competing states. The empire of Mali, in
what is now the Republic of Mali, then
became the dominant power. It had
emerged in the 11th century, governed by
Mandinka people, and reached its zenith
in the early 14th century, when it
stretched more than 1,000 miles from
the Atlantic Ocean to beyond the Niger
River. Internal discord drove the empire
into decline later that century. Songhai, a
kingdom that gained independence from
Mali in 1335, then rose to power in West
Africa, reaching its peak in the 15th and
16th centuries.
Important as these empires were in
the history of West Africa, many of the
people who would come in bondage to
Hispanic America hailed not from these
semiarid realms but from farther south—
the heavily rain-forested coasts of the
Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Guinea.
This region includes the coastal areas of
what are now modern Senegal, Gambia,
Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone,
Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo,
Benin, Nigeria, and Cameroon. Slaves
also came from west central Africa, the
region that is now Equatorial Guinea,THE ROOTS OF A PEOPLE 15African Kingdoms
The African continent has been home to numerous magnificent empires. Among the earliest were the West African Ghana, Mali,
and Songhai. Other early kingdoms, such as Ashanti, Oyo, and Kongo, also thrived. The locations and dates for many of Africa’s
most important kingdoms are shown here.