History of Timbuktu
History of Mali |
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Pre-Imperial Mali |
Ghana Empire (c. 700 – c. 1200) |
Mali Empire (c. 1235–1670) |
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Gao Empire (9th century–1430) |
Songhai Empire (1464–1591) |
After the Empires, 1591–1892 |
French colonization |
After Independence |
Related topics |
Mali portal |
Starting out as a seasonal settlement, Timbuktu was in the kingdom of Mali when it became a permanent settlement early in the 12th century. After a shift in trading routes, the town flourished from the trade in salt, gold, ivory and slaves from several towns and states such as Begho of Bonoman, Sijilmassa, and other Saharan cities.[1] It became part of the Mali Empire early in the 14th century. By this time it had become a major centre of learning in the area. In the first half of the 15th century the Tuareg tribes took control of the city for a short period until the expanding Songhai Empire absorbed the city in 1468. The Moroccan army defeated the Songhai in 1591, and made Timbuktu, rather than Gao, their capital.
The invaders established a new ruling class, the
In its Golden Age, the town's numerous
Prehistory
Chronology of Timbuktu | |||||||||||||||||||||
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History of Mali |
---|
Pre-Imperial Mali |
Ghana Empire (c. 700 – c. 1200) |
Mali Empire (c. 1235–1670) |
|
|
Gao Empire (9th century–1430) |
Songhai Empire (1464–1591) |
After the Empires, 1591–1892 |
French colonization |
After Independence |
Related topics |
Mali portal |
Like other important Medieval West African towns such as
An Iron Age tell complex located 9 kilometres (6 miles) southeast of the Timbuktu near the Wadi el-Ahmar was excavated between 2008 and 2010 by archaeologists from Yale University and the Mission Culturelle de Tombouctou. The results suggest that the site was first occupied in the 5th century BC, thrived throughout the second half of the 1st millennium AD and eventually collapsed sometime in the late 10th or early 11th century AD.[5][6]
Roman exploration
The
Deposits of Roman coins have been found in the region surrounding Timbuktu, although these could have been transported indirectly by trade.[9]
Early sources
Unlike
The earliest surviving local documents are the 17th century chronicles, al-Sadi's Tarikh al-Sudan and Ibn al-Mukhtar's Tarikh al-fattash. These provide information on the town at the time of the Songhay Empire and the invasion by Moroccan forces in 1591. The authors do not, in general, acknowledge their sources[14] but the accounts are likely to be based on oral tradition and on earlier written records that have not survived. Al-Sadi and Ibn al-Mukhtar were members of the scholarly class and their chronicles reflect the interests of this group.[15] The chronicles provide biographies of the imams and judges but contain relatively little information on the social and economic history of the town.[16]
The Tarikh al-fattash ends in around 1600 while the Tarikh al-Sudan continues to 1655. Information after this date is provided by the Tadhkirat al-Nisyan (A Reminder to the Obvious),[17][18] an anonymous biographical dictionary of the Moroccan rulers of Timbuktu written in around 1750. It does not contain the detail provided by the earlier Tarikh al-Sudan. A short chronicle written by Mawlay al-Qasim gives details of the pashalik in the second half of the 18th century.[19] For the 19th century there are numerous local sources but the information is very fragmented.[20]
Origins
When Abd al-Sadi wrote his chronicle
Monroe asserts, based on archaeological evidence, that Timbuktu emerged from an urban-rural dynamic, that is, aiming to provide services to its immediate rural hinterland. By the mid-1st millennium AD, Timbuktu was already involved in an interregional trade network with other cities, such as Djenné-Djenno and Dia as well as the Méma region.[24]
12th century: rise of the Mali Empire
In the twelfth century, the remnants of the
Timbuktu was peacefully annexed by
In 1375, Timbuktu appeared in the Catalan Atlas, showing that it was, by then, a commercial centre linked to the North-African cities and had caught Europe's attention.[35]
15th century: Tuareg rule and the Songhaian Empire
With the power of the Mali Empire waning in the first half of the 15th century, Timbuktu became relatively autonomous, although Maghsharan Tuareg had a dominating position.[36] In this period it was led by the Tuareg Akil Akamalwa.
Thirty years later the rising
With Gao the capital of the Songhai Empire, Timbuktu enjoyed a relatively autonomous position. Merchants from
1591: Moroccan conquest
Following the
In 1593, Ahmad I al-Mansur cited 'disloyalty' as the reason for arresting, and subsequently killing or exiling, many of Timbuktu's scholars, including
The city's decline continued, with the increasing trans-atlantic trade routes – transporting African slaves, including leaders and scholars of Timbuktu – marginalising Timbuktu's role as a trade and scholarly center.
