Tuareg Seize Timbuktu from Mali
Tuareg forces took Timbuktu from the Mali Empire around 1433 and held it for about thirty-five years. The city sat at the point where the Niger comes closest to the Sahara — the transfer point between river transport from the south and camel caravans to the north, which is the whole reason for its existence and its wealth. Gold, ivory and enslaved people went north; salt from Taghaza, cloth, books and horses came south. Mali had held it since the early fourteenth century and was losing its grip on the eastern provinces to succession disputes and to pressure on every frontier. The Tuareg were the confederations of the desert who had always controlled the caravan routes, and taking the city meant taking the tolls. Their rule was light and largely absentee. The chronicles record a governor collecting revenue while the scholars and merchants ran the town's affairs, which suited both, and the city's intellectual life continued and expanded — the Sankore mosque and its associated teaching, the copying of manuscripts, and a book trade that made manuscripts among the most valuable goods sold there. Estimates of the surviving Timbuktu manuscripts run to several hundred thousand, on astronomy, law, medicine, mathematics and poetry. Sunni Ali of Songhai took the city in 1468 and treated the scholars far worse than the Tuareg had, killing and exiling many. Askia Muhammad restored their position after 1493. Islamist occupation in 2012 destroyed shrines and threatened the manuscripts, most of which were smuggled to Bamako in rice sacks.
- Year: 1433 CE
- Category: Political
