Navel of the World

Financial Times/Dele Olojede/12-16-2021

“Camels and horses reportedly carried up to 18 tonnes of pure gold, all of which the benevolent ruler dispensed along his route to all and sundry. … On account of this singular voyage, the price of gold reportedly plummeted throughout the region by up to 25 per cent over the following decade.”

USAGOLD note: An eye-opener …… Financial Timers Dele Olojede reviews Howard French’s new book, Born in Blackness, which chronicles Africa’s central role in the emergence of the modern world. In the fourteenth century Mali ruler Mansa Musa, who some say was the wealthiest individual in history, traveled to Mecca to pay homage spreading his golden largesse along the way. Musa’s journey, says French, “remembered by virtually no one save the historians of medieval Africa, merits consideration as one of the most important moments in the making of the Atlantic world”.