Songhai

The Songhai Empire achieved a dominant position in West Africa after the decline of Mali.

There remains debate about the origins of the Songhai. One tradition claims they descended from the Sorko, fishermen who had migrated from Lake Chad, and the Gow, who were hunters. Another tradition points to Berber migrants who entered the area around the seventh century and laid the foundation for what would become the Songhai Empire. Most historians agree that Songhai origins are sketchy and include the influence of numerous migrant groups to the region of the middle Niger.

The first recognized ruler of what would become the Songhai Empire was King Kossi of Gao. Kossi accepted Islam in 1009, which then played an important role in the commerce that developed across the Sahara. Most historians agree that Kossi probably recognized the economic benefits of converting. Islam also became a unifying factor for the nascent Songhai Empire. Gao became the capital city, and their mixed economy of farming, fishing, herding, and trading provided stability for an increasingly powerful people.

In 1325 the Songhai were forced to pay tribute to Mali. The Mali ruler Mansa Musa I had stopped at Gao while returning from his famed pilgrimage to Mecca. He demanded that the Songhai submit to his authority and took the Songhai ruler’s two sons as hostages, but Songhai’s tributary status lasted only about 10 years. Political changes in Mali afforded the hostage brothers an opportunity to betray the new Mali ruler and restore independence to Songhai. Over the next century the Songhai fought off intruders including the Tuareg, the Mossi, and the Mandingo.

In 1464 Sunni Ali Ber, the 18th ruler in a line of kings established by Kossi, ascended the throne. He was a man of unusual courage and strength of purpose and sympathetic to pagan traditions despite his own Muslim convictions. However, his sympathies stemmed from his interest in consolidating power and loyalty rather than in promoting religious freedom. Sunni Ali became a ruthless ruler who was not particularly well-liked by his own people, although his conquests strengthened his empire and laid the foundation for Songhai’s golden age.

Sunni Ali’s son took the throne after his father’s death in 1492. He lasted only a few months before Muhammad Toure, one of Sunni Ali’s generals, usurped the throne with popular support. Muhammad Toure took the title askia and ruled Songhai from 1493 to 528. Under Askia Muhammad I’s rule, Songhai expanded its borders as far west as Segu and as far northeast as Air. He controlled all of the territory that once belonged to Mali, and he acquired control of the trade routes leading to Egypt, Tunis, and Tripoli. In short, Askia Muhammad created the largest African state in sub-Saharan West Africa. His greatest gift to Songhai was its administrative system. He also encouraged scholarship and commerce. Timbuktu and Gao became major centers of learning renowned throughout the Islamic world.

Songhai continued to flourish after Askia Muhammad’s reign, but its golden age was near its end. In 1589 El Mansur, the Moroccan ruler, set out to conquer Songhai. At that time no one believed that an army could cross the Sahara, but El Mansur insisted on an attack. He sent 4,000 soldiers with 9,000 transport animals. It took nearly six months for the Moroccan army to cross the desert, and they lost 3,000 men in the process. They met Askia Ishak, the Songhai king, at Tondibi, which was about 25 miles from Gao. The Songhai army numbered more than 25,000 soldiers, but the Moroccans had guns. Despite being outnumbered, the bedraggled Moroccan army defeated Askia Ishak decisively. This defeat marked the beginning of Songhai’s decline. Over the next century Songhai fragmented into smaller states and chiefdoms.

Further reading: G. Connah, African Civilizations: Precolonial Cities and States in Tropical Africa: An Archeological Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Basil Davidson, The Lost Cities of Africa (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970); L. Mair, African Kingdoms (Oxford, U. K.: Clarendon Press, 1977).

—Tom Niermann

Soto, Hernando de (ca. 1496-1542) conquistador A conquistador who led a contingent of Spanish through the modern-day southeast of the United States on an expedition in which he failed to find great wealth but inadvertently spread infectious diseases to the Native peoples of the region.

