Got tired of reading about black slave history, so I started researching about Nigerian History before slavery, and I'm blown away by how much was not taught!. Will make thread on my findings.

Currently studying about the formation of the Mali Empire in the year 1235 which span across majority of current day West Africa and was probably one of the richest & most powerful in the world.

Sundiata Keita, (the original Lion King) founded the Mali empire & ruled from 1235 - 1255. A sickly boy captured by the Ghana Empire, he grew to become a local leader & led a revolt against Ghana's King Sumanguru who tried to impose trade restrictions on his people.

He defeated Sumanguru at the battle of Kir㏌a ㏌ 1235 & his generaʪ conquered a good stretch of the Sahara Desert & forests along the West African coast. He rebuilt the city of Niani near the Sankar㏌i Rⅳer as his new capital which soon became a hub for African and Arab traders

Sundiata Keita's Mali Empire, created one of the very first charters of human rights, one that speaks about peace within a diverse nation, the abolition of slavery, education, and food security, among other things. He died in 1255 from an unclear cause or in an accident.

Keita’s successor was his nephew, Mansa Abubakari II, known as the 'Voyager King'.

In 1311, he handed the throne over to his brother Mansa Musa in pursuit of knowledge, & set off on an expedition with 200 ships to cross the Atlantic.

Abubakari's fleet of pirogues, loaded with men and women, livestock, food and drinking water, departed from what is the coast of present-day Gambia.

He never returned and It is believed that in 1312 Abubakari II landed on the coast of Brazil in the place known today as Recife.

To think that Abubakari's expedition to America was almost 200 years before Christopher Columbus, just goes to show you how much of black history was suppressed b/c of racial intellectual prejudice. White historians tend to discredit oral history recorded by black historians.

Columbus himself reports that Native Americans had confirmed that “black skinned people had come from the south-east in boats, trading in gold-tipped spears.”

Chemical analyses of the gold tips found on the native spears, show that the gold probably came from West Africa.

The Griots - the original historians in Africa, imposed a seal of silence on Abubakri's story.

"The Griots found his abdication a shameful act, not worthy of praise," Mr Diawara said.

"For that reason they have refused to sing praise or talk of this great African man."

Next up: Mansa Musa, succeeded his bro Abubakari & ruled 1312 to 1337. He is thought to be the richest man who ever lived. ($400 billion)

By trading gold & salt, he multiplied the wealth & power of Mali by developing cities like Timbuktu and Gao into important cultural centres.

The kingdom of Mali was relatively unknown outside of West Africa so Musa, a devout Muslim, decided to fix Mali’s image when he went on pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca in 1324.

His journey (via Egypt) caused quite a stir, basically the most elaborate & expensive publicity tour.

He travelled with 60 thousand men, 12k servants carrying gold bars & 600 camels carrying 300pounds of gold dust, His wife also had 500 servants with enough camels to carry food and supplies for everyone.
It is reported that he built mosques every Friday along the way.

He gave away so much gold to beggars that the overall value of gold decreased & crashed the global market for 12 years. Dang! Infact the way he fixed this was by borrowing gold from money lenders at incredibly high interest rates, to regulate the economy. What a flex.

Stories of his fabulous wealth even reached Europe. The Catalan Atlas, created in 1375 C.E. by Spanish cartographers, shows West Africa dominated by a depiction of Mansa Musa sitting on a throne, holding a nugget of gold in one hand and a golden staff in the other.

Musa’s was so powerful that whilst away in Mecca, his army invaded & conquered Timbuktu and Gao. Musa’s publicity tour was successful as he gained clout, he used this to bring architects & scholars from across the Islamic world into his kingdom. He built mosques & large buildings

Musa built the famous Sankore University, Timbuktu in 1327 (still present today).

1 of the largest universities in the world at the time, hosting 25k students & a library of 700k Manuscripts, the largest in Africa. The curriculum included: science, maths, philosophy, astronomy

The manuscripts were translated from Arabic to French and it was discovered that the level of Maths being taught at Sankore Uni in 1327 was equivalent to the 2nd Year Mathematics Degree programme at today's Sorbonne University, Paris.

They also found literary criticism of Ancient Greek philosophy, detailed medical textbooks explaining eye cataract removal operations & thousands of verses of poetry.

Again just goes to show how much of Africa's literacy competence that was suppressed during colonisation.

IM SO PISSED!... needed a moment to process this info.
So not only did the British steal our ancestors, they also destroyed our history books, further separating us from our heritage & ancestry.

"If they don't know who they are & where they come from, we can control them"