Mansa Musa: The Biggest Fraud in History — Transcript

One of the most ridiculous fun facts which has spread across the internet in the last decade is the claim that Mansa Musa, the king of Mali in the 1300s, was the richest man in history who gave away so much gold on his pilgrimage to Mecca that he crashed the Egyptian economy.

pilgrimage to Mecca that he crashed the Egyptian economy. You've probably seen this repeated all over social media, including in Reddit posts, comment sections, on YouTube, and in history articles. If you go into Google and search up richest man in history or ask

You've probably seen this repeated all over social media, including in Reddit posts, comment sections, on YouTube, and in history articles. If you go into Google and search up richest man in history or ask ChatGPT, Mansa Musa is the standard answer.

Normally, I wouldn't care very much about idiots being wrong about something. But the problem with the story of Matsumusa is what people extrapolate from it, which has real world consequences we'll discuss later in the video. As any person with more

So, I think it's fair to say this supposed fact has become as much a part of common historical knowledge as the fact that Caesar was a great general or Einstein was highly intelligent.

small population, and limited productive capacity stuck on the wrong side of the Sahara Desert could somehow have produced the richest man in world history just makes no sense on its face.

Normally, I wouldn't care very much about idiots being wrong about something. But the problem with the story of Mansa Musa is what people extrapolate from it, which has real world consequences we'll discuss later in the video.

wheel or carts or paved roads, and all of our knowledge of their affairs comes from a handful of Arabic travelers and historians. It's kind of like they were playing Civ 5, but just decided to ignore the tech tree and not research

As any person with more than a passing knowledge of history is aware, Sub-Saharan West Africa was extremely primitive and underdeveloped compared to the rest of the world in the Middle Ages. And the idea that an ambiguously sized African kingdom with backwards technology, no great cities, a small population, and limited productive capacity stuck on the wrong side of the Sahara Desert could somehow have produced the richest man in world history just makes no sense on its face.

So, I guess a more apt comparison would be a game of Civ where you never found a city and just walk around the map for thousands of years doing nothing until somebody else wins. Now, this might sound critical or mean, but it is the

These people lived in huts made out of mud, had no written records or two-story buildings, and their metalworking was inefficient and uncommon, with most tools and implements being Stone Age technology. Their naval progress stopped with dugout canoes. They didn't have the wheel or carts or paved roads, and all of our knowledge of their affairs comes from a handful of Arabic travelers and historians.

All of this was common historical knowledge up until relatively recently, but it has become unfashionable to talk honestly about the state of subsaharan African civilization, especially in cultural institutions like schools and media. There is an unspoken agreement to

It's kind of like they were playing Civ 5, but just decided to ignore the tech tree and not research anything, staying in the ancient era while everybody else was busy advancing. We actually don't know where the capital of the Mali Empire was, or even if there was a permanent capital.

richest person of all time and just accept it as totally plausible, which it isn't. So that's a bit of historical context. But before we start examining specific sources to assess the truth of the Mansum Musa story, it's important we

So, I guess a more apt comparison would be a game of Civ where you never found a city and just walk around the map for thousands of years doing nothing until somebody else wins. Now, this might sound critical or mean, but it is the reality of the situation on the ground in West Africa, especially prior to the proliferation of Muslim Arab traders.

hole. It was home to high civilizations like the Mali Empire and the fabulously wealthy king Mansam Musa until evil white colonists pillaged the continent. It shouldn't surprise anyone then that the Mansamus myth was first introduced to a mass audience in 2012 by

All of this was common historical knowledge up until relatively recently, but it has become unfashionable to talk honestly about the state of Sub-Saharan African civilization, especially in cultural institutions like schools and media. There is an unspoken agreement to spare the feelings of Black people by not mentioning that Sub-Saharan Africa was practically Neolithic from the classical era until the development of sophisticated European colonies.

