Erasing the Black Kings

One of the richest men that ever lived is one of the lesser known kings in the world. In the Western Sudanese kingdom of Mali, formed in the 13^th century, one of the most influential kings was a man named Mansa Musa. Musa came to power in Mali during a time of weakness, and through his guidance, the kingdom prospered as he strengthened the control the government had over his kingdom.

The fortune of this kingdom was created by salt and gold mines that were left over from the kingdom of Ghana. Three of these gold mines provided an abundance of gold to Musa, and for this reason, he decided to take a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. This was the most extravagant journey that had ever taken place up until this point, and he took enough resources to start another small kingdom. He consulted his royal diviners as to when he should leave, and they gave him a date that was nine months away.

Musa started planning and gathering his servants, slaves, and entourage. The trip would take a year, and the king wanted to be prepared. When he did leave, Mansa Musa left in style, with eyewitness accounts estimating the number of people in the thousands. His caravan had a hundred camels simply to carry the gold. When the assembly finally arrived at Cairo, he refused to kiss the ground in front of another ruler. Mansa Musa is said to have spent and given away so much gold in the city of Cairo, Mecca, and all the lands between these two cities that the value of gold was greatly lessened for decades afterwards. Merchants in cities they visited took advantage of this by charging members of his caravan up to five times the values of products knowing that they would pay. Mansa Musa spent so much money on his pilgrimage that he had to borrow money with ridiculously high interest rates just so that he was able to return home.

It could be argued that the extravagance of the pilgrimage put Mansa Musa and Mali on the map, not only from is direct stimulation of local economies, but also through inflation of currency for several years, Mansa Musa should be set up among the great kings of the past, alongside of those such as Alexander the Great, Solomon, Genghis Khan, and Napoleon Bonaparte. Musa was erased from popular history because he was not a European, he was not white, and to early white historians, he was unimportant.