Page 75 - Empires of Medieval West Africa

E m p i r E s o f m E d i E v a l w E s t a f r i c a

What remained of the
Songhay army retreated into
Moroccan Firearms the countryside. They rebelled
against Askia Ishaq II and placed
Muhammad Gao on the throne.
the arquebus was invented in the mid-15th century. it But Askia Muhammad Gao
used a serpentine or s-shaped piece of metal with a cen- unwisely accepted an invitation
tral pivot attached to the side of the gun. the upper part to visit Mahmud Pasha—and was
of the serpentine held a burning piece of hemp or cotton assassinated.
rope soaked in a chemical called saltpeter that burned Lead by Askia Nuh, a brother
easily. By pulling on the bottom half of the serpentine, the of Muhammad Gao, the Song-
upper part holding this burning “match” was lowered into hay continued their resistance
a pan containing a charge of powder that fired the gun. to the Moroccan occupation.
more advanced muskets that were also carried by For two years they fought small
the moroccan army began to appear in spain during the but successful ambushes against
early part of the 16th century. the musket was consid- Mahmud Pasha and his troops,
ered the largest and most powerful gun an individual until Mahmud finally gave up and
soldier could use. most were 5 to 6 feet long, weighed returned to Timbuktu. Nuh fought
around 20 pounds, and required a forked rest to support on until 1599, but the Moroccans
the gun during firing. the simple serpentine of the arque- continued to occupy Timbuktu
bus was replaced with the more advanced spring-oper- and other urban centers. The
ated trigger to lower the “match” into the pan. Songhay leaders were never able to
Before the moroccan invasion of songhay, there were recover their empire.
very few, if any firearms in that part of africa south of the The great cities of the for-
sahara. in 1591, the soldiers of songhay had never seen mer Songhay Empire were under
the arquebus or musket. Just the noise they made gave Moroccan control. It did not take
the moroccans a big advantage. long for the peoples who had
been conquered by the Songhay
to assert their independence and
begin raiding one another.
In the early 17th century, Tuareg nomads of the Sahara began mak-
ing raids into the great bend of the Niger River. The cattle-herding Fula of
the Inland Delta formed their own state, called Masina, and began
attacking their neighbors. Bamana warriors from up river (southwest of
Songhay) laid siege to Jenne and fought with the Fula. Armies from king-
doms in present-day northern Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso also began
advancing into southern regions of the former empire. By the 18th cen-
tury, the former heartland of the Songhay Empire was occupied by sev-
eral small states.

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