And in 1324ish he left his home and made the Haj the pilgrimage to Mecca. He brought with him an entourage of over a thousand people. Some sources say 60,000 and most importantly 100 camel loads of gold. I wish it had been donkeys so I

But this politeness has led to an environment where younger people will hear that the king of Mali was the richest person of all time and just accept it as totally plausible, which it isn't. So that's a bit of historical context. But before we start examining specific sources to assess the truth of the Mansa Musa story, it's important we look at the origin and motivation for its spread.

world, he spent so much gold that he caused runaway inflation throughout the city that took years to recover from. He built houses in Cairo and in Mecca to house his attendants. And as he traveled through the world, a lot of people,

Like all lowbrow pop history, ignorant midwits on Reddit are largely responsible for paring the claim. I'm sure they feel very virtuous when they tell their racist uncle that actually Africa wasn't always a hellhole. It was home to high civilizations like the Mali Empire and the fabulously wealthy king Mansa Musa until evil white colonists pillaged the continent.

a land of gold, an elorado, the kind of place you'd like to visit and maybe, you know, in five centuries or so begin to pillage. Thanks, Bubbles. So, what's so important about the story of Monsamusa?

It shouldn't surprise anyone then that the Mansa Musa myth was first introduced to a mass audience in 2012 by the ultimate pop history Reddit midwit John Green of Crash Course History. So there was this king Mansa Musa who ruled the West African Empire of Mali.

million views on YouTube. And as educational material, it has undoubtedly shaped the perceptions and worldviews of countless students. At my school, teachers would frequently use crash course videos just like this one. And as we will see, it is presenting totally

And in 1324-ish he left his home and made the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. He brought with him an entourage of over a thousand people. Some sources say 60,000 and most importantly 100 camel loads of gold. I wish it had been donkeys so I could say he had 100 ass loads of gold, but no camels. Right.

successful black African kingdom. They're so eager to repudiate the boogeyman of white supremacy, which is based on the observation of European technological, economic, and scientific excellence, that they will shamelessly twist and misinterpret historical records to construct an alternate

So along the way, Mansa Musa spent freely and gave away lots of his riches. Most famously, when he reached Alexandria, at the time one of the most cultured cities in the world, he spent so much gold that he caused runaway inflation throughout the city that took years to recover from.

isn't physically or mentally capable of killing anybody. But if all the complaining about how evil white people are wasn't sufficient, this is more proof that the guy is a far-left weirdo.

He built houses in Cairo and in Mecca to house his attendants. And as he traveled through the world, a lot of people, notably the merchants of Venice—no thought bubble, like actual merchants of Venice, right?—they saw him in Alexandria and returned to Italy with tales of Mansa Musa's ridiculous wealth, which helped create the myth in the minds of Europeans that West Africa was a land of gold, an El Dorado, the kind of place you'd like to visit and maybe, you know, in five centuries or so begin to pillage. Thanks, Bubbles.

There are four main primary sources from which all of our knowledge of medieval Mali and West Africa comes around the time of Mansamusa. These sources are the travelers Iban Patuta and Leo Aricanis and the historians Iban Caldun and Iban

So, what's so important about the story of Mansa Musa? Well, first it tells us that there were African kingdoms ruled by fabulously wealthy African kings, which undermines one of the many stereotypes about Africa, that its people were poor and lived in tribes ruled by chiefs and witch doctors. This video has over 5 million views on YouTube.

these four sources had to say about Mali, which didn't take very long because they spent most of their thousands of combined pages of work discussing actually relevant and interesting parts of the world. I probably spent more time trying to find

And as educational material, it has undoubtedly shaped the perceptions and worldviews of countless students. At my school, teachers would frequently use Crash Course videos just like this one. And as we will see, it is presenting totally false and biased information in order to pretend that African civilization was advanced and oppressive.

some insight into what life was like there and if the kingdom of Mali was truly wealthy enough to have produced the richest man in history. Leo gives us a brief history of subsaharan Africa beginning with the cosmographers began

The wonderful thing about this clip is it exposes the psychology prompting guilt-ridden white liberals and coping Black people to latch onto the idea of a rich and successful Black African kingdom. They're so eager to repudiate the boogeyman of white supremacy, which is based on the observation of European technological, economic, and scientific excellence, that they will shamelessly twist and misinterpret historical records to construct an alternate narrative in which Sub-Saharan Africa was rich, developed, and advanced.

particular wife, but instead the men, women, and children of a farmstead would go together all day to work, pasturing their animals, and then return home at night together, around 10 or 12 of them, sleeping under some sheep skins in a

Also, you might not have noticed, but during this segment, Green has a sticker on his laptop reading, "This machine kills fascists." Of course, this is just dumb laughing because John Green obviously isn't physically or mentally capable of killing anybody.

certainly doesn't sound very wealthy to me, but maybe things improve. Africanis claims that the black West Africans began converting to Islam and the inhabitants of Barbarie, that is the Burgers, took up traveling to the land of the blacks for trade and learned

But if all the complaining about how evil white people are wasn't sufficient, this is more proof that the guy is a far-left weirdo. Anyway, back to the history. Luckily for us, the ridiculous story of Mansa Musa is very, very simple to debunk.

the black people. So if Africanis is to be believed, Muslim Libyans founded the West African kingdoms and rulership in medieval times was split between them and some black monarchs. Africanis then goes on to list and describe the 15

West African history is an unusually accessible field due to the fact that so few primary sources actually exist. There are four main primary sources from which all of our knowledge of medieval Mali and West Africa comes around the time of Mansa Musa.

date farms with a few huts. It appears that the criteria being used for a kingdom includes three villages and a date farm, which gives us an idea of the scale and development that is being discussed here. In Europe or Asia, the

These sources are the travelers Ibn Battuta and Leo Africanus and the historians Ibn Khaldun and Ibn Al-Umari. There are later sources who mention Mali and Mansa Musa like the Egyptian historian Al-Razi, but their work seems to be substantially based on the other four men that I just mentioned and they didn't have firsthand information.

with their faces covered and their settlements have no culture, craftsmen or scholars. Their lives are wretched and poor. I'll spare you the summaries of the other 14 kingdoms, but suffice to say, most are supposedly ruled by Libyans and consist of a few villages

I read everything that these four sources had to say about Mali, which didn't take very long because they spent most of their thousands of combined pages of work discussing actually relevant and interesting parts of the world. I probably spent more time trying to find good translations than actually reading.

imported from across the Sahara. Now while he is critical of the general civilizational development, Africanis does mention that some of the kings are very wealthy. In fact, he says about the city of Gao that countless foreign merchants are to be found in the city as

We'll start with the traveler Leo Africanus who allegedly went to Mali in the 1500s, which is already 200 years after Mansa Musa was king. This makes him a pretty poor source, but we can get some insight into what life was like there and if the kingdom of Mali was truly wealthy enough to have produced the richest man in history.

of their money, unable to find enough goods to purchase. Keep in mind that Matsumusa's vast wealth is allegedly proven by the enormous amount of gold that he traveled with. This excerpt here from Leo Africanis is our first hint at the seed

Leo gives us a brief history o

found in Europe in the Middle East originated from West Africa. At first, this sounds impressive because it implies that West Africa had advanced systems to facilitate gold extraction and trade. My first thought upon learning this fact was that there must

have been structurally sound mines where organized workers with pickaxes toiled away in the darkness. For example, look at this diagram of European mines in the early 1700s. Now, I found this quite surprising as all my other research on

subsahara and West Africa seemed to contradict such complexity existing. However, upon further investigation, I discovered that this gold was not found deep underground like in Europe, requiring thoughtfully designed mines and skillfully crafted tools, but was instead found in what are called aluvial

deposits. Aluvial gold refers to gold which has been exposed by the flow of rivers or other natural events, and gathering it is simply a matter of picking it up off of the ground or maybe using a simple pan to separate it from

