Sunni Ali

Reigned 1464-1492

Ruler of songhai

Source

Restoration of a Dynasty. Sunni Ali was the descendant of Ali Kohlen, the elder of two Songhai princes who were held captive by Mansa Musa to ensure the good behavior of the conquered people of Songhai. Around 1335, Ali Kohlen and his brother managed to escape from Mali, and on returning home, Ali ascended his father’s throne, founding the Sunni dynasty. Sunni Ali assumed the throne in 1464 and initiated the territorial expansion that was the basis for the Songhai Empire, which filled the power vacuum left by the disintegration of the older Empire of Mali.

Economic Reforms. Sunni Ali devoted considerable energy to warfare, but he also initiated political reforms that enhanced economic productivity. For instance, he increased from twelve to fifteen the number of captive states that were compelled to cultivate crops for the king. He also changed the quota of crop production. Instead of following the old practice of requiring each person to cultivate forty measures of land, he assigned two hundred measures of land to a group of one hundred cultivators.

Military Innovator. Ali was a military genius. He was the first leader in West Africa to use naval forces on the Niger River as part of a systematic strategy for conquest of new territories and defense of the empire. War boats regularly ferried his troops across the Niger.

Conquest of Timbuktu. Sunni Ali demonstrated his skill as a political strategist in 1467, when he made an alliance with Omar Muhammad Naddi, governor of Timbuktu, against Akil Ag Malwal of the Maghcharen Tuaregs. In 1468 Ali turned on Omar, who fled when he saw Ali and his forces, abandoning the city to Songhai. Ali’s treatment of the people of Timbuktu contributed greatly to his reputation for excessive cruelty and vindictiveness. He organized a systematic destruction of Timbuktu over a two-year period. His forces pillaged the city and put to death a large number of inhabitants, including many of the scholars for which the city was famous. (Scholars who managed to escape the massacre were not lured back to the city until after Ali’s death.)

The Siege of Djenné. In 1473 Ali used four hundred naval boats to end his siege of the city of Djenné, which— according to legend—lasted seven years, seven months, and seven days and inflicted great suffering in the people of the city. Ali did not destroy Djenné as he had Timbuktu. He spared the lives of the inhabitants of Djenné because he admired their bravery and fortitude in resisting his forces, if not for the more than seven years as legend has it, then certainly for a long time.

Great Warrior, Cruel Tyrant. Ali had immense energy and talent for warfare. In his march eastward to capture the kingdom of Borgu, he waged an incessant military campaign for ten years. The West African historian Mahmoud al-Kati (1468 - circa 1593) wrote:

He was always victorious. He directed himself against no country without destroying it. No army led by him in person was put to rout. Always conqueror, never conquered, he left no region, town or village … without throwing his cavalry against it, warring against its inhabitants and ravaging them.

Ali governed Songhai for twenty-eight years, a period regarded by some as a time of unparalleled tyranny. Having successfully avoided death on the battlefield many times, Ali drowned while crossing a river during a military campaign in November 1492.

Source

J. O. Hunwick, “Songhay, Borno, and Hausaland in the sixteenth century,” in The History of West Africa, edited byj. F. A. Ajayi and Michael Crowder, second edition, 2 volumes (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976, 1987), I: 264-301.