1. Mansa Musa, the Emperor of Mali, was the richest man in history
The great Mali Empire (c.1235-1670) became extremely wealthy due to its gold deposits, bounty of salt (once more valuable than gold in Africa) and heavy taxation on trade in West Africa. At the height of its size and wealth, Mali was ruled by the emperor Mansa Musa I (c.1280-c.1337), who was the wealthiest man in the history of the world. As the picture above shows, Mansa Musa’s prosperity was well-known in Europe. On a famous pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324, he took a caravan of 60,000 men (including 12, 000 personal slaves) all clad in the finest garments.
His baggage train for this trip consisted of 80 camels, each laden with 300lbs of gold, which he had his retinue casually distribute amongst the poor along the way. This generosity was a double-edged sword in Cairo, where gold prics plummeted and took years to recover. Arab chroniclers who witnessed this astonishing caravan said that Mansa Musa even put the sun of Africa to shame. Despite his great wealth, Mansa Musa was a very devout Muslim, and his single-minded intent to reach Mecca and pay his respects meant that he made several diplomatic faux pas along the way.
Where did we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
Atlas Obscura. “University of Al-Karaouine”.
de Graft-Johnson, John Coleman. “Mūsā I of Mali”.
Harari, Yuval Noah. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. London: Vintage, 2015.
Meek, James. “World’s First Artwork Found in Africa.” The Guardian, January 11, 2002.
Philips, John Edward. Writing African History. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2005.
Schmidt, Peter R., and D. H. Avery. “More Evidence for an Advanced Prehistoric Iron Technology in Africa.” Journal of Field Archaeology 10, no. 4 (1983): 421-34.
Tattersall, Ian, and Jeffrey H. Schwartz. Extinct Humans. Boulder: Westview Press, 2000.
Watson, Andrew. “Largest Gold Deposits in the World – Witwatersrand Gold Fields”.