![]() ![]() In West Africa in 1860, that was a potent message and Samori soon attracted thousands of followers and so was able to quickly expand. ![]() Instead he offered conquest and the peace and prosperity of a united state which controlled the entire trading routes of the Dyula, both north and south, and so could guarantee the safe movement of kola nuts and slaves alike. He respected the pagan faith and the islamic faith equally and did not preach nor demand conversions, both faiths would be welcome in his empire. Samori's great early advantage was that in a time of bitter and seemingly endless holy wars between pagans and muslims, he preached religious tolerance. Like elsewhere in West Africa, guns and gunpowder became increasingly common and so increasingly necessary as polities without them had short life expectancies. But as the Sahel trade declined, the Dyula opened a second trade line to the south, selling their slaves to Europeans on the coast in return for knives, kettles, clothes and, in particular, old firearms. Kola nuts and slaves went north and cloth, salt, pottery and horses came south. Traditionally, their big trade was with Timbuktu and the other Sahel cities. His ancestors had been Muslim merchants from the Sahel who had settled in Guinea to organise this trade and became known as the Dyula, the general name for Islamic immigrants into the pagan lands of Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and the Côte d'Ivoire. His family farmed Kola nuts which were sold as a stimulant and water flavourer to the Islamic scholars of Mali, who then imported them to North Africa and the Middle East. Samori was born in modern day Guinea, in the area of Konya.
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