AUTHORITIES.--The bibliography dealing with the Mandingo peoples is very extensive, but only the following works need be cited: Captain L. G. Binger, _Du Niger au Golfe de Guinée_, &c. (1892); Maurice Delafosse, _Vocabulaires comparatifs de plus de 60 langues et dialectes parlés à la Côte d'Ivoire_, &c. (1904); Lieut. Desplagnes, _Le Plateau central nigérien_ (1907); Lady Lugard, _A Tropical Dependency_ (1905); Sir Harry Johnston, _