I have no interest in minimizing black achievements or whatever, but I just can't be convinced that he was actually as rich as people claim. What's the full scoop on him? The most I know as of now is that he refused to fully convert the villages he collected tribute from due to such action hurting gold output.
He was involved in the trade of numerous goods, such as salt and ivory, spices, slaves etc and heavily taxed them. That's where most of his wealth came from. It's difficult to believe that his vast wealth could've come from these but you have to keep in mind that these were taxed very aggressively, and was probably seen as justified as he was able to expand the Mali empire
He was rich without a doubt, but it is likely that the Arab scholars who are sources on his riches exaggerated it. As far as I know there are no surviving first hand sources on his riches, just Arabs recording what has been told of it.
>>18403885He had a bunch of possessions and not a lot to show for them, relatively speaking. The Mali empire was not very developed and consequently he wasn't actually as powerful or lived as swanky as other rulers throughout history.
Lived on a gold mine, ran a kingdom that exported gold. Gold was money back then.Mali wasn't rich in the sense that its whole economy outstripped those of other countries. But he did have a ton of shiny metal that the world treated as currency at the time, and he spent a lot of it on the Hajj.
>>18403885Other than ivory and slaves they really traded gold for salt. GOLD FOR SALT. Those salt traders had to be the best poker players for having to hide those shit eating grins every time they made the trade. He didn't even bother cultivating sea salt and make enough for subsistence while selling that traded salt to gain even further leverage with foreign powers. Mansa Musa proves that its not socioeconomic factors as to why sub sahara africa didn't develop anything of note besides slaves and raw resources.
He had one of the largest standing armies in the world at the time, maybe up to 100K soldiers and thousands of cavalrymen which is all the more impressive given the number of horse diseases in Mali. Most of them wore armor too. Even if those numbers are inflated, that still puts Mali at the same level as the other most powerful countries of its era like Egypt, France, etc. and not far behind China or the Delhi Sultanate. Sounds like they were pretty rich to me.
>>18404957Mali was extremely isolated from everyone else, hence why Musa's hajj was such a big deal. They were rumored to have reached the west African but clearly they couldn't into sea travel since they never even discovered the Cape Verde archipelago. Mali never reached the development of the rest of the known world. This isolation is also probably what protected them for a while from any civilization on the other side of the Sahara(and not the cope you posted about their standing army or whatever) until Morocco decided they were finally going to do it and indeed conquered Mali.
>>18404959>They were rumored to have reached the west AfricanWest African coast*
>>18403885He had money and went on a tour showing people his bling and deliberately playing up his wealth. He was fluent in Arabic I think, so he socialized a lot. He was like the African Count of St. Germain
Mansa Musa reigned at a time when trade across the Sahara had increased substantially and gold from Africa was traded for salt from the north, salt being crucial for cattle rearing in the Sahel. In the rest of the old world gold had been feverishly mined and squirreled away for millennia, but the process had only just begun in Mali and there was still abundant easily accessed surface gold to be mined and gold also from the rest of Africa passed by trade to Mali where it fetched higher prices. Around the same time in east Africa, Great Zimbabwe was built for similar reasons.Another import from the north was Islam, often adopted by rulers, Africa was no exception, Mansa Musa's ancestors had done so and thus Mansa Musa made his pilgrimage to Mecca. Black history month teaches us he splashed out with his gold and destabilized economies he passed through, causing massive inflation plummeting the value of gold in the vaults of merchants and nobles. It is presented as evidence there was a great civilization in Africa hidden by heckin' bigot colonialists which shocked the world when it made its entrance, since we associate gold with some extraordinary ability to acquire wealth.However Mansa Musa was no Jeff Bezos or Cornelius Vanderbilt who industrialized Male with his intellect and turned it into Wakanda. Even in the 19th century the Sahel was a tapestry of different cattle culture tribes with only a few major cities where trade flowed, towns really, built of wood and adobe. Despite the exhaustive search to prove Africa was exceptional in some way to stick it to racists, it wasn't really, as much as this will elicit hysterical screeching from the BIPOCs and redditors I can't lie. If anything Mansa Musa was squandering the gold, however it is to his credit that he had an interest in the rest of the world and helped bring literacy to Africa, which was perhaps a better way to spend it than on wars.
one of the arab travellers visited Mali about a century after it turned formally muslim, and noted that Malinke girls still held to their ancient custom of going naked until marriage. the arab found this hard to square with islam.
>>18404959None of what you just said is true
18405005 #>It is presented as evidence there was a great civilization in Africa hidden by heckin' bigot colonialists which shocked the worldMeh I'm more interested in other regions such as Kongo, West African Coast and the Swahili coast.>Despite the exhaustive search to prove Africa was exceptional in some way to stick it to racists, it wasn't really, as much as this will elicit hysterical screeching from the BIPOCs and redditors I can't lie.It was though. Africa developed sophisticated agricultural techniques that allowed it obtain high yields without the use of plough, produced high quality clothes with simpler looms at a relative high rate for the pre industrial era and produced high quality steel.
