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Some West Africans lived in areas ruled by large empires. The
empire of Songhai and the kingdoms of Mali, Benin and Kongo were
large and powerful. Each had monarchs (leaders) who governed
hundreds of thousands of subjects. Other West Africans lived in
small villages. These governments were smaller and often weaker.
They relied on agreements made between people of the village.

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As Ghana fell, a new empire, Mali, came to power. Mali rose as a powerful empire around the year 1200. It began as a small city-state of Ghana, but when Mali’s leader Sundiata, led a rebellion against Ghana, they took over the territory and power that was once Ghana’s. Once Mali came into power, they acquired even more land and took over the gold and salt trade that Ghana once controlled. Trading was expanded to include Egypt. This helped increase Mali’s wealth and this wealth helped them to strengthen their army. Look at themap below to see how Ghana and Mali together became the single empire of Mali.

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The kingdom of Ghana was rich. Ancient Ghana is located in a different place than the modern country of Ghana in West Africa. The ancient kingdom of Ghana was a key part of the Trans-Sahara Trade Route, but even earlier than the trading that went on between east and west Africa, the kingdom of Ghana acted as guards for the traders from the north, and the traders from the south. Ghana was in the middle. Ghana was a great military power in ancient times. They had an army of 200,000 fighting men. People in the north had salt mines. People in the south had gold mines. Ghana had an army that could protect the traders.

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At one point, Songhai stretched 2,000 miles along the west African coast. They soon controlled all the gold mines in the south, and all the salt mines in the north. That gave them incredible power with the traders from the other side of the Sahara. Songhai had all the gold and salt they needed. They had luxury goods. The nobles had everything except books. If you wanted to crack a great trade with Songhai you needed to haul books across the Sahara Desert. Songhai was very active in the slave trade. Anyone could be captured and sold to the slave traders.