Decline of the Mali Empire

Name: Decline of the Mali Empire
Start: 1440
End: 1449

Type Event Region West Africa Time 1440–1449

In the 1440s, the Mali Empire continued to decline amid shifts in Sahel trade patterns and internal royal turnover, losing control of key cities as W…

Timeline

1440–1445Timbuktu · MaliMali's suzerainty over salt-gold trade hubs such as Timbuktu and Gao became nominal only; local magnates and rising powers frequently contested trade route taxes and control of the cities.
1445–1449Niani · MaliMansa authority weakened among the provincial vassal states; frontier regions successively slipped from effective control, and the structural crisis of the empire's turn from prosperity to decline became further evident in the 1440s.

Sources

The Cambridge History of Africa, Volume 3: c. 1050–c. 1600 — J. D. Fage; Roland Oliver (eds.) (1977)
Sunjata: A West African Epic of the Mande Peoples — David C. Conrad (2004)