Baskadia

The great Mali Empire was founded by Sundiata (Sunjata) Keita in 1236 BE.

Mali Empire in its zenith was one of the richest countries in the world in the 11th century.

In its splendor, it carried out a lot of ambitious projects which included a voyage by its mariners to the Americas.

The voyage to the Americas by Malian navigators was undertaken by the grandson of a daughter of Sundiata Keita Mansa Abubakri 11.

Mansa Abubakar became the Emperor(Mansa) at a very young age.

This brother was the future Mansa Kankan Musa.

Abubakar was focused on expanding the Mali empire westward, while Kankan Musa took responsibility for expansion eastward.

The Western part of the Mali empire was bordered by the Almighty Atlantic Ocean (then known as the Ethiopian Ocean).

Abubakar was curious and obsessed with finding out what lay beyond the Atlantic Ocean.

Abubakar denounced the throne and handed over the affairs of the Mali empire to his brother Mansa Kankan Musa to undertake the expedition to America in about 1312.

He therefore commissioned a fleet made up of 2,000 vessels filled with sailors, their wives, food, water, and even gold to embark on an expedition on what is the opposite shores of the Atlantic Ocean in 1311 through the Senegal River.

Abubakar and his fleet never returned from this expedition and nobody knew in the Mali Empire what happened to him and his mariners.

When Eurocentric historians and scholars made us believe that Christopher Columbus was the first man to sail to the Americas they were simply lying in a frenetic bid to whitewash history and portrayed Europe as the civiliser of other cultures.

In 1324 Mansa Kankan Musa traveled to Cario, Egypt, and told his friend, the geographer Al-Umari the incredible story of how his brother Abubakari 11 undertook a voyage several years ago to know the limit of the neighboring sea westward to his empire.

@ Okoi Obono-Obla

Published by: Ettah Emmanuel O.