Mansa Musa's Influence On American Culture

The empire of Mali was established around 1235 C.E. The empire was founded by Sundiata Keita, when he united the tribes of Malinke. He then led these tribes to overthrow the ruler Soso. The empire then became stronger, and took over many surrounding areas. When Mansa was the emperor he made many changes to the way he ran the society. ”The empire was then divided up into provinces that were each led by a governor called a ferba” (ducksters.com). The religion of Islam played an important part in the government and many of the government admin. Mansa Musa was thought of as one of the most famous emperors of Mali. He is best known for his pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. It is said that Mansa was a very wealthy man and brought over 60,000 people

The hardships during the journey were many. Savages, robbers, and disease are just a few to be worried about down the long road. One miss step, one wrong choice, and you could end up with nothing. Even if you were careful you could still meet misfortune.

Mansa Musa was the wealthiest religious leader of all empires in Africa. During his era, people ventured on a religious pilgrimage in Africa. Mansa Musa was a monotheistic, Muslim leader who wanted to spread the Islam belief of one god and diminish the polytheistic faith while following the 5 Pillars from the Muslim holy book, the Koran, throughout his religious pilgrimage across Africa to the city of Mecca.

During the 1830s the united states congress and president Andrew Jackson created and passed the “Indian removal act”. Which allowed Jackson to forcibly remove the Indians from their native lands in the southeastern states, such as Florida and Mississippi, and send them to specific “Indian reservations” across the Mississippi river, so the whites could take over their land. From 1830-1839 the five civilized tribes (The Cherokee, Choctaw, Seminole, and Chickasaw) were forced, sometimes by gun point, to march about 1,000 miles to what is present day Oklahoma. While making this gruesome travel more than 4,000 Indians died from disease, starvation and treacherous conditions. This travel became known as the “trails of tears”.

Mansa Musa could have taken a much shorter route and gone straight to Mecca, but instead went out of his way to take a longer route which passed through cities who only got gold through trade of salt. By doing this he could make more people want to come to Mecca to receive abundant, free gold without having to trade salt. Next, in Document C it explains that "Mansa Musa's hajj made the difficult trip north to Taghaza"(Document C). This shows that the hajj of Mansa Musa took a difficult trip to a city, which as explained by Ibn Battuta as "nothing but sand with a salt mine"(Document C). If this place was so bad, and all it had was salt and more salt, why would Mansa Musa take the time to go here? Well definitely not for religious purposes. Mansa Musa took the difficult journey here strictly to trade lots of gold for salt and set up a trading bond for future trading. If the city Taghaza had so much salt and Mansa Musa had more gold than he knew what to do with and not a lot of salt, it was the perfect trade bond for Mansa Musa. This was the perfect trade bond since salt was worth its weight in gold and used for many things, and Mansa Musa had tons of

Many people believe that Andrew Carnegie was a hero. I disagree, I believe that he was not a hero but a robber baron. Throughout every aspect of his life including his personal life, business approach, and his philanthropy show that he was not a hero. He has done many wrong and unjust things in these parts of his life they prove that he was not heroic. Not only is he not heroic but he is also a robber baron.

We are greedy. We as humans cling to the materialistic things in our lives. Some of us have everything we need to live a perfectly comfortable life, but keep wanting. Greed controls almost everyone, no matter how many possessions we have in our name. In this, when our greed exceed our needs, we lose sight of what is important, leading to our detriment. Three examples of greed and its effects are shown in the stories of “The Necklace”, “Civil Peace”, and “The Golden Touch”.

During the Industrial Revolution big businesses took places of small workshops, increasing to quantity but not quality. This made many people lose their jobs, and now there was only one place to work the factories. Ahead of these factories were big business owners, some born into money others worked their way up to it like Andrew Carnegie. Work at these factories became unsafe and the pay was bad, they could only blame one person and that was the owners. People of this time saw these business owners as either villain or hero, witch side of the scale do Andrew Carnegie falls on?