This changed in 1826, when the
19th century: European explorers
Historic descriptions of the city had been around since Leo Africanus's account in the first half of the 16th century,[51] and they prompted several European individuals and organizations to make great efforts to discover Timbuktu and its fabled riches. In 1788 a group of titled Englishmen formed the African Association with the goal of finding the city and charting the course of the Niger River. The earliest of their sponsored explorers was a young Scottish adventurer named Mungo Park, who made two trips in search of the Niger River and Timbuktu (departing first in 1795 and then in 1805). It is believed that Park was the first Westerner to have reached the city, but he died in modern-day Nigeria without having the chance to report his findings.[52]
In 1824, the Paris-based Société de Géographie offered a 9,000 franc prize to the first non-Muslim to reach the town and return with information about it.[53] The Scotsman Gordon Laing arrived in August 1826 but was killed the following month by local Muslims who were fearful of European intervention.[54] The Frenchman René Caillié arrived in 1828 travelling alone, disguised as a Muslim; he was able to safely return and claim the prize.[55]
The American sailor Robert Adams claimed to have visited Timbuktu in 1812, while he was enslaved for several years in Northern Africa. After being freed by the British consul in Tangier and going to Europe, he gave an account of his experience, potentially making him the first Westerner for hundreds of years to have reached the city and returned to tell about it. However, his story quickly became controversial. While some historians have defended Adams' account,[56] more recent scholarship concludes that while Adams was almost certainly in Northern Africa, the discrepancies in his depiction of Timbuktu make it unlikely he ever visited the city.[57] Three other Europeans reached the city before 1890: Heinrich Barth in 1853 and the German Oskar Lenz with the Spaniard Cristobal Benítez in 1880.[58]
1893: French colonial rule
After the
Timbuktu became part of French Sudan (Soudan Français), a colony of France. The colony was reorganised and the name changed several times in the French colonial period. In 1899 the French Sudan was subdivided and Timbuktu became part of Upper Senegal and Middle Niger (Haut-Sénégal et Moyen Niger). In 1902 the name became Senegambia and Niger (Sénégambie et Niger) and in 1904 this was changed again to Upper Senegal and Niger (Haut-Sénégal et Niger). This name was used until 1920 when it became French Sudan again.[60]
1939–1945: World War II
In World War II several legions were recruited in French Soudan, including recruits from Timbuktu, to serve in the Free French armed forces.[52]
In October 1941 the Vichy French authorities transferred a group of interned British Merchant Navy seafarers from Conakry to Timbuktu. The men had been a scratch crew taking a captured French cargo ship, SS Criton, from Freetown to try to reach Britain. Two Vichy French warships intercepted Criton, and one sank her by shellfire after her Master refused to surrender. The French moved 52 members of Criton's crew to Timbuktu. Several, including her Second Officer, Peter de Neumann, escaped, but all were recaptured.[61] In August 1942 the French moved Criton's crew to Kankan.[62] After his return to England, de Neumann became known as "The Man from Timbuctoo".[61]
In March 1942 U-68 sank a Welsh cargo steamship, SS Allende, off the coast of Liberia. 38 survivors reached land at Tabou, Ivory Coast. The Vichy French authorities interned them at Bobo-Dioulasso and Bamako.[63] By May 1942 the French had transferred at least some of the crew to Timbuktu, where two of them died of disease: an able seaman on 2 May and the Chief Engineer on 28 May. Both men have Commonwealth War Graves in Timbuktu's European cemetery.[64]
1960: independence
After World War II, the French government under
By then, the canal linking the city with the Niger River had already been filled with sand from the encroaching desert. Severe droughts hit the Sahel region in 1973 and 1985, decimating the Tuareg population around Timbuktu who relied on goat herding. The Niger's water level dropped, postponing the arrival of food transport and trading vessels. The crisis drove many of the inhabitants of Tombouctou Region to Algeria and Libya. Those who stayed relied on humanitarian organizations such as UNICEF for food and water.[66]
2012: Malian civil war
Following increasing frustration within the armed forces over the Malian government's ineffective strategies to suppress a Tuareg rebellion in northern Mali, a military coup on 21 March 2012 overthrew President Amadou Toumani Touré and overturned the 1992 constitution.[67] The Tuareg rebels of the MNLA and Ansar Dine took advantage of the confusion to make swift gains, and on 1 April 2012, Timbuktu was captured from the Malian military.[68]
On 3 April 2012, the BBC News reported that the Islamist rebel group Ansar Dine had started implementing its version of sharia in Timbuktu.[69] That day, ag Ghaly gave a radio interview in Timbuktu announcing that Sharia law would be enforced in the city, including the veiling of women, the stoning of adulterers, and the punitive mutilation of thieves. According to Timbuktu's mayor, the announcement caused nearly all of Timbuktu's Christian population to flee the city.[70]
The MNLA declared the independence of Azawad, containing Timbuktu, from Mali on 6 April 2012,[71] but was rapidly pushed aside by Islamist movements Ansar Dine and AQMI who installed sharia in the city and destroyed some of the burial chambers. In early June, a group of residents stated they had formed an armed militia to fight against the rebel occupation of the city. One member, a former army officer, stated that the proclaimer 'Patriots' Resistance Movement for the Liberation of Timbuktu' opposed the secession of northern Mali.[72]
On 28 January 2013, French and Malian soldiers reclaimed Timbuktu with little or no resistance and reinstalled Malian governmental authorities.[73] Five days later, French President François Hollande accompanied by his Malian counterpart Dioncounda Traoré visited the city before heading to Bamako and were welcomed by an ecstatic population.[74]
The city has been attacked multiple times on several different occasions. On 21 March 2013 a
Recent issues
Despite its illustrious history, as of 2009 Timbuktu was an impoverished town, poor even by Third World standards.[75][76] The population grew an average 5.7% per year from 29,732 in 1998 to 54,453 in 2009.[77] As capital of the seventh Malian region, Tombouctou Region, Timbuktu is the seat of the regional governor. Colonel Mamadou Mangara took over from Colonel Mamadou Togola in 2008.[78]
The city has had to deal with both droughts and floods, the latter caused by an insufficient
See also
- Timbuktu Renaissance, an initiative to rebuild the city's economy through music and culture
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Sources
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Further reading
- Beaumier, Auguste (1870), "Premier établissement des israélites à Timbouktou", Bulletin de la Société de Géographie, 5th series (in French), 19: 345–370.
