Latest / The Songhai Empire: Africa's Powerful Forgotten Kingdom — Fexingo History / Songhai's Copper Currency: The Metal That Powered the Empire
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- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about Songhai's gold and salt — the big-ticket items that powered trans-Saharan trade. But today I want to talk about a metal that's often overlooked, even though it was absolutely fundamental to everyday life in the empire: copper. Luna: Copper? I always thought gold and salt were the main drivers. Lucas: They were, especially for long-distance prestige trade. But copper was the workhorse currency. It's what people actually used to buy grain, cloth, slaves — the nuts and bolts of the economy. And interestingly, Songhai didn't just import copper — they also controlled some of the most important copper sources in the western Sahel. Lucas: If you've been following along with our series on West Africa, you know that listener support is what keeps these episodes ad-free. A couple of dollars a month is genuinely what keeps these going — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, if you've gotten something out of them. Luna: Yeah, it really makes a difference. And it lets us dive into these details that other shows skip. Lucas: Exactly. So back to copper. The key source was the mines at Takedda, which is in present-day Niger, about 500 kilometers northeast of Gao. Ibn Battuta visited Takedda in 1353, during the Mali Empire, and he described it as a large settlement with a thriving copper industry. He said the copper was exported to 'the land of the blacks' — meaning the Sahel and the forest regions — and even to Egypt and Yemen. Luna: Wait — so Songhai inherited these mines from Mali? Lucas: Exactly. When Askia Muhammad took power in 1493, the copper mines at Takedda were already operating. But Songhai expanded the trade significantly. They standardized copper into rods — called mitqal — which served as a medium of exchange. The Tarikh al-Sudan mentions these rods being used in Gao and Timbuktu for everything from market purchases to tax payments. Lucas: Copper had a key advantage over gold and salt. Gold was too valuable for small transactions — you'd need tiny fractions, and it was hard to divide. Salt was bulky and perishable if it got wet. But copper rods were durable, easily divisible, and held a stable value relative to gold. A mitqal of copper was worth about one-tenth of a gold mitqal, so it bridged the gap between daily commerce and high-value trade. Luna: That makes sense. So it was like small change for the empire. Lucas: Exactly. And the copper didn't just stay in the Sahel. It was traded south into the forest zones — present-day Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria — where it was used for jewelry, ritual objects, and even as currency in its own right. European accounts from the 16th century mention that copper bracelets, called manillas, were a common trade item on the West African coast. But those later ones were European-made. Songhai's copper came from the Sahara. Lucas: Now, there's a fascinating archaeological site at Gao — the necropolis of Gao-Saney — where excavators found copper bracelets and fragments of copper rods dating to the 11th-12th centuries, well before Songhai's rise. So the trade had deep roots. But under Songhai, output and standardization increased dramatically. Luna: Did the empire have any competition for copper sources? Lucas: There were other copper sources in the region — like the deposits at Akjoujt in modern Mauritania, and smaller ones in the Air Mountains. But Takedda was the largest and most accessible. The Tarikh al-Sudan records that the mines were worked by slaves and free laborers, and the copper was smelted on-site into ingots or rods, then loaded onto camels for the journey to Gao. Lucas: The journey from Takedda to Gao took about 20 days across the desert. Caravans of hundreds of camels carried the copper, along with salt from Taghaza. When they reached the Niger, the copper was transferred to boats — the Sorko riverine network we've talked about before — and distributed to markets in Timbuktu, Djenne, and beyond. Luna: So it was a whole integrated system — mines, caravans, river transport. Lucas: Exactly. And the value of copper was carefully regulated. The Askia's administration set official exchange rates between copper rods, gold dust, and cowrie shells. We know from the Tarikh al-Sudan that taxes on copper were a major revenue source for the imperial treasury. The qadis also adjudicated disputes over copper debts, which shows how central it was to economic life. Lucas: One of the most interesting documents is a legal opinion from Ahmed Baba, the famous qadi we covered in earlier episodes. He was asked about a case where a merchant had accepted copper rods that turned out to be counterfeit — filled with lead or iron. So counterfeiting was a problem, which suggests the currency was widely used and trusted enough that people tried to cheat. Luna: Wait — they counterfeited copper rods? How did they do that? Lucas: They'd cast a rod with a copper exterior but a cheaper metal core. Ahmed Baba ruled that the counterfeiter had to compensate the victim and pay a fine. So there was a legal framework protecting the integrity of the currency. That's pretty sophisticated for a pre-modern African empire. Lucas: Now, copper also played a role in Songhai's decline. When the Moroccan invasion of 1591 disrupted the trans-Saharan trade routes, the copper supply from Takedda was cut off. The empire's successor states in the Dendi region had to rely on smaller, less productive mines. And at the same time, European silver began flowing into West Africa through the Atlantic trade, which undermined the value of copper. Luna: So the collapse of the copper trade was part of the bigger economic unraveling. Lucas: Exactly. Without copper — the everyday currency — the internal markets of the Sahel stagnated. People started hoarding what copper they had, and barter returned in many areas. The Tarikh al-Sudan, written in the 1650s, laments that 'the copper of Takedda no longer arrives, and the people have fallen into hardship.' It's a poignant reminder that an empire isn't just about grand battles — it's about the metal in people's pockets. Luna: That's a really human way to think about it. Something as simple as copper connects the mines, the trade routes, the markets, and the daily lives of people. Lucas: Yeah. And it's one of those things that's easy to overlook when you're focused on kings and conquests. But for the people living in Songhai — buying millet, paying taxes, settling debts — copper was what made the economy go round.