African empires

The first major state to rise in this region was the . The name Ghana, often used by historians, was the regional title given to the ruler of the Wagadu empire.^[8] Centered in what is today Senegal and Mauritania, it was the first to benefit from the introduction of gold mining. Ghana's imperial era has been theorized to have initiated around 100 CE to 300 CE then come to dominate the region between about 750 and 1078. Smaller states in the region at this time included Takrur to the west, the Malinke kingdom of Mali to the south, and the Songhai Empire centred on Gao to the east.

Ghana Empire (Wagadu)

When Ghana atrophied in the face of invasion from the , a series of brief kingdoms followed taking up the mantle of regional power, notably that of the Sosso (Susu); after 1235, the Mali Empire rose to dominate the region completely filling the imperial vacuum left by the once powerful Ghana Empire. Located on the Niger River to the west of Ghana in what is today Niger and Mali, it reached its peak in the 1350s, but had lost control of a number of vassal states by 1400.

Almoravids

The most powerful of these states was the , which expanded rapidly beginning with king Sonni Ali in the 1460s. By 1500, it had risen to stretch from Cameroon to the Maghreb, the largest state in African history. It too was quite short-lived and collapsed in 1591 as a result of Moroccan musketry.

Songhai Empire

Far to the east, on , the state of Kanem-Bornu, founded as Kanem in the 9th century, 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.

Lake Chad

In 1810, the 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 between France and Great Britain.

Sokoto Caliphate

The ruled parts of Senegal from 1350 to 1549. After 1549, its vassal states were fully or de facto independent; in this period it is known as the Jolof Kingdom. It was largely conquered by the imamate of Futa Jallon in 1875 and its territories fully incorporated into French West Africa by 1890.

Jolof Empire

History of Africa

Classical African civilizations

Hunwick, John O. (2003). Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire: Al-Saʻdī's Taʼrīkh Al-sūdān Down to 1613 and Other Contemporary Documents. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. pp. 488 Pages.  90-04-12822-0.

ISBN

(1962). "A Comparison of African Kingdoms". Africa: Journal of the International African Institute. 32 (4): 324–335. doi:10.2307/1157437. JSTOR 1157437. S2CID 143572050.

Vansina, Jan

Turchin, Peter and Jonathan M. Adams and Thomas D. Hall: "East-West Orientation of Historical Empires and Modern States", , Vol. XII, No. II, 2006, doi:10.5195/jwsr.2006.369

Journal of World-Systems Research

Gates, Henry Louis & Kwame Anthony Appiah (1999). . New York: Basic Civitas Books. ISBN 0-465-00071-1. 2095 pages{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)

Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience

Hempstone, Smith (2007). Africa, Angry Young Giant. Whitefish: Kessinger Publishing, LLC.  978-0-548-44300-2. 664 pages{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)

ISBN

Mwakikagile, Godfrey (2000). Africa and the West. Hauppauge: Nova Publishers.  1-56072-840-X. 243 pages{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)

ISBN

Oliver, Roland (1975). . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-20981-1.

The Cambridge History of Africa

Oliver, Roland & Anthony Atmore (2001). . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-79372-6. 251 pages{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)

Medieval Africa 1250–1800

Shillington, Kevin (2005). Encyclopedia of African History Volume 1 A–G. New York: Routledge.  1-57958-245-1. 1912 pages{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)

ISBN

African Kingdoms

at Brown University

Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology