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. Mal ...

. They speak the Marka language, a Manding language.

History

Muslim merchant communities at the time of the Bambara Empire, the Maraka largely controlled the desert-side trade between the sahel communities and nomadic berber tribes who crossed the Sahara. 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 ...

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. {{authority control Ethnic groups in Mali History of Mali Toucouleur Empire Bamana Empire Soninke people