African Glory

At the end of his life, Christopher Columbus decided to reveal his great secret: the knowledge he acquired from the master navigators of the West African coast, and the extraordinary story of the Mali Empire they belonged to. Anthropologist and historian Jean-Yves Loude shares the results of his in-depth investigation into Mandinka Emperor Abu Bakr II, who set off from the Senegalese coast at the head of a fleet of two thousand boats in 1311 according to a written account recorded in an official 14th-century encyclopedia. In parallel, the voice of Cheick Tidiane Seck is our guide on a journey to the heart of the Mali Empire: once upon a time the great Battle of Kirina took place, leading to the advent of an empire that would keep growing until Emperor Abu Bakr II set off on the Sea of Darkness. Why was this story seen as cursed even within Mandinka culture? Why did the emperor want to organize such a vast expedition? He never returned from it, so did his venture succeed? Does the American continent still have traces of Abu Bakr II's arrival there? Did Christopher Columbus himself know about his predecessor's expedition? Did the first African to set foot in the Americas arrive as a king and not a slave?