Originally posted on Thursday, November 29th, 2012
CelebrityNetWorth.com recently generated world headlines by announcing that someone few had ever heard of, 14th century African emperor Mansu Mansa, was the wealthiest person who ever lived — worth $400 billion, several times greater than that of Bill Gates at his wealthiest. Mansa was, as recounted by the UK Independent, the ruler of “what used to the vast Malian Empire from 1280 to 1337, a terrain now encompassing Mali and Ghana that was blessed with oodles of salt and gold.”
Depiction of Mansa Musa, ruler of the Mali Empire in the 14th century,
from a 1375 Catalan Atlas of the known world (mapamundi), drawn by Abraham Creaques of Mallorca.
Musa is shown holding a gold nugget and wearing a European-style crown. Courtesy of Wikipedia
Black History Pages retells Emperor Musa’s story:
Mansa Musa is mostly remembered for his extravagant hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca with, according to the Arab historian al-Umari, 100 camel-loads of gold, each weighing 300 lbs.; 500 slaves, each carrying a 4 lb. gold staff; thousands of his subjects; as well as his senior wife, with her 500 attendants. With his lavish spending and generosity in Cairo and Mecca, he ran out of money and had to borrow at usurious rates of interest for the return trip. Al-Umari also states that Mansa Musa and his retinue “gave out so much gold that they depressed its value in Egypt and caused its value to fall.”
However, attention should be focused on the effects of the hajj, rather than the pilgrimage itself.
The hajj planted Mali in men’s minds and its riches fired up the imagination as El Dorado did later. In 1339, Mali appeared on a “Map of the World”. In 1367, another map of the world showed a road leading from North Africa through the Atlas Mountains into the Western Sudan. In 1375 a third map of the world showed a richly attired monarch holding a large gold nugget in the area south of the Sahara. Also, trade between Egypt and Mali flourished.
According to the summary of his economic impact in the Wikipedia:
Musa made his pilgrimage in 1324, his procession reported to include 60,000 men, 12,000 slaves who all carried 4-lb. gold bars, heralds dressed in silks who bore gold staffs, organized horses and handled bags. Musa provided all necessities for the procession, feeding the entire company of men and animals. Also in the train were 80 camels, which varying reports claim carried between 50 and 300 pounds of gold dust each. He gave away the gold to the poor he met along his route. Musa not only gave to the cities he passed on the way to Mecca, including Cairo and Medina, but also traded gold for souvenirs. Furthermore, it has been recorded that he built a mosque each and every Friday.
Musa’s journey was documented by several eyewitnesses along his route, who were in awe of his wealth and extensive procession, and records exist in a variety of sources, including journals, oral accounts and histories. …
Musa’s generous actions, however, inadvertently devastated the economy of the region. In the cities of Cairo, Medina and Mecca, the sudden influx of gold devalued the metal for the next decade. Prices on goods and wares super inflated in an attempt to adjust to the newfound wealth that was spreading throughout local populations. To rectify the gold market, Musa borrowed all the gold he could carry from money-lenders in Cairo, at high interest. This is the only time recorded in history that one man directly controlled the price of gold in the Mediterranean.
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