Sundiata was their fist Mansa, which was a ruler/king. He turned Mail into a wealthy and strong empire by defeating attacks and growing their goldfields'. After Ghana collapsed the regions they had became farming villages. The kings were used to collect taxes and build new towns. Sundiata’s story, the first mansa for Mail, is mostly a legend, but there have been some evidence of his rule. From what people know Sundiata might have combined many religions, created a new society, and mastered the dangerous people who came from Mecca. We do know Sundiata was powerful and successful. From 1312 to 1337, a new mansa of Mali was Mansa Musa. Mansa Musa was the grandnephew of Sundiata. Mansa Musa is known for leading the pilgrimage of 60,000 people to Mecca in 1324 with tons of camels carrying pounds of gold! A very harsh journey through the Sahara desert consisted of little to no water, lots of flies and even some dead and lost people. When he went on his long journey he not only spread his wealth of gold to others, he also brought back new ideas to Mali. Including schoolers, poets, teachers and most importantly he converted their religion to Islam. One specific way he did this was by trading gold and salt and then using his wealth to build new mosques for the city and universities for the students to learn about the Islamic world. Something we learn from this long journey is that many people liked the “bling” you could say, also known as

Ghana and Mali were one of Africa’s greatest ancient civilizations. The Ghana kingdom was founded around the year 750, and developed between the Senegal and Niger River, while the Mali kingdom came about in 1240 after taking over Ghana. Rich in trade and supplies, their empires flourished under their rulers. The Ghana and Mali empire had a series of key similarities and differences throughout their years as a civilization, such as education, their culture, and their resource for trade.

The societies of West Africa, Europe, and North America exhibited similarities and differences in their religious beliefs, values, and government systems. These contrasts and similarities were further made apparent during European expansion across the Atlantic and the subsequent new cross cultural interactions that were created.

These stateless societies had a legitimate, informal government but, had no official bureaucratic system. During the early Post-Classical era, Ghana played an important part in West African society because even though they had limited connections to outside kingdoms, they still traded with neighboring societies. Gold and salt were two of the major commodities that helped grow these small stateless societies into large and prospering empires. With trade increasing throughout the Saharan, the amount of gold and salt that was able to reach this region was able to increase, which allowed for both the resources and the incentive to build a larger empire. Between the years 700-1450 CE, elaborate court life, degrees of admission and military forces were created as a result of the increased trade through the Saharan. Another result of the Trans-Saharan trade and the increasing spread of Islam is that Mansa Musa, the king of Mali was able to become extremely wealthy and rule over a large empire. Mansa Musa was a very wealthy man who

Mansa Musa, who ruled from 1312 to 1337 CE (often referred to as “the golden age of the Mali Empire”), was the tenth mansa, or king, of the Mali Empire, which was located in the Sahara Desert and “stretched across two thousand miles from the Atlantic Ocean to Lake Chad” (Alkhateeb; Tesfu). In 1324 CE, Musa, a Muslim ruler, decided to begin his pilgrimage to Mecca, called the Hajj, which is the fifth pillar of Islam. Mansa Musa’s visit to Cairo, Egypt during his Hajj to Mecca had an incredibly negative impact on the economy in Egypt for over a decade.

When compared to the exorbitant rate that Mansa Musa gave the tradesmen of Cairo it clearly indicates his massive wealth and provides testimony to the fact that he was indeed the richest man in history. Moreover, the actual rate may have been even higher as the book, Medieval West Africa, says that Mansa Musa “paid them back amply” (p.61). Many may say that Mansa Musa was wrong to give such a high rate, however, we clearly see the benefits of it from the accounts in the book given about him. Those who cam into contact with Mansa Musa praise him highly and that praise, prestige, and wealth would have been extended to his people and kingdom as well. Therefore, the kingdom of Mali would become better known around the world and start to appear on more maps. Especially, in Europe where there was great interest in this kingdoms wealth.

The Songhai Empire was born out of quarrelling within Mali that eventually led to the independence of Songhai began its journey to becoming a great kingdom of Africa. Soon after its formation, Songhai looked to expand its territory. Their most notable leader, Sonni Ali, revamped their army to prepare for this series of expansions. His army had 30,000 infantry and 10,000 horseman, making it the largest force in western Sudan. This allowed Sonni Ali to take control of Cities such as Jenne and Songhai. He also began molding an organized government and hierarchical society; large estates were owned by nobles who did most of the labor, the royal court controlled the army, and the hierarchy was based on a caste system. Sonni Ali continually proved