water and salt. In fact, there is no evidence of any sort of industrious mining operations in West Africa. They were blessed to have vast quantities of the most coveted material on Earth simply lying on the ground ready to be picked up or at most

requiring a simple pit to be dug. Funnily enough, picking up this gold is still a major industry in Mali and other nearby countries. You would expect them to have gotten a little more sophisticated in the last thousand years, but apparently they were too busy

running away from lions or something. Anyway, this gold along with salt deposits is what attracted traders from across the Sahara, who went on to found cities and set up political structures, facilitating the trade of the unbelievable wealth which the Africans

had littering the ground around them. If any group of Europeans or Arabs or Asians had been so lucky to literally spawn on top of an unlimited amount of the most valuable material in the world, protected from outside threats by a vast

desert and with all the natural resources one could possibly want, they would have undoubtedly constructed a magnificent civilization. This isn't what the West Africans did, though. They were content to allow Arab traders to profit from their incredible resources, trading

their gold and salt for imported goods instead of developing local industries. They never formed an organized state or acted proactively and with foresight, but instead squandered the unbelievable opportunities afforded to them. For a time, they attracted intrepid foreigners

who crossed the Sahara to build settlements and monuments. But once the new world gold made this trade redundant, the foreigners left and West Africa slipped right back into a primitive state indistinguishable from before they arrived. We've covered Leo Africanis and

our other traveler who ventured to Mali personally is Iben Batuta who was a Berber born in modernday Morocco. He visited West Africa in the mid300s and metsulaman who was the brother and successor of Mansamusa. Batuta is not particularly

descriptive, but there are some interesting insights in his account. First of all, he writes about the significant gold and salt trade and the presence of foreign merchants. The ubiquity of imported goods such as clothing from Egypt is also mentioned.

This all aligns with the claims of Leo Africanis. Unlike Africanis though, Batuta gives us some insight into the character of the local black Africans.

In terms of good qualities, he notes their Islamic piety and the lack of robbers accosting travelers, while negative qualities include cannibalism, hatred of white people with Batuda counting Arabs and North Africans as white and feeble intellect. In terms of the general level

of civilization, technology, and architecture, Batuda writes almost nothing. By itself, this is obviously not very useful. But when we consider that the rest of his work is filled with tales of the incredible cities, grand buildings, skilled craftsmen, and vast

resources of the lands he visited, the absence of any of this in his description of West Africa strongly suggests that such elements simply weren't present. From Leo Africanis and Iben Patuta, we can get a reasonable understanding of the level of

development of West Africa. However, while it's important to debunk general exaggerations of West African prosperity and development, the focus of this video is whether Matsumusa personally is the richest man in history who gave away so much gold that he crashed the Egyptian

economy. This claim originates from tales of his pilgrimage to Mecca, which he undertook in 1324. And our two best primary sources for this event are the Arab historian Iben Alumari and to a lesser extent, the North African historian Alcalun.

Alumari is chronologically the closest historian to record Mount Samus' pilgrimage, visiting Cairo and interviewing witnesses somewhere between 1337 and 1349. That means that in the best case scenario, there was over a decade between Musa's pilgrimage and Alumari's investigation. But in the context of

medieval history, this is about as good as can be expected. Alumari writes that Matsumusa went on his pilgrimage with a large entourage loaded with an unspecified but enormous quantity of gold which he spent so recklessly that the value of gold plummeted due to the

massive surplus. Of course, we should immediately be a little bit cautious about drawing any definitive conclusions about what an historian records based on eyewitness testimony from an event 12 to 25 years prior. The tendency for ancient and medieval historians and witnesses to

exaggerate metrics like army sizes is wellknown and in this case we have further reason to be skeptical. This is because the story of Mansam Musa appears in the 25 volume encyclopedia Maselik al abs mamalik alamsa. These books are part

of a category of Islamic literature called the roads and kingdoms genre which has similarities to modern western geographies but also key differences.

