The Marka (also Marka Dafing, Meka, or Maraka) people are a

Mande people Mande may refer to: * Mandé peoples of western Africa * Mande languages, their Niger-Congo languages * Manding, a term covering a subgroup of Mande peoples, and sometimes used for one of them, Mandinka * Garo people of northeastern India and no ...

of northwest

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 ...

. They speak Marka, a Manding language. Some of the Maraka (Dafin people are found in Ghana.

History

The Marka originated from

Soninke people The Soninke (Sarakolleh) people are a West African Mande languages, Mande-speaking ethnic group found in Mali, southern Mauritania, eastern Senegal, The Gambia, and Guinea (especially Fouta Djallon). They speak the Soninke language, also called ...

from Wagadu Empire who migrated to the middle Niger between the 11th and 13th centuries. The term 'Maraka' means 'men who rule' in Bambara, which may have originated as a term for the colonists from Wagadu or merely as a term of respect. Relatively geographically constrained compared to other trading communities such as the Jakhanke and

Dyula people The Dyula (Dioula or Juula) are a Mande people, Mande ethnic group inhabiting several West African countries, including Mali, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Burkina Faso. Characterized as a highly successful merchant caste, ''Dyula'' migrants began ...

, they founded Nyamina and Sansanding during this early period, and Barouéli and Banamba in the 19th century. All four were at various times prominent trading and religious centers.

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

merchant communities at the time of the Bambara Empire, the Maraka largely controlled the desert-side trade between the

Sahel The Sahel region (; ), or Sahelian acacia savanna, is a Biogeography, biogeographical region in Africa. It is the Ecotone, transition zone between the more humid Sudanian savannas to its south and the drier Sahara to the north. The Sahel has a ...

and nomadic

Berbers Berbers, or the Berber peoples, also known as Amazigh or Imazighen, are a diverse grouping of distinct ethnic groups indigenous to North Africa who predate the arrival of Arab migrations to the Maghreb, Arabs in the Maghreb. Their main connec ...

and

Moors The term Moor is an Endonym and exonym, exonym used in European languages to designate the Muslims, Muslim populations of North Africa (the Maghreb) and the Iberian Peninsula (particularly al-Andalus) during the Middle Ages. Moors are not a s ...

of the

Sahara The Sahara (, ) is a desert spanning across North Africa. With an area of , it is the largest hot desert in the world and the list of deserts by area, third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Ar ...

. Their economy was based on slave plantation agriculture growing food and cotton to be traded. The Bambara integrated Maraka communities into their state structure, and Maraka trading posts and plantations multiplied in the Segu based state and its Kaarta vassals in the 18th and early 19th centuries. When the Bambara Empire (which practiced African spirituality) was defeated by the Maraka's fellow Muslim

Umar Tall Hadji Oumarûl Foutiyou Tall (ʿUmar ibn Saʿīd al-Fūtī Ṭaʿl, , – 1864 CE), born in Futa Tooro, present-day Senegal, was a Senegalese Tijani sufi Toucouleur Islamic scholar and military commander who founded the short-lived Touc ...

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 Bamana Empire Soninke people Soninke Wangara diaspora