History

Before Imperialism

After the collapse of the Songhai empire, many empires/kingdoms were created. The Toucouleur Empire began in 1864. Founded by El Hadj Umar Tall, the empire ruled most of Mali until the French conquest of the region in 1890. The Toucouleur Empire resisted French forces but soon failed. In result, French was able to imperialize the empire.

During Imperialism

After the conquering of the Toucouleur Empire, French forced Mali to buy French goods such as fish, gold, salt, etc. Even cultures and religions were exchanged between French and Mali. For example, Soccer was introduced to Mali and soon became popular. Christianity was soon introduced to Mali. This was good thing for Mali because of social and cultural reasons, but not economically. French’s economy rises because of Mali’s good resource of gold. In the end, this made French’s economy wealthy while this made Mali’s economy in distress. In 1960, French agreed to the Federation of Mali to become fully independent. On June 20 1960, Mali became independent and Modibo Keita became its first president.

After Imperialism

There were both pros and cons to this result. Mali lost their political power and their government. Also Mali had to redraw their artificial borders. Meaning they had to redo Mali’s borders. The positive outcome was that Mali developed a strong sense of nationalism. Mali was also able to develop its own constitution and other forms of government.