The Richest Man in History was Black and African

The story of Mansa Musa, an African Emperor worth over $400 billion

JustAnnet đź‘‘
4 min readSep 21, 2020
Mansa Musa depicted holding a gold coin in the 1375 Catalan Atlas (Source: Wikipedia)

IImagine a single individual having so much wealth they can control an entire region’s economy. In today’s world, when we think of rich people, we think Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, who is currently estimated to be worth over $199.7 billion. Yet, even with their seemingly outrageous wealth, these individuals do not control the economies in which they operate.

It’s crazy to imagine that the wealthiest man in history is estimated to have been worth double Jeff Bezos’s current net worth. It’s even harder to believe, given the socio-economic status of most black Africans nowadays, the wealthiest man in history was a black African man. His name was Mansa Musa, the tenth emperor of the Malian empire, a West African territory. He was not only the richest man in Mali but the richest man in human history.

Who was Mansa Musa?

Details of Musa are not easily available. This is because he lived during the thirteenth century. However, using the writings of ancient Arab scholars, historians have been able to collate some facts about this wealthy emperor. An interesting fact about Musa is that he was not born into a royal family. Musa became emperor of Mali when…

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JustAnnet đź‘‘
JustAnnet đź‘‘

Written by JustAnnet đź‘‘

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