One such difference is the concept of ajib which roughly translates to marvels or wonders. There was an expectation that these early geographies would amaze the reader with tales of miracles or larger than life figures which means that telling a grand story often took

precedence over communicating verified and accurate facts. As an example, in the same book which describes Matsumusa's pilgrimage, Alum Mari claims that there is a stone in Syria with the power to magically cure fatal snake bites of anybody who lays eyes upon it.

This being the case, we need to keep in mind that impressing the reader or communicating a broad concept was probably a consideration for Alumari, and we shouldn't assume that researching and conveying exact facts was his only priority.

A trend that I quickly picked up on across all of the lists and articles covering Matsum Musa's wealth is that it is almost always recorded as incalculable or beyond comprehension. The reason for this is simple and it isn't because Matsumusa

had so much gold that there are no numbers big enough to quantify it. The real reason is Alum Mari just didn't specify exact amounts when writing on the subject and he is the source on which all other writings on Mount

Moose's pilgrimage are based. The closest he gives us to a precise number is that Musa brought 100 loads of gold.

But this is both suspiciously even and also completely uninformative as a load of gold can be almost any amount. The reason Alumari didn't record specific details obviously is because he didn't know them. After all, his own information came from conducting

eyewitness interviews of those who had seen the pilgrimage 13 years or more prior. And obviously those individuals didn't actually count or weigh the gold which the Malian king brought with them.

It's kind of like if you attended a massive Christmas parade where candy was being handed out by participants and then 15 years later I asked you to estimate how many pieces of candy were present across all the baskets and

buckets from which it was distributed. Making any sort of accurate or confident claim under those circumstances is obviously completely impossible. Moose's wealth is incalculable, but only because we have no specific information about it. This being the case, it's insane and

irresponsible to extrapolate from this historical footnote that Mansamusa was the richest man ever, and therefore Subzahar in West Africa was actually very wealthy, and if you disagree, you're just a dumb racist. The reason this topic infuriated me enough to

actually make a video about it is you'll get subhuman morons who can barely read and don't know anything about anything, confidently calling you uneducated if you mention how primitive subsahara in Africa was and then citing Msamusa as their proof that it was actually

prosperous over there until evil Whitey showed up and stole all the resources or something. Anyway, aside from the general claim that Mountsamusa brought a lot of gold with him on the pilgrimage, there is another detail of Alumari's account which has been used to support

the idea that Matsumusa was incredibly wealthy. What Alumari says is, "This man flooded Cairo with his benefactions. He left no court amir nor holder of a royal office without the gift of a load of gold. The Chines made incalculable

profits out of him and his suite in buying and selling and giving and taking. They exchanged gold until they depressed its value in Egypt and caused its price to fall. Gold was at a high price in Egypt until they came in that

year. The Myithkal did not go below 25 dirhams and was generally above, but from that time its value fell and it cheapened in price and has remained cheap till now. The Mithkal does not exceed 22 dirhams or less. This has been

the state of affairs for about 12 years until this day by reason of the large amount of gold which they brought into Egypt and spent there. Conveniently for us, one of the leading experts on Mamluke Egypt's monetary history,

Professor Warren Scholes, wrote a paper on this exact subject creatively titled Mzam Moose's gold in Mamlu Cairo. The paper isn't particularly long, so I suggest reading it if you're interested in all the details. But essentially what Shells shows is that the claim of

Msamus's pilgrimage significantly decreasing the price of gold for a long period of time only appears in a single source, Alumari, and is contradicted by other historical data that we have about exchange rates at the time.

Supposedly, the exchange rate fell from 25 to 22 silver coins per gold coin, but our other sources show that a 20 to1 exchange ratio was typical for the time preceding and following Msamus's pilgrimage. Additionally, Schulz points out that the alleged price fluctuation

of three silver coins is well within the normal variance at the time with changes in price driven by geopolitical events like the Mongol capture of Damascus or even just ordinary price speculation.

