Latest / The Songhai Empire: Africa's Powerful Forgotten Kingdom — Fexingo History / The Songhai Empire's Copper Currency and Trade Networks
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about Songhai's gold, its salt, its rice — but there's another commodity that ran through the empire's veins, and it's one we haven't really touched on yet: copper. Luna: Copper? I thought the big moneymakers were gold and salt. Lucas: They were, absolutely — but for everyday transactions, for the kind of commerce that happened in markets from Gao to Timbuktu, copper was actually the workhorse currency. And it came from a place called Takedda — a small but incredibly important mining settlement way up in the Sahara, in what's now northern Niger. Lucas: Takedda was famous across the whole Sahel for its copper — not just raw ore, but finished goods: rods, rings, and especially these things called manillas — horseshoe-shaped copper bracelets that were used as money. Luna: Manillas — I've heard that term before. They were used in the Atlantic slave trade too, right? Lucas: Exactly — but they were already a centuries-old tradition in West Africa by then. In Songhai, manillas and copper rods were the small change of the empire. You'd use them to buy grain, cloth, livestock — the stuff of daily life. Gold was for big-ticket items, for long-distance trade, for imperial tribute. Lucas: The 16th-century Moroccan traveler Leo Africanus — who we've mentioned before — visited Takedda around 1510, and he describes it vividly. He says the houses were built with copper instead of stone, and that the economy was entirely based on the metal. People even paid their taxes in copper. Luna: Wait — houses made of copper? That's incredible. Was it actually structural, or just decorative? Lucas: It was decorative — they'd hammer copper into sheets and use them as cladding for walls and roofs. It was a display of wealth, but also practical: copper doesn't rust, and in the dry heat of the Sahara, it lasted a long time. Leo Africanus says even the doorposts were made of copper. Lucas: The copper from Takedda was traded across the Sahara via the same routes that carried salt from Taghaza and gold from Bambuk and Bure. The Wangara merchants — the Mande-speaking trading diaspora — were the ones who moved it all. They had networks stretching from the Niger bend all the way to the Mediterranean coast. Luna: So copper was a kind of bridge currency — linking the gold-based economy of the south with the salt-based economy of the north? Lucas: Exactly right. And it's a perfect example of how sophisticated Songhai's economic system was. The empire didn't just have one currency — it had a whole tiered system. Gold dust and gold nuggets for the biggest deals, copper manillas and rods for the middle range, and then cowrie shells — which we haven't talked about yet — for the smallest purchases. Lucas: The Tarikh al-Sudan, the 17th-century chronicle by Abd al-Rahman al-Sa'di, actually gives us some specific numbers. It mentions that during the reign of Askia Muhammad, the price of a slave in the Timbuktu market was about 20,000 cowries, or roughly the equivalent of a few copper rods. It gives us a real sense of relative value. Luna: So copper wasn't just a local thing — it was part of a whole empire-wide monetary system. Lucas: Absolutely. And Takedda wasn't the only source — there were copper mines in the Air Mountains, and even some in the Dendi region in the south. But Takedda was by far the most famous. The trade was so important that when the Saadian army invaded in 1591, one of their first moves was to seize control of the trans-Saharan routes — including the copper trade — to choke Songhai's economy. Luna: It's almost like a monetary war — controlling the currency supply. Lucas: Exactly. And it worked. After the Battle of Tondibi, when the Songhai state fractured and lost control of the northern trade routes, the copper supply from Takedda was cut off. That had a ripple effect: prices rose, trade shifted away from Timbuktu, and the whole economic system began to unravel. Lucas: But here's a really interesting detail: the Tarikh al-Sudan also records that during this period of decline, people started hoarding copper. They buried their manillas and rods, hoping to wait out the chaos. Archaeologists have actually found caches of copper in the Timbuktu region that date to this exact period — it's physical evidence of economic collapse. Luna: So the copper trade tells a whole story — the rise of Songhai, its integration into global trade, and its fall. Lucas: It really does. And it's a reminder that Songhai wasn't some isolated kingdom — it was part of a vast interconnected economy that stretched from the Mediterranean to the Gulf of Guinea. Copper from the Sahara, gold from the south, salt from the north, and all of it moving through the great markets of Gao and Timbuktu. Lucas: You know, speaking of people who appreciate this kind of deep dive into history — if you've been following along with us through these episodes on West Africa, and you've gotten something out of them, there's a way to keep them going. It's really simple: a couple of dollars a month is genuinely what keeps this show ad-free and running. You can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: Yeah, it's a small thing but it makes a real difference — we hear from listeners who say these episodes change how they think about African history, and that's exactly why we make them. Lucas: So if that's you, we'd be grateful. And whether or not you can, we're glad you're here. Now — there's another fascinating angle on Songhai's copper: the technology itself. How did they actually refine and work the metal? Luna: Oh, I hadn't even thought about that — in the 1500s, in the middle of the Sahara, they must have had some pretty advanced techniques. Lucas: They did. The copper from Takedda wasn't just raw ore — it was smelted into ingots at the mine site, using charcoal-fired furnaces that reached temperatures over 1,000 degrees Celsius. The ingots were then hammered into rods or cast into manillas by specialist smiths. Lucas: Leo Africanus notes that the copper from Takedda was unusually pure — up to 98% copper in some cases — which made it highly prized. That purity came from the ore itself, but also from the skill of the smelters, who knew exactly how to control the airflow in their furnaces. Luna: So it wasn't just a resource — it was a craft. Lucas: Exactly. And the finished manillas weren't all the same — there were different sizes and weights, and they were used for different purposes. The Tarikh al-Sudan mentions that the standard manilla used in Timbuktu was about the size of a bracelet, but there were also larger ones used for major purchases, like a house or a boat. Lucas: And here's something that really shows how sophisticated the system was: the copper rods were actually standardized. A rod of a certain length and thickness had a fixed value, and traders would cut them into smaller pieces to make change. It was literally a metallic currency, but fungible — you could break a rod into smaller units and it still held value by weight. Luna: So it was like a coin system, but handmade. Lucas: Exactly. And the beauty of it is that we have actual examples — archaeologists have found copper rods and manillas in hoards across West Africa, from Mali to Nigeria. Some of them are on display in museums in Bamako and Niamey. They're not just artifacts — they're evidence of a whole economic philosophy. Lucas: One more thing: the copper trade also tells us about Songhai's relationship with the wider world. The Tarikh al-Sudan records that in 1585, just a few years before the Saadian invasion, the Askia at the time — Askia al-Hajj — sent a shipment of copper rods as a gift to the Sultan of Morocco. It was a diplomatic gesture, but it also showed that Songhai controlled a resource that even the North African empires wanted. Luna: And that same copper later funded the Saadian army's invasion of Songhai — that's a brutal irony. Lucas: It really is. And it shows how connected these economies were. The copper that Songhai mined and traded ended up in the hands of its enemies, and was used to buy the European firearms that helped destroy it. But that's a story for another episode. Lucas: So to wrap up: Songhai's copper currency was more than just a medium of exchange — it was a window into the empire's technological skill, its trade networks, its diplomatic relationships, and even its decline. Next time we're in the market, maybe we'll think about what the 'copper' of our own economy says about us. Luna: I know I will. Thanks, Lucas — that was a whole new way of looking at Songhai. Lucas: Thanks for listening. Until next time.