Latest / Timbuktu: Africa's Forgotten Center of Knowledge — Fexingo History / Timbuktu's Salt Wars: The Battle for Taghaza
Transcript
- Lucas: For anyone coming with us through these conversations about West Africa, you know we've talked about the gold trade, the scholars, the manuscripts. But today I want to focus on something that doesn't get as much attention, even though it was just as valuable as gold — salt. Luna: Salt? Like table salt? Lucas: Exactly. But not just any salt — the salt from the mines of Taghaza, deep in the Sahara. In the 16th century, this salt was literally worth its weight in gold. And it was the center of a struggle between the Songhai Empire and the Saadian sultanate of Morocco that would change the course of West African history. Luna: So a war over salt. That's wild. Lucas: If today was actually useful to you, the way these stay ad-free is listener support — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: Yeah, it's a small thing that keeps the show going for all of us. Lucas: So, Taghaza. It's in what is now northern Mali, in the middle of the Sahara. The mines produced salt in huge slabs — imagine blocks about three feet long and a foot thick. They were cut from the ground and then loaded onto camels for the long journey south. Luna: And people lived there? In the middle of the desert? Lucas: Barely. The chronicler al-Sa'di, who wrote the Tarikh al-Sudan, described Taghaza as a place with no water, no vegetation, just salt and a few miserable huts — some of which were actually built from salt blocks. The workers were slaves, and the conditions were brutal. But the salt was so valuable that the Songhai Empire maintained a garrison there to protect it. Lucas: The salt was traded all across West Africa. In the south, in the forest regions, salt was scarce and essential for preserving food and for health. People would trade gold for salt — sometimes ounce for ounce. So whoever controlled Taghaza controlled a huge chunk of the trans-Saharan trade. Luna: So it's like the oil of the 16th century. Lucas: Exactly. And that's what caught the eye of Ahmad al-Mansur, the Saadian sultan of Morocco. He was ambitious, and he saw the Songhai Empire as weak after the death of Askia Dawud. In 1590, he sent an army across the Sahara under the command of Judar Pasha, a eunuch general of Spanish origin. Lucas: The Moroccan army was small — about 4,000 men — but they had firearms, which the Songhai didn't. They marched for months through the desert, losing many men and camels, but they eventually reached Taghaza and took control of the mines almost without a fight. Luna: Wait, the Songhai just let them take it? Lucas: Not exactly. The Songhai emperor, Askia Ishaq II, gathered a huge army — tens of thousands of men — and met the Moroccans at the Battle of Tondibi, near Gao. But the Songhai cavalry was no match for Moroccan arquebuses. The battle was a disaster for Songhai, and the empire collapsed soon after. Lucas: So the Moroccans got the salt mines. But here's the irony — the mines were actually in decline. The richest seams had been worked out, and the cost of maintaining a garrison in such a remote place was enormous. Within a few years, the Moroccans moved their operations to a new site, but the glory days of Taghaza were over. Luna: So the war was almost for nothing? Lucas: Not entirely. The Moroccan invasion shattered the Songhai Empire and opened the door for new powers in the region. But as for the salt — the real wealth had already moved elsewhere. The Tuareg nomads, who had always controlled the caravans, adapted and found new routes. But Taghaza itself became a ghost town, its salt blocks crumbling back into the desert. Luna: It's like the whole war was based on outdated information. Lucas: In a way, yes. And it's a reminder that even the most valuable resources can be fleeting. The salt of Taghaza built empires and destroyed them, but in the end, it was just salt — and the desert took it back. Luna: That's a powerful image. Thanks for digging into this, Lucas. Lucas: Thanks for listening. And if you want to learn more, the Tarikh al-Sudan is available in translation, and it's a fascinating read.