To use the Mongol conquest as an example, the price of gold plummeted from 25.5 to1 to 17 to1 before rebounding to the stable and typical 20 to1 exchange rate. There are sources which say the price of gold fell in

1324, but evidently there was no long-term effect and attributing something complex like currency fluctuation to a single event is almost certainly an oversimplification.

This quote from Scholes nicely summarizes the issue and reveals the what perspective of undergraduate students compared to the far less impressive reality. As someone who works on the monetary history of the Mamluk Sultanate, I had come across several

mentions of Mansam Musa's pilgrimage in the Maml era chronicles. However, it was only when I began teaching the world civilization survey that I became aware of the prominence given to this event in the textbooks. for it is rarely

mentioned in the common English language surveys of the medieval Muslim world that one might typically use in an Islamic history survey course. Yet, as far as I have been able to determine, only one Mamluk source, Alumari, mentions that Mansam Musa's gold was the

cause of long-term drop in the value of gold. When this account of long-lasting devaluation is carefully compared to the wider selection of the available Mamluke sources, a different picture emerges.

Far from being a unique cause of a drop in the value of gold, a review of exchange rates provided from Mamlip Cairo reveals that the Mansam Musa episode was but one of many short-term fluctuations recorded for the first half

of the 14th century. I've got to say it was nice to have an actual academic come in and confirm for us that the tale of Mansamusa crashing the Egyptian economy is unserious pop history propagated by ideologues like John Green who are more

concerned with proving how rich and awesome medieval Africa was than actually teaching true information.

We've gone over the specific claims that Alumari makes, but there are even more reasons why blindly believing everything this guy says is really, really dumb.

Not only is the genre of book he was writing prone to exaggeration and fantastical elements, but another relevant consideration is that he was ruled and employed by the Sultan of Egypt, who had met with Mount Musa personally. This being the case, Alumari

has motive to overstate the wealth and prestige of Mountusa in order to glorify his own ruler, who Musa knelt and paid homage to. We can never know whether Alumari intentionally inflated Moose's wealth for this reason, but it's yet

another potential vector of unreliability. Also, it's worth mentioning a section of Alumari's account, which is usually ignored.

According to him, on the way back from Mecca, Mansamusa ran out of gold due to his naivity and irresponsible spending, having to borrow money from Egyptian merchants at a very high interest rate.

Some modern analyses have tried to twist this excerpt into being Msumus's benevolent attempt at fixing the gold market he crashed. But this is utterly baseless speculation. In fact, what Alumari is doing is continuing a frequent theme of Arabic geography,

which is that subsaharan Africans are foolish and unintelligent, which is an idea originating from the Greek theory of clims, in which zones of the earth resulted in different mental phenotypes due to climate and geography. Anyway, considering that Matsumusa managed to spend all the gold

he brought with him just halfway through his journey, it's implausible that he had enough with him to qualify as the richest man in history. This being the case, claims of his vast wealth make the assumption that he had a giant stockpile

of gold back in Mali and he brought just a small fraction with him to Mecca.

However, there is no actual evidence for this and some historians like NYU professor Michael Gomez believe that Musa may have spent years gathering the golden resources for his pilgrimage. If that hypothesis is correct, it would make Matsumusa not the richest man of

all time, but the most financially irresponsible. Maybe if he had invested years of revenues in building industries and towns instead of blowing it on a giant flashy pilgrimage to impress others, Marley could have attained a higher level of civilization.

In fact, in Mali and oral traditions, Mansamusa seems to be poorly regarded and is accused of squandering the wealth of Mali for his own glorification. According to Professor Lucy Duran at the School of African Oriental Studies in London, he gave out

so much Malian gold along the way that jellies, which are oral historians, don't like to praise him in their songs because they think he wasted local resources outside the empire.

