Queen Elizabeth I and the Sultan of Morocco Sack Songhai | Black History Project | Video 29

Al Mansur, the Sultan of Morocco advised his allies to invade Turkey. "why invade Turkey which has such little profit and offers so much trouble.... Invade Songhai for its wealth"

In 1590 he wrote to Queen Elizabeth of England (img), to conspire an invasion of West Africa. Al Mansur strategised that if Queen Elizabeth provided him with guns, he could use them to over power the West Africans. Queen Elizabeth complied.

Other Europeans rallied behind Al Mansur to invade Songhai. 2500 of the 4000 soldiers who prepped to invade Songhai were Europeans. The artillerymen were English and Spanish was the official language of the invading army. Whilst travelling from North to Sub-Saharan Africa, 1 third of the invading army perished in the desert, with the remaining 2 thirds being led by Judar Pasha Eunuch.

Meanwhile, Songhai ruler Askia Ishaq II assembled (img) a force of more than 40,000 men and moved north against the Moroccans; the two armies met at Tondibi in March 1591. The battle was swift. Despite their far inferior numbers, the Moroccan gunpowder weapons easily carried the day, resulting in a rout of the Songhai troops. Judar sacked Gao and then moved on to the trading centers of Djenné and Timbuktu.[4] He reached Timbuktu in April 1591, carrying a letter from the Sultan al-Mansur demanding their cooperation.

Judar sacked, pilleged and burnt Timbuktu. Songhai (img) was no match for Judar’s canons and guns. Songhai had no ballistic weapons at this point. Many Moroccans died of tropical diseases in their occupation of Songhai. However they continued to use burnt earth tactics, popularised by Julius Cesar over a thousand years before them, by destroying wells and fields. The allied Moroccans and Europeans took the Gold and converted it to coin, kidnapped the West African Scholars and destroyed many of the remaining books.

Thankfully due to many of the Songhai preemptively hiding their books from invading forces, over 700,000 Medieval Malian books still remain in circulation and are currently being translated by South Africans organisations. But for West Africa, history had turned (img). Once successful Empires of sub Saharan Africa had collapsed and their lands were soon to be ravaged by invasion, manipulation, slavery and an arms race for ballistic weapons.

Task: Africa was previously seen as the richest place on the planet. How has this changed today? Why do you feel this has changed?