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Battle of Kirina founds the Mali Empire under Sundiata Keita

c. 1235 CE·Military & conflict·West Africa (Mali)·
c. 1235 CEDate
Military & conflictCategory
23Empires active
Date
c. 1235 CE
Category
Military & conflict
Region
West Africa (Mali)
Era
Post-Classical / Medieval
Significance

Around 1235 the Mandinka prince Sundiata Keita defeated the Sosso king Sumanguru Kante at the Battle of Kirina, on the upper Niger in what is now Mali.

After the collapse of the Ghana Empire, the Sosso had seized the old capital and conquered the Mandinka; the exiled Sundiata returned, forged a coalition of smaller chiefdoms and broke Sosso power on the battlefield, then razed their capital. The victory is traditionally taken as the founding moment of the Mali Empire, which would dominate West Africa for the next two centuries and control the goldfields of Bambuk and Bure that fed the trans-Saharan trade. Sundiata is also remembered for promulgating the Manden Charter (Kurukan Fuga), an oral constitution organising the new federation and setting out social obligations, which is sometimes cited as an early statement of human rights. The battle and its hero are immortalised in the Epic of Sundiata, transmitted by griots and regarded as a national epic, making Kirina both a political turning point and a cornerstone of West African cultural memory.

See the world map in c. 1235 CE →More military & conflictThe Post-Classical / Medieval era

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Further reading

The wider story

The Golden Rhinoceros: Histories of the African Middle Ages

Francois-Xavier Fauvelle

Sets Kanem-Bornu within the wider medieval African world.

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