Latest / The Songhai Empire: Africa's Powerful Forgotten Kingdom — Fexingo History / The Siege of Gao: Songhai's Defiant Last Stand
Transcript
- Lucas: We've talked about Tondibi, the battle that crushed Songhai's army in 1591. But the war didn't end there. For weeks after, the empire kept fighting — and the next chapter is one of the most dramatic, and least told, parts of the story. Luna: What happened after Tondibi? I always assumed it was just over. Lucas: Not at all. Askia Ishaq II, the emperor who lost Tondibi, fled south along the Niger with whatever troops he could rally. He wasn't just running — he was regrouping, and he had a plan to take back his capital, Gao. Luna: Gao was the heart of the empire. He couldn't just abandon it. Lucas: Exactly. And for a moment, it looked like he might actually pull it off. The Moroccan commander, Judar Pasha, had occupied Gao, but his supply lines stretched across the Sahara — a thousand miles of desert. Askia Ishaq knew that if he could cut those supplies and retake the city, the invaders would be trapped. Luna: So he launched a counterattack? That's bold. Lucas: He did. The Tarikh al-Sudan describes how Askia Ishaq gathered his forces at a place called Kollikore, just downstream from Gao, and then moved on the city. The siege of Gao, as it's sometimes called, is a blur in the chronicles — but it was fierce. The Songhai soldiers, many of them veterans of Tondibi, had learned to fear the muskets, but they also knew the river and the city's streets better than any Moroccan. Luna: Did they retake it? Lucas: No — and that's the tragedy. The chronicles hint that the assault failed, and the reasons are muddled. Some say Judar's defenses were too strong, others that Askia Ishaq's own commanders hesitated. The Tarikh al-Fattash, which is often more critical, suggests betrayal: some of the Songhai nobles had already made their peace with the Moroccans. Luna: Betrayal? That's heartbreaking. Lucas: It's a recurring theme in the story of Songhai's fall. After the failed siege, Askia Ishaq retreated further south, and the empire fractured. He was deposed by his own brother — or perhaps his cousin, the sources disagree — who took the name Askia Muhammad Gao, a direct claim to the city he couldn't hold. Luna: He named himself after the city? That's a statement. Lucas: It was. And that new askia made a bold move: he sued for peace with the Moroccans. He even sent his son as a hostage to Judar Pasha, offering tribute in exchange for a truce. For a few months, it almost worked. But Judar's superiors in Marrakesh wanted more than tribute — they wanted the gold mines, and they didn't trust any Songhai ruler. Luna: So what happened to this Askia Muhammad Gao? Lucas: The Moroccans eventually rejected the peace deal, and the war dragged on. Askia Muhammad Gao fought a series of skirmishes along the Niger, never able to force a decisive battle. The chronicles say he died of an illness — possibly dysentery, which was rampant in the river camps — and his death marked the end of any real hope of recapturing Gao. Luna: Listening to this, it hits me how much these histories rely on a few written sources. The Tarikh al-Sudan and the Tarikh al-Fattash are from the 1650s, right? They're writing decades later. Lucas: That's right, and they're both written in Timbuktu under Moroccan rule, so they have their own biases. But they're invaluable, because they preserve oral traditions and earlier accounts that we'd otherwise lose. Without them, we wouldn't know the names of these last kings or the details of their resistance. Luna: And that's what keeps this show going — digging into those chronicles, trying to piece together what really happened. Lucas: It's a labor of love, for sure. And it's only possible because listeners like you support the show. If you've been following along with us through these episodes, a couple of dollars a month at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo genuinely keeps these conversations going. It's a small thing that makes a real difference. Luna: Yeah, and it's ad-free because of that. We appreciate it. Lucas: So after Askia Muhammad Gao's death, the remnants of the Songhai army elected a new leader — Askia Nuh — and they retreated to the region called Dendi, further down the Niger. And that's where the empire really survived, in a diminished form, for another four decades. Luna: Dendi — you mentioned that in the exile episode. So they were a rump state? Lucas: Exactly. Dendi became the last refuge, a narrow strip of riverine land between the Niger and the mountains of the south. From there, Askia Nuh and his successors waged a guerrilla war against the Moroccan pashas who controlled Timbuktu, Gao, and Djenne. They raided, they ambushed, they kept the idea of Songhai alive. Luna: But they never retook the cities. Lucas: No. And eventually the Moroccans, who were themselves struggling to maintain their grip, made a kind of peace with the Dendi rulers. The empire shrank to a small principality, but its traditions — the Askia title, the court rituals, even the writing of history — continued for generations. Luna: So in a way, the Songhai Empire never fully disappeared. It just changed shape. Lucas: That's the deeper lesson. The fall of Gao wasn't the end of Songhai — it was the beginning of a long, painful transformation. The people of the Niger bend kept their language, their faith, and their identity. And when the Saadian dynasty collapsed in the 1660s, the Moroccan pashas were cut off from Marrakesh, and they became local rulers themselves — 'Arma' they were called, and they married into the local population. Luna: So the invaders eventually became part of the land. Lucas: Yes, but that's a story for another episode. The siege of Gao, the flight to Dendi — these are the moments that show how fragile and how stubborn an empire can be. History isn't just about the battles won; it's about the ones lost, and what people do when they lose.