Guinea - Historical Antecedents
Important in the rise of centralized kingdoms in the savanna area was the expansion of trans-Saharan trade, between Mediterranean North Africa and the western Sudan, that occurred after the introduction of the camel at about the beginning of the Christian Era. Certain caravan terminals in the western Sahel zone on the Sahara's southern edge developed into commercial centers.
Control of the trade through these points — principally the export of gold and slaves to North Africa in exchange for salt and some other commodities — led by about the middle of the first millennium AD to the emergence in this area of a powerful black kingdom peopled or dominated by the Soninké, who belong like the Malinké of modern Guinea to the Manding group.
During the next several centuries this kingdom absorbed or reduced to tributary status neighboring states, including some Berber groups in the southern Sahara. It expanded in the process to a politically wellorganized, militarily powerful, and economically wealthy empire. Generally known as Ghana (although apparently called Wagadu by the Soninké), the empire covered a large area roughly northeast of modern Guinea. Its borders did not encompass any present Guinean territory, but the empire's influence certainly extended at the peak of its power in the eleventh century well into the savanna area of the modern Guinean state.
The decline of Ghana started abruptly in the latter eleventh century. In the 1050s Berber groups to the north were swept up by the Almoravid movement — a militant Muslim religious community and their supporters in Berber West Africa. Fired in part by Islamizing zeal and perhaps to a greater degree by visions of Ghana's riches, the Almoravids invaded the empire and subdued it in 1076. After several decades the Soninké regained control, but the imperial power had been weakened, and many of the vassal states broke away. Among them was the kingdom of Soso, lying to the south of Ghana, which expanded aggressively throughout the twelfth century. Soso was decisively defeated in the early 1200s, however, by the rising Malinké state of Mali, which soon made itself the successor empire to Ghana.
Oral traditions have placed the origin of Mali on the upper Niger River in about the eighth century AD. Growth into an empire began, however, only some three centuries later when the emergence of the Bouré goldfields (on the headwaters of the Bakoye River in present-day Upper Guinea) as the major source of gold and the extension of trade routes southward to the Niger provided favorable economic conditions. The expansion of Mali dates from Sundiata (ruled 1230—55), who defeated the Soso kingdom in 1235 and founded the empire. Northward, control was obtained of the trans-Saharan trading centers, and over time the empire's boundaries were pushed westward, eventually reaching the Atlantic Ocean and including within them approximately the northern half of modern Guinea. The height of power was reached in the fourteenth century under Mansa Musa, who reigned from 1307 to 1332.
Toward the end of the fourteenth century, weakness and dissension within the regime led to a decline of central authority. Vassal states gradually threw off Mali's sovereignty and acquired part of its territory. During the fifteenth century disintegration continued, and a large area was lost to Songhai, formerly a tributary state along the middle Niger River, which expanded into an empire, largely at Mali's expense, during this period. Songhai continued to expand in the 1500s to become the largest unified state in the western Sudan until establishment of French West Africa (Afrique Occidentale Francaise) at the beginning of the twentieth century.
The decline of the empire of Mali coincides with the appearance in 1445, in Senegambia, of the first Portuguese caravels. This empire is a prey to incessant wars of succession with a weakened central power and provinces that gradually free themselves from the authority of Niani. In 1464, Sonni Ali, a prince songhay, ascended the throne of Gao and succeeded in amputating the empire of Mali from the provinces of the region of Oualata. The Mandingo lost control of the Saharan tracks in favor of songhay and returned to the western regions of Guinea, Gambia and Casamance.
The relations woven with the Bagas were difficult between the Rio Nunez and the peninsula of Kaloum. They prove the existence of three Suzerans in the coastal region: Farin Suzos (king of the sosso), Farin Cocoli (king of Lanlouma) and Farin Futa (king of Jallonka). Thus were born the kingdoms Sosso of Bramaya, Thia of Lakhata and Dubreka. In the 16th century, the Dubreka kingdom asserted itself with the dynasty created by the warlord Soumba Toumani. In the Upper Niger region, Sarakollés marabout groups from Jafouna settled in the late 17th century, settling in Manding between Niger and Milo. They founded the kingdom of Baté (between two rivers) Don Kankan is the metropolis.
The villages they founded were Diankana, Foussén, Karifamoriah, Bankonko, Forécariah, Tassilima, Nafadji. They devoted themselves to trading and teaching in the West. Islam, by their action, was reintroduced to Mandingo after a long period of consecutive succession to the fall of the empire of Mali. In the eighteenth century, Kankan, the metropolis of Batč became the capital of a powerful kingdom thanks to the commercial activities and the reputation of its marabouts whose Patriarch Alpha Kabiné was one of the most illustrious.
In the midst of this nascent trade of population movements, marabouti and commercial families from the Middle Niger to the Gabon and the Atlantic coast gave the socio-political configuration to the conquest.
In the sixteenth century Songhai in turn was weakened by relatively constant warfare and the problems of dynastic succession. During that century gold and slaves began moving toward new outlets on the Atlantic coast as European traders entered the market (see The European Arrival and Its Aftermath to 1900, this ch.). The possibilities of increasingly declining trade across the Sahara caused concern in Morocco, which attacked and conquered Songhai in 1591. Moorish controls proved ineffective, and political disintegration of the empire occurred rapidly. From then until the nineteenth century the western Sudan was characterized politically by small, frequently warring states. New migrations into the Guinea area resulted, perhaps the most significant for the modern state being the arrival of the Peul in the seventeenth century.
In the middle of the eighteenth century, a Maninka group left the Batč and settled at the mouth of the Mellacore where he founded the province of Morea. This group was composed of the Toure, Youla, Sylla, etc. clans. It was under the leadership of Patriarch Fodé Katibi, founder of Forécariah, as in Fouta Djallon, the leaders of Morea take the title of Almamy.
The forest area seems less disturbed by these population movements. However, it is noted that the Kissi, coming from the north, would have passed through Faranah (Kobikoro) before settling in their usual habitat where they would have toppled the Loma, who seem to be the first occupants. The Kpele, the Manon and the Konon would have left Moussadou (prefecture of Beyla) under the pressure of Maninka, to settle in the heart of the forest in the south of the country.
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