Hernando de Soto first arrived in the Western Hemisphere in 1514 when he left Spain in the company of Pedro Arias de Avila, who was on his way to become governor of Panama. But Avila’s hope to become governor was thwarted by Vasco Nunez de Balboa, who resisted the newcomer’s attempts to supplant him. De Soto witnessed the result of the clash between the two servants of the Spanish king: Avila had Balboa captured and executed. Over time, de Soto became associated with many of the leading conquistadors of his age. He became a lieutenant to Francisco Pizarro and joined the expedition in Peru, a venture that led to the ransoming and execution of the Inca king Atahualpa. De Soto returned to Spain in 1536 and, like other returning heroes, received royal privileges as a result of his successes in South America. Among his benefits was the position of governor of Cuba.

De Soto left Spain in 1538 and headed once again to the Americas. After provisioning a small army in Cuba, he set sail for present-day Florida, where he arrived in early summer 1539. Over the course of the following months, de Soto and his men often treated local Indians harshly, including the Apalachee who inhabited the northern part of modern-day Florida (near present-day Tallahassee). In early March 1540 de Soto and his men set off on a journey to the north in search of mineral wealth, including gold.

Despite heroic efforts, scholars have never been able to retrace de Soto’s exact route through the Southeast.

What is certain is that he led his men on a journey that traversed much of modern-day Georgia and relied on various regional rivers to get around. It is possible that they reached as far as the Arkansas River on the farthest northwestern part of their journey and possible that they descended part of the Brazos River in modern-day Texas as well. Archaeological evidence found throughout the Southeast dating roughly to the age of De Soto’s entrada suggests that he either wandered to countless places or traded with local Native Americans for goods. The four accounts of his journey that survive give differing details, although it is likely that he and his forces traveled through modern-day South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana. In 1541 de Soto reached the banks of the Mississippi River

Whatever his precise route, there is little doubt that the Spanish caused enormous problems for the indigenous peoples of the region, including the Choctaw and Mobile, who battled de Soto’s forces. During the winter of 1540-41, de Soto and his men often ran into troubles with the indigenous peoples of Chicaza, a community probably located near modern-day Columbus, Mississippi. By the time spring came around, the Chicaza had burned de Soto’s encampment and twelve of his men had perished, along with 57 HORSEs and a large number of pigs the Spaniards kept.

Having earned a reputation for cruelty, de Soto himself never managed to complete the journey. On May 21, 1542, after many of his men had died on the journey, he became ill and died near Natchez, Mississippi. His men believed it best to keep his death a secret, perhaps because some of them believed that de Soto had convinced the Indians that he was an immortal; they had also heard stories that Native Americans often desecrated the graves of Spaniards. After they buried him within their compound at night, local natives noticed the grave. This act of discovery terrified de Soto’s men, who then dug up his body in the dark of night, filled his burial shroud with sand, and then dumped his body into the Mississippi River. At the time of his death, according to an account of an auction of his goods, he possessed four slaves (two of each sex) along with three horses and 700 hogs.

After wandering for another year, mostly on a venture to the west, the remainder of de Soto’s entourage boated down the Mississippi to the sea. They crossed the Gulf of Mexico and eventually reached territory controlled by the Spanish. When they arrived they told tales of a journey that modern scholars estimate stretched over 4,000 miles of the American interior, much of it in dense swampland and thick forests.

An earlier generation of historians celebrated de Soto’s achievements and saw him as one of the Spanish colonizers who helped to open North America to European civi-

Hernando de Soto (Library of Congress)

Lization. That notion was based on the idea that de Soto’s surviving men spread news about the region when they got to New Spain. However, recent historical work has suggested that de Soto’s men did more than engage in periodic conflicts with Indians. According to surviving documents, it now seems likely that these Spanish spread epidemic diseases, notably SMALLPOX, among the Indians they encountered. An unwitting agent of the Columbian Exchange, de Soto now appears to historians as yet another misguided Spaniard bent on the acquisition of wealth who never understood the ways in which his own presence in the Americas undermined the indigenous peoples he encountered.

Further reading: Charles Hudson, Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun: Hernando de Soto and the South’s Ancient Chiefdoms (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997); Angus Konstam, Historical Atlas of Exploration (New York: Facts On File, 2000); Anne Ramenovsky, Vectors of Death: The Archaeology of European Contact (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987).