Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1375
Mali's King Kankan Musa is depicted on a 1375 European map of Africa holding a gold nugget. The
caption reads: 'So abundant is the gold found in his country that he is the richest and most noble
king in all the land'.
1434
Portuguese ships become the first to round Cape Bojador in almost two millennia, beginning the era
of European trade along West Africa's coast. Nine years later, they reach the Senegal River.
1482
Portugal constructs the first European structure on West African soil, the warehouse-fortress of Sao
Jorge de la Mina in what is now Ghana, symbolising increasingly prosperous trade between Portugal
and West Africa.
Late 15th century
The Kingdom of Benin helps Portugal to capture and export slaves, transforming the slave trade from
a small-scale African concern to a much larger global trade.
1512
Leo Africanus writes that 'The rich king of Tombuto keeps a splendid and well-furnished court…a
great store of doctors, judges, priests and other learned men, that are bountifully maintained at the
king's expense.'
1591
The Empire of Songhaï, the last and most extensive of the Sahel's empires, falls to al-Mansur, ruler of
Marrakesh, who seizes the Songhaï political capital Gao, and its commercial and cultural capital
Timbuktu.
1659
The French establish their first permanent trading post at Saint-Louis in Senegal in 1638. Twenty-
two years later, the British found a base at the mouth of the Gambia River.
1796
The Scottish explorer Mungo Park arrives at the Niger River near Ségou and solves one of the great
unanswered questions of African geography: the Niger flows east, not west.
1828
