4.3.2. ECONOMIC GROWTH AND COMING THREAT

CURRENCY ARRIVES

The first empire, Ghana, has none. Exchanges by "silent trade" involves so few participants that they need only a rudimentary oligarchy to control them:

Gone from the web

Arabs put salt on the Niger's bank and retire. Blacks examine it, place the gold they propose in exchange next to it, and retire as well. Negotiations continue in this way, with drumbeats but no talking.  

Arabs who break the silence are beaten. Blacks, who threaten the system more directly, are impaled.

 -- Histoire des conquêtes de Moulay Archy by Germain Mouëtte, Paris, 1683, pp. 316-17.

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Mali supplants Ghana (toward 1230). The iron money that appears at the same time indicates exchanges that are more complex and authority that is more powerful. The impact of that change is explained here.

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Songhay replaces Mali (toward 1430). By the 16th century the economy is much more advanced...

• Timbuktu is a flourishing center of production, trade and Islam. The oligarchy has a currency of gold, but cowrie shells are used for everyday wares. At Djenne, another town on the Niger, iron money remains.

-- Description de l'Afrique by Leo Africanus, trad. Epaulard, 1956, II, pp. 465-471:

 First published in 1526.

• The Songhay king is powerful enough to have a tomb like this.

     Grégoire Lyon

Prosperity brings producers who are wealthier than the ruler: 

• Misakullah, one of his slaves, publicly gives 4000 bags of grain as alms to farmers, and 50 to porters. Officially it is an act as an homage to the king, but the latter must cannot do the same until he inherits from another slave. 

* I keep the term "slave" which is that of the text, but clearly the king does not control him.

• Oral tradition calls Misakullah a "revolted slave" and says that he proclaims himself king. 

--  Mahmud Kati, Tarikh-el-Fettach, trad. Houdas and Delafosse, Paris, 1913, pp. 179-187.  Oral tradition:  Dakar archives AOF  1 G 194/31, 1896.

 

Interpretation 

Kings maintained stability by centralizing and distributing wealth. In accomplishing that act more effectively than does the king, Misakullah defies him.*

*Louis XIV imprisons for life his Minister of Finance, Nicolas Fouquet, after he gives king and court a fête too sumptuous for the king to match (illustration here). Historians explain the event by personal causes (naïveté for Fouquet, jealous for the king). But Fouquet acts as Misakullah does. As well, he uses his fortress in Brittany for commerce without informing the king. Since rulers control important trade, that suggests insubordination too.

-- The fortress: Fouquet's Trial ("Le procès de Fouquet") by Simone Bertière, 2013.

Comparing similar events in different cultures can bring unexpected questions.

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Songhay falls by an invasion, not a fight with local forces, but Misakullah's provocation reveals the rise of producers independent of the king.  

The empire's fall will free them.   

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Next, 

4.3.3.

 Upheaval, kola and routes to the forest edge