Bambara people

The Bambara (Bambara: Bamana or Banmana) are a Mandé people living in west Africa, primarily in Mali but also in Guinea, Burkina Faso and Senegal. They are considered to be amongst the largest Mandé ethnic groups, and are the dominant Mandé group in Mali, with 80% of the population speaking the Bambara language, regardless of ethnicity.

History

The Bamana originated as a royal section of the [[Mandinka people]. They are founders of the Mali Empire in the 13th Century. Both Mandinka and Bambara are part of the Mandé ethnic group, whose earliest known history can be traced back to sites near Tichitt (now subsumed by the Sahara in southern Mauritania), where urban centers began to emerge by as early as 2500 BC. By 250 BC, a Mandé subgroup, the Bozo, founded the city of Djenne. Between 300 AD and 1100 AD, the Soninke Mandé dominated the Western Sudan, leading the Ghana Empire. When the Mandé Songhai Empire dissolved after 1600 AD, many Mandé-speaking groups along the upper Niger river basin turned inward. The Bamana appeared again in this milieu with the rise of a Bamana Empire in the 1740s, when the Mali Empire started to crumble around 1559.