4.3.2. ECONOMIC GROWTH AND COMING THREAT

CURRENCY ARRIVES

The first empire, Ghana, uses a "silent trade" that involves a small number of participants, which a rudimentary oligarchy controls: 

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.

*     *

Mali supplants Ghana (toward 1230). The iron money that appears at the same time indicates exchanges that are more complex and control 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. But 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, plus 50 to porters. Officially it is an act as an homage to the king, but the latter must wait to inherit from another slave before he can do the same. 

• 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.

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

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 at bottom of another page). Examples of and naïveté and jealousy, it is said. But Fouquet acts like Misakullah. As well, he uses his fortress in Brittany for commerce without informing the king. Since rulers control important trade, that too suggests insubordination

Comparing similar events in different cultures can lead to unexpected questions.

*    *  

Songhay falls through foreign invasion,

but the use of grain, not treasure, 

to challenge the king 

shows that commercial production

is passing to men independent of him.  

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Next, 

4.3.3.

 Upheaval, kola and routes to the forest edge