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The Marka (also Marka Dafing, Meka, or Maraka) people are a
Mande people Mande may refer to:
* Mandé peoples of western Africa
* Mande languages
* Manding, a term covering a subgroup of Mande peoples, and sometimes used for one of them, Mandinka
* Garo people of northeastern India and northern Bangladesh
* Mande Rive ...
of northwest
Mali
Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية مالي, Jumhūriyyāt Mālī is a landlocked country in West Africa. Mali ...
. They speak the
Marka language, a
Manding language.
History
Muslim
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
merchant communities at the time of the
Bambara Empire
The Bamana Empire (also Bambara Empire or Ségou Empire, bm, italics=no, ߓߊ߲ߓߊߙߊ߲߫ ߝߊ߯ߡߟߊ, Banbaran Fāmala) was a large West African state based at Ségou, now in Mali. This state was established after the fall of the Mali Emp ...
, the Maraka largely controlled the desert-side trade between the
sahel
The Sahel (; ar, ساحل ' , "coast, shore") is a region in North Africa. It is defined as the ecoclimatic and biogeographic realm of transition between the Sahara to the north and the Sudanian savanna to the south. Having a hot semi-arid c ...
communities and nomadic
berber tribes who crossed the
Sahara
, photo = Sahara real color.jpg
, photo_caption = The Sahara taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, 1972
, map =
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. The Bambara integrated Maraka communities into their state structure, and Maraka trading posts and plantations multiplied in the
Segu based state and its
Kaarta
Kaarta, or Ka'arta, was a short-lived Bambara kingdom in what is today the western half of Mali.
As Bitòn Coulibaly tightened his control over Ségou, capital of his newly founded Bambara Empire, a faction of Ségou Bambara dissatisfied with h ...
vassals in the 18th and early 19th centuries. When the pagan Bambara empire was defeated by the Maraka's fellow Muslim
Umar Tall
Hadji Oumarûl Foutiyou Tall (Umar ibn Sa'id al-Futi Tal, ar, حاج عمر بن سعيد طعل), ( – 1864 CE), born in Futa Tooro, present day Senegal, was a West African political leader, Islamic scholar, Tijani Sufi and Toucouleur ...
in the 1850s, the Maraka's unique trade and landholdings concessions suffered damage from which they never recovered.
Today
Today there are only around 25,000 Marka speakers, and they are largely integrated amongst their
Soninke and
Bambara neighbors.
Culture
The Marka people are adherents of Islam.
References
*Richard L. Roberts. ''Warriors, Merchants and Slaves: The State and the Economy in the Middle Niger Valley 1700-1914''. Stanford University Press (1987), .
*Richard L. Roberts. Production and Reproduction of Warrior States: Segu Bambara and Segu Tokolor, c. 1712-1890. ''The International Journal of African Historical Studies'', Vol. 13,No. 3 (1980),pp. 389–419.
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Ethnic groups in Mali
History of Mali
Toucouleur Empire
Bamana Empire
Soninke people