Archers, Musketeers, and Mosquitoes

This chapter examines the Moroccan invasion and the causes of its failure mainly from a West African point of view. It focuses on the twenty-one years of Songhay resistance from 1591 until 1612 when the Moroccan commander &s;Ali-ben-Abdallah-et-Talamsānī first refused to give battle to the Songhay forces, and then deposed the legitimate military governor. The chapter predicts on the view that Morocco&s;s commercial relations with Europe in part spurred the Sultan al-Manṡūr&s;s dreams of an empire stretching from the Mediterranean to the River Niger. The Sultan al-Maḣdi&s;s successors alternately followed policies of aggressiveness, co-operation or compromise with European states and with the Muslim Askiya dynasty of Gao in the Sudan. The Sa&s;did placed the Sahara and the Sudan at the centre of their plans because of the pivotal role of the trans-Saharan trade in North Africa&s;s economy. The chapter reinterprets the invasion of Songhay by the Sa&s;did Sultan Mulāy al-Manṡūr&s;s mercenaries led by the Pasha Judar.

Biology · Geography · Resistance (ecology) · African history and culture analysis · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Ecology · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories