinka kings sent their kids to school and paid Muslim teachers, called marabouts, to pray and make charms for them.
The marabouts also married local Mandinka women, which led to the formation of Muslim families. Mandinka people, who used to follow traditional African religions, also became Muslims. Mandinka merchants went in groups of 40, 50, or 100 people, called trade caravans.
They bought and sold things in the river bottoms. In the river valley, some Mandinka dealers from the area joined the groups. The women and slaves wore heavy things on their heads. Donkeys also assisted in carrying the loads. The women were in charge of the trip, and the guys were at the back.
When they got to a town, the women cooked food for the group to eat. Worn cloth, amber, beeswax, hides, gold, civet cats, green parrots, perfumes, corn, shea butter, salt, fish, and iron were all things that could be traded. The traders gave money to the caravan masters as taxes.
As the different groups of people in Senegambia made their towns and villages, the Mandinka also did the same and created their own culture. As a culture grew, it brought new traditions, such as naming events, initiations, weddings, and funerals.
The Mandinka state of Kaabu was the most important state in south-central Senegambia from the 1600s to the 1700s. The success of the theocratic change in Futa Jallon at the start of the 18th century had an impact on the end of the Kaabu Empire’s expansion.
Also Read: Who are the Mandinka?https://www.africanbooth.com/who-are-the-mandinka-history-of-the-mandinka/
