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| Title: | Archers, Musketeers, and Mosquitoes: The Moroccan Invasion of the Sudan and the Songhay Resistance, (1591-1612) |
| Author: | Kaba, Lansine |
| Year: | 1981 |
| Periodical: | The Journal of African History |
| Volume: | 22 |
| Issue: | 4 |
| Pages: | 457-475 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic terms: | West Africa Morocco |
| Subjects: | military occupation history Songhai polity History and Exploration |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/181298 |
| Abstract: | In 1591 Sa'did Sultan Mulay Abroad al-Mansur's mercenaries from Morocco, using firearms for the first time in the Western Sudan, crossed the Sahara. On 13 March they defeated the Songhay forces on the battleground of Tondibi. The Moroccans, though determined to exploit the conquered land, lacked the resources for an effective domination. The present paper examines the Moroccan invasion and the causes of its failure mainly from a West African point of view. It focuses on the twenty-one Years of Songhay resistance from 1591 until 1612 when the Moroccan commander (qa'id) I Ali-ben-Abdallah-et-Talamsani first refused to give battle to the Songhay forces, and then deposed the legitimate military governor (Pasha). The article is predicated on the view that Morocco's commercial relations with Europe in part spurred the Sultan al-Mansur's dreams of an empire stretching from the Mediterranean to the River Niger. However, the unruliness of the Moroccan army, combined with Songhay climate and resistance, ultimately led to the failure of the conquest and the beginning of the Sa'did's own decadence. Map, notes, sum. For a French version of this article, see: Bull. IFAN, Sér. B sci. hum., 42 (1980), 1, p. 1-36. |
