Latest / The Songhai Empire: Africa's Powerful Forgotten Kingdom — Fexingo History
The Forgotten Sahelian Farmers Who Fed the Songhai Empire
When we think of the Songhai Empire, we think of gold, salt, and scholarly cities like Timbuktu. But the empire's true backbone was its agricultural system — a sophisticated network of flood-retreat farming along the Niger River, managed by the Sorko and Tyeddo peoples. In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the agricultural surplus that allowed Songhai to support a vast army, a bureaucracy, and trade networks across the Sahara. They discuss the falo system — the seasonal floodplains that were cultivated with sorghum, millet, and rice — and how the state managed land tenure through the…
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