That's a pretty comprehensive breakdown of all of the issues and inaccuracies in Alumari's work, which leaves us with just one more source. Before we dive into what Iben Caldun wrote about Matsumusa, I want to point out how silly

it is that left-wing Westerners with white guilt try to use these Arabic sources to construct a narrative in which subsaharan Africa was developed and thriving prior to exploitative colonialism. This quote from Calaldun encapsulates the general attitude of the

Arabs towards subsaharan African people who it's worth remembering the Arabs enslaved and castrated on mass. Any layman motivated enough to actually read what these explorers and historians wrote will come away with the opposite viewpoint of the deceptive and

cherrypicked narrative which is currently being propagated. Anyway, the author of that lovely quote, Iban Caldun, was born in Tunis in 1332 and he was of Arab descent. This means that Matsumus's pilgrimage took place 8 years before Caldun was even born, making him a far

less interesting source than Alumari, who was at least kind of contemporary to the events which he was describing. While Caldun is frequently cited as an important source in Matsumusa, his work on the topic is more concerned with lineage and chronology

rather than specific events or sociological description. Calun repeats Alumari's claims that Musa traveled with large quantities of gold. He says that Musa brought 80 loads of 150 kgs of gold with him, which would be 12 tons of gold. For

context, according to world history.org, there were 88 tons of gold in the entirety of Europe during the 15th century. And the famously vast quantities of gold which Spain extracted from the New World amounted to approximately 100 tons between 1492 and

1560. This means that if the 12ton sum was accurate, Mansumusa would have an astronomically consequential amount with him. Yet somehow, he apparently spent all this gold halfway through his journey without any notable economic effects. As we established earlier,

additionally, transporting 12 tons of anything across the Sahara Desert would be practically impossible. I think it's pretty safe to say that 50 years of Chinese whispers and exaggeration brought us from Alumari's unspecified 100 loads to Iben Caldun's claim of 12

tons in 1377. Apart from the ludicrous claim of 12 tons of gold, Iben Kaldun doesn't have too much to say about Msumusa. He praises him as a wise and just king and that's about it. I found studying Mount

Samusa to make this video extremely interesting because it involved not just learning about the particular historical sources whose testimonies have been warped and misrepresented, but it also necessitated researching the Mali Empire and subsaharan West Africa in general.

Now, the obvious takeaway from this video, of course, is that Mansam Musa was nowhere close to the richest man of all time. There are no primary sources which reliably quantify as wealth and secondary data like effects on financial

markets turned out to be totally exaggerated. More important than this though is what we've learned about subsahara and west Africa and the people who've lived there. Contrary to what some might say, medieval Mali was an historically irrelevant non- entity with

no great conquests, no renowned architects, no innovative scholars, no legendary explorers, and no productive artisans. It was a local power to put it generously and its illiterate population primarily lived nomadically or in primitive farming settlements as was the

case with almost all of subsaharan Africa prior to Western colonialism. The Africans had incredible resources and they had vast foreign expertise which introduced them to concepts like written language and architecture. But they totally failed to learn. When northern

Europeans encountered more advanced Mediterranean civilizations, they took the gift of knowledge and improved upon it. But in West Africa, once changing economic conditions drew away the Muslim traders, even the modest structures like the mosque of Den and the city of

Timbuktu receded and decayed. This has parallels with colonialism with modern African states like Zimbabwe utterly failing to utilize or even maintain the infrastructure they inherited. In contrast to Asian colonies like Singapore or Malaysia which have learned from, emulated and in some ways

surpassed their colonial masters. I don't think a single example in world history exists of these people independently perpetuating or improving civilization regardless of conditions.

This being the case, it seems utterly foolish to assume that with enough aid programs and technical assistance, they will ever be thriving and orderly cities in subsaharan Africa, or that they can be brought over to the West as

immigrants and start behaving indistinguishably from Dutch or Swedish people in a generation or two. That's a bigger topic, though, and covering it requires discussing some facts which probably aren't allowed on YouTube. I hope you enjoyed this video, and if you

did, consider subscribing because I plan on making more similar content in the future. My next project is going to be focusing on the Belgian Congo and the dishonest way in which alleged atrocities there are used to push anti-white hatred today. And I'm sure

that anybody who liked this video will find that topic equally interesting.