Kaladian Coulibaly was a

West African West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Ma ...

ruler who founded one of the first large Bambara kingdoms, centered on

Ségou Ségou (; , ) is a town and an Communes of Mali, urban commune in south-central Mali that lies northeast of Bamako on the right bank of the River Niger. The town is the capital of the Ségou Cercle and the Ségou Region. With 130,690 inhabitant ...

in what is now

Mali Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is the List of African countries by area, eighth-largest country in Africa, with an area of over . The country is bordered to the north by Algeria, to the east b ...

. Originally from Kong in what is now the

Ivory Coast Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire and officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital city of Yamoussoukro is located in the centre of the country, while its largest List of ci ...

, he was a mercenary warlord who overthrew the ruling Koita dynasty of Segou. Around 1650, Coulibaly's kingdom was one of the dominant forces in the region. Though it lacked a systematic framework and thus failed to outlast his death (c. 1680), his great-grandson Bitòn Coulibaly would found a more stable Bambara Empire fifty years later on the same spot.

References

*Davidson, Basil. ''Africa in History''. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. *Page, Willie. (ed.) ''Encyclopedia of African History and Culture''. Facts on File, 2005.

External links

Timeline of Western Sudan
Coulibaly, Kaladian 17th-century African people Faamas {{Mali-bio-stub