Despite being 3 times larger than Europe, Africa had a smaller share of the world's population up until very recently - the 1990's. At one point Europe's population was 3 to 4 times larger than Africa's.
>>18403885>Given the grandeur of his subsequent hajj, it is likely that Musa spent much of his early reign preparing for it.[43] Among these preparations would likely have been raids to capture and enslave people from neighboring lands, as Musa's entourage would include many thousands of slaves; the historian Michael Gomez estimates that Mali may have captured over 6,000 slaves per year for this purpose.[44] Perhaps because of this, Musa's early reign was spent in continuous military conflict with neighboring non-Muslim societies.[44] In 1324, while in Cairo, Musa said that he had conquered 24 cities and their surrounding districts.[45]
>>18405103>high yields>high quality>high rateHow high?Gullah slaves brought to America were adept at growing rice, but there was no significant advance over rice grown in the Mediterranean. Similarly you can produce high quality clothes with a simple loom or high quality steel with a bloomery furnace, there wasn't anything going on in Africa that hadn't already been discovered elsewhere in the world unless you look at something environment specific like ivory or ostrich feathers.Mansa Musa's realm just had more gold, that's all.
>>18403885this was the best building the richest man in africa could build
>>18405302and this is one of the many cathedrals europeans were building when they were in their supposed dark age
It's not even an achievement. Bro was born on top of everything he sold. He just had to have his lessers mine/hunt/gather everything. The history of African rulers and empires from antiquity to present day is that 1 guy is born a 85iq African among a sea of 30iq Africans and he conquers everyone around him until a 90iq African or a foreign power overthrow him.
>>18405213>How high?>YieldsBritish official operating in the Gold Coast in the mid 19th century reported yields approaching the vicinity of 40 bushel per acre. (J Thornton, 1990, Precolonial African Industry and the Atlantic Trade, 1500-1800 p.7)Italian travellers that visited Kongo frequently referred to the harvest as abundant and similar statements were made about the coast of West Africa.>Quality Kongolese raffia clothes were often compared to Italian velvet and analysis of the fabric backs up those claimsWest African clothes were also considered high quality by European merchants.>Rate Based on annual exports to the Portuguese colony of Angola during the 17 century estimates textile production in the Kongo's province of Momboares sits around 300-400,000 meters of cloth per year which are higher than those of Holland's province of Leiden one of the leading textile centers in Europe at the time. (Ibid. p 11-14)Benin was also another major textile producer with about 38,000 meters of clothes sold to Dutch merchants and even more to the British in 1644-46. (Ryder, Alan Frederick Charles, 1969, Benin and the Europeans, 1485-1897 p.93-98, 120-143)>Gullah slaves brought to America were adept at growing rice, but there was no significant advance over rice grown in the MediterraneanAfrican rice is very different from his Asian counterparts it's more resistant to pest and can grow in harsh conditions.>there wasn't anything going on in Africa that hadn't already been discovered elsewhere in the world unless you look at something environment specific like ivory or ostrich feathersMy point is that in Africa things like agriculture and metallurgy were independently discovered and developed them in a unique way that allowed some it's areas to keep up in production and quality with Asia and Pre industrial Europe.>Mansa Musa's realm just had more gold, that's all.I don't know enough about Mali to confirm or refute your claim.
>>18405105Africa Is big some areas were more densely populated than others. The size of mainland Greece is about 42,663 sq mi the population in 1830 was 750,000 which is about the same of that estimated for the metropolitan area of Asante empire (10,000 sq mi). Ivor Wilks, 1975, Asante in the nineteenth century, p.88>>18405302No it isn't
>>18404959by the time Morocco got into the area the empire had really declined from its peak, like it's usually described as an afterthought to its conquest of Songhai.Songhai in Musa's time was Malian territory.
I like the theme of Mali in Civilization VI.I just wanted to say that.https://youtu.be/7w6RMduYDcY?si=J_Ga0UukqEEmRzf8
>>18403888^this
>>18406069Suprisingly good.
>>18404957>Even if those numbers are inflatedThey're not "inflated", they were straight out made up by whatever afrocentrist website you picked them from.There are no contemporary accounts on Mansa Musa's army.The only contemporary source about him (Al-Umari) mentions nothing about it.If it's some estimate by some 21st century "scholar", you can put it back into your anus.
>>18405302Actually this is something built by the French in the 1900s imitating local style.Here is the actual greatest building Mansa Musa left behind.
>>18407612grim
>>18407612Give the French a little credit, they didn't build it.They let the locals rebuild their mosque that was left in ruins by a prior invading ethnic group to keep both groups mad at each other.
>>18407612Those sticks make it easier to climb the wall. I don't understand their utility.