- Cleaveland, Timothy (2008), "Timbuktu and Walata: lineages and higher education", in Jeppie, Shamil; Diagne, Souleymane Bachir (eds.), The Meanings of Timbuktu (PDF), Cape Town: HSRC Press, pp. 77–91, ISBN 978-0-7969-2204-5.
- ISBN 978-0-395-25224-6.
- ISBN 9783110162851.
- Hunwick, John O.; Boye, Alida Jay; Hunwick, Joseph (2008), The Hidden Treasures of Timbuktu: Historic city of Islamic Africa, London: Thames and Hudson, ISBN 978-0-500-51421-4.
- Jackson, James Grey (1820), An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa, Territories in the Interior of Africa By El Hage Abd Salam Shabeeny, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown.
- Jeppie, Shamil (2008), "Re/discovering Timbuktu", in Jeppie, Shamil; Diagne, Souleymane Bachir (eds.), The Meanings of Timbuktu (PDF), Cape Town: HSRC Press, pp. 1–17, ISBN 978-0-7969-2204-5.
- Joffre, Joseph (1895), Opérations de la colonne Joffre avant et après l'occupation de Tombouctou (in French), Paris: Berger-Levrault.
- Joffre, Joseph; Dimnet, Ernest (ed. and trans.) (1915), My March to Timbuctoo, New York City: Druffield.
- Kryza, Frank T. (2006), The Race for Timbuktu: In Search of Africa's City of Gold, New York City: Harper Collins, ISBN 978-0-06-056064-5.
- Leo Africanus (1896), The History and Description of Africa (3 Vols), Brown, Robert, editor, London: Hakluyt Society. A facsimile of Pory's English translation of 1600 together with an introduction and notes by the editor. Internet Archive: Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3
- McIntosh, Roderick J. (2008), "Before Timbuktu: Cities of the elder world", in Jeppie, Shamil; Diagne, Souleymane Bachir (eds.), The Meanings of Timbuktu (PDF), Cape Town: HSRC Press, pp. 31–43, ISBN 978-0-7969-2204-5.
- Masonen, Pekka (2000), The Negroland Revisited: Discovery and Invention of the Sudanese Middle Ages, Helsinki: Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, ISBN 978-951-41-0886-0.
- Mauny, Raymond (1961), Tableau géographique de l'ouest africain au moyen age, d'après les sources écrites, la tradition et l'archéologie (in French), Dakar: Institut français d'Afrique Noire.
- Miner, Horace (1953), The Primitive City of Timbuctoo, Princeton University Press. Link requires subscription to Aluka. Reissued by Anchor Books, New York in 1965.
- Morse, Jedidiah; Morse, Richard C. (1823), "Tombuctou", A New Universal Gazetteer (4th ed.), New Haven: S. Converse
- Park, Douglas; Coutros, Peter; Abdallahi, Mohamoud; Ould Sidi, Ali (2010), Rapport sur la troisiéme campagne de research à Tombouctou préhistorique (in French), Field Report to the Direction Nationale du Patrimoine Culturel, Bamako
{{citation}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link). - Park, Douglas; Togola, Boubacar (2008), Rapport sur la première campagne de recherche à Tombouctou préhistorique (in French), Field Report to the Direction Nationale du Patrimoine Culturel, Bamako
{{citation}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link). - es-Sadi, Abderrahman (1898–1900), Tarikh es-Soudan, Houdas, Octave ed. and trans., Paris: E. Leroux. (Vol. 1 contains the Arabic text, Vol. 2 contains a translation into French). Internet Archive: Volume 1; Volume 2; Gallica: Volume 2.
- Staros, Kari A. (1996), "Route to Glory: The Developments of the Trans-Saharan and Trans-Mediterranean Trade Routes", Honors Theses, SI University Honor Theses.
- Trimingham, John Spencer (1962), A History of Islam in West Africa, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-285038-6.