Mandingo warrior biography

The Mandinka (also known as the Mandingo and Malinke, among other names) are a West African people spread across parts of Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mali, Senegal, the Gambia and Guinea-Bissau. 

With a global population of some 11 million, the Mandinka are the best-known ethnic group of the Mande peoples, all of whom speak different dialects of the Mande language. They are descendants of the great Mali Empire that flourished in West Africa from the 13th through the 16th centuries. 

Beginning in the 16th century, tens of thousands of Mandinka were captured, enslaved and shipped to the Americas. Of the approximately , Africans who landed in America as a result of the slave trade, historians believe 92, (24 percent) were Senegambians, from the region of West Africa comprising the Senegal and Gambia Rivers and the land between them; many were Mandinka and Bambara (another Mande ethnic group). In the 20th century, the author Alex Haley made the Mandinka famous when he traced his “Roots” back to the village of Juffure in the Gambia, where his great-great-great-great-grandfather, Kunta Kinte, was captured and sold into slavery in the United States.

Some Mandinka converted to Islam from their traditional animist beliefs as early as the 12th century, but after a series of Islamic holy wars in the late 19th century, more than 95 percent of Mandinka are Muslims today. Most live in family compounds in rural villages, which are largely autonomous and governed by local chiefs. Most Mandinka men are poor subsistence farmers, for whom one rainy season spells hunger and ruin. Peanuts are a main crop, and a staple of the Mandinka diet; they also plant millet, corn and sorghum. Mandinka women do the laborious, physically demanding work of tending the rice fields, in addition to their roles as wives and mothers.

Traditional cu

West African ethnic group

Not to be confused with the larger Mandé peoples or the unrelated Dinka people of Sudan.

Ethnic group

The Mandinka or Malinke are a West Africanethnic group primarily found in southern Mali, The Gambia, southern Senegal and eastern Guinea. Numbering about 11 million, they are the largest subgroup of the Mandé peoples and one of the largest ethnolinguistic groups in Africa. They speak the Manding languages in the Mande language family, which are a lingua franca in much of West Africa. Virtually all of Mandinka people are adherent to Islam, mostly based on the Maliki jurisprudence. They are predominantly subsistence farmers and live in rural villages. Their largest urban center is Bamako, the capital of Mali.

The Mandinka are the descendants of the Mali Empire, which rose to power in the 13th century under the rule of king Sundiata Keita, who founded an empire that would go on to span a large part of West Africa. They migrated west from the Niger River in search of better agricultural lands and more opportunities for conquest. Nowadays, the Mandinka inhabit the West Sudanian savanna region extending from The Gambia and the Casamance region in Senegal, Mali, Guinea and Guinea Bissau. Although widespread, the Mandinka constitute the largest

Mandé ethnic group in Sierra Leone

Ethnic group

Mandingo people of Sierra Leone (commonly referred to as the Mandinka, Mandingo or Malinke) is a major ethnic group in Sierra Leone and a branch of the Mandinka people of West Africa. The Mandingo first settled in what is now Sierra Leone from Guinea over years ago as farmers, traders and Islamic clerics in the time of the Mali Empire, an empire under the rule of the famous Muslim ruler Mansa Musa. About years later, Beginning in the late s to the s under the rule of prominent Mandinka Muslim cleric Samori Ture, an even larger group of Mandingo immigrated from Eastern Guinea settled in northeastern Sierra Leone on lands conqured by the Muslim ruler Samori Toure as part of the Wassoulou Empire. The Mandingo are partly responsible for the spread of Islam in Sierra Leone. The Mandingo people of Sierra Leone have a very close friendly and allied relationship with their neighbors the Mandingo people of Guinea and Liberia, as they share very similar identical dialect of the Mandingo language, tradition, culture and food.

The Mandingo constitute 5% of Sierra Leone's population. Like the larger Mandinka people, the Sierra Leonean Mandingo are over 99% Muslim and they follow the Sunni tradition of Islam based on the Maliki Jurisprudence. Islam has become the basis of their religious and cultural practices. The Mandingo are well known for their conservative Islamic tradition. The Mandingo people of Sierra Leone are historically predominantly traders and rural subsistence farmers. The most famous Mandingo from Sierra Leone is Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, the president of Sierra Leone from to

Other famous Mandingo from Sierra Leone include Sierra Leone former vice president Sorie Ibrahim Koroma, current Sierra Leone first ladyFatima Maada Bio, and former chairman of the Sierra Leone national electoral commission Mohamed Nfa Alie Conteh.

The Mandingo people of Sierra Leone spe