>>18403885I also always took his title of "wealtiest man ever" with a massive grain of salt.I know he had alot of physical assests such as gold and whatnot, however thats is not how humans mesure wealth at all nowadays.This leads me down the rabbit hole of ownerships. In mali they had landed aristocracy and governorships, so I think you can say that Mansa musa did not directly hold all the land and wealth in his kingdom.If he take this logic then would a guys directly owning massive amounts of valuable land, with alot of wealth production be the ricest person in history? Then I guess Augustos would get that title since Imperial provinces like Egypt, Spain and Gaul were his Personal property, in adition to hist massive physical wealth.Now Im sure some chink/jeet emperor at some stage might have been the personal owner of more and wealthier provinces but i dont know anything about that in particular so someone might enlighten me
>>18408112>This leads me down the rabbit hole of ownerships. In mali they had landed aristocracy and governorships, so I think you can say that Mansa musa did not directly hold all the land and wealth in his kingdom.All of Mali's gold was by law the personal possession of Musa. And they had lots of it.
>>18407612>200 kg of goldthis would be worth $26m today
>>18407612Nah the OG building doesn't exist anymore but the French made a sketch
>>18403885Wealth in those days, and in our days, is all relative. If you have a massive heap of gold and you trade some of it for food, the value of the rest of that gold is lessened. Same deal with Elon Musk, ~80% of his wealth is just on paper speculation about how much his companies might be worth in the future. Whenever he tries to redeem it in the form of selling shares for cash to buy goods, the value of the rest of his heap of paper declines. If he tried to sell it all tomorrow the value would crater since the value proposition is musk is le super genius guy who will get to mars in 2 more weeks. You can't eat gold, gold won't raise a finger to defend itself. Gold is only valuable because it's scarce and beautiful, in a land where it's not especially scarce, it won't have nearly as much value. Paradoxically, if you can export it you increase the value of your holdings within the local market. So his massive generosity in the middle east could be seen in a way as an ancient form of 'dumping' that reduced the wealth of his kingdom but increased the value of his wealth within his kingdom. >>18404951His Malian Empire didn't have populous coastal territories (present-day Mali is landlocked) and in most of Africa, there are no coastal plains, the good agricultural lands and as such population centers are inland and the rivers are generally not navigable, the niger is not an exception. So even if you made sea salt you would need to expend far more energy moving it up the coast than the energy you'd require to move it from the Sahara to the gold producing areas of Mali.
>>18408119I understand that but by law all the land, means of production valuables of Egypt were augustos personal property. That is the richest province of the empire as his own personal property.That is not including the fiscus, that was in theory the emperors personal property. Personal wealth that was used to directly fund and pay 250k legionaries, if you want to fudge things a bit you can include all their gear and supplies in to Augustos wealth since it was the fiscus that bought all that. Thats alot of silver and gold worth of material right there.Could Mansas tons of gold buy up all of egypt, plus the gear and supplies for all roman legions on top of augustos personal property and wealth? Not sure how inflation and gold pricing would be calculated across like 1400 years between the two, but still.As I said land is wildly valuable, so are means of production as both these well generate more capital.So another historical figure that personaly owned entire swaths of high value land will most likely be richer then Mansa Musa.
>>18404951>Mansa Musa proves that its not socioeconomic factors as to why sub sahara africa didn't develop anything of note besides slaves and raw resources.Well yeah its called dutch disease why make something when you can buy it and import it?
>>18408153The Dutch disease thesis is fucking bullshit every pre colonial African states worth mentioning had a self sufficient manufacturing industry as far as I know even Mali produced cotton and iron.
>>18408192>every pre colonial African states worth mentioningAll 3 of them?
>>18408192clearly not the case since this seems to apply regularly to a miriad of diferent countries to a certain extent. Not unique to africa or the third world as wellPortugal and Spain refusing to industrialized and spend their massive amounts of wealth buying industrial goods from the UK instead of industrializing themselfs.
>>18408197Not sure what you are referring to, I already made a post about pre colonial Africa productivity levels compared to those of pre industrial Europe. After initial partecipation Benin banned the slave trade but Europeans still purchased large quantities of clothes, ivory and peppers similarly Kongo major exports before the civil war were textiles followed by spice, ivory and lastly slaves which was limited to war captives. Europeans merchants had very little offer besides firearms and a few luxury goods that couldn't be locally made even then we have accounts of finished goods being treated more like raw materials the Asantes bought Indian cloths and then unravelled them to extract particular dyes that they didn't know how to replicate.
>>18408202>Portugal and Spain refusing to industrializedYou have source for that because I find it very hard to believe
>>18408217Yes yes, the bustling industrial Africa which somehow had a 3 times smaller population than poor Europe despite being 3 times larger in size.
>>18408229I already said that Africa had areas that were more densely populated than others it isn't my fault if you are illiterate.
>>18408093They're not a defensive structure. The utility is that they are permanent scaffolding for every year when they put on a new coat of mud.
>>18403885Wasn't Augustus the richest man ever. He personally owned Egypt and ruled the richest empire in the world for 40 years.
