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The Richest Man in History was Black and African
The story of Mansa Musa, an African Emperor worth over $400 billion
Imagine 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 the emperor before him, Abubakari Keita II, appointed Musa as his deputy when he left on a pilgrimage to explore the ends of the Atlantic Ocean. On his failure to return, Musa took over as the emperor as was the custom in Mali.
At the time that Musa became emperor, Africa was turning into an international economic hub. Musa was able to take advantage of this era and turn Mali into one of the wealthiest regions in the world. He revamped Timbuktu, a city in the Mali empire into a bustling trade center that remains so even in modern-day Mali. In addition to being strategically located the Mali empire was also rich in natural resources such as salt and gold.
Musa was also able to greatly extend the Mali empire. The region’s wealth meant that most territories willingly joined the empire as this would lead to the improvement of the people’s standard of living. When territories did not join the Mali empire willingly, Musa had a massive and…
