Songhai

views updated Jun 11 2018

Songhai West African empire, founded c.ad 700. In 1468, Sonni Ali captured the market city of Timbuktu, and the Songhai Empire acquired control of most of the trade in w Africa. Askia Muhammad I succeeded Sonni, and further increased the stranglehold on trade routes. The Empire began to disintegrate because of factional in-fighting. The Songhai peoples still control much of the trans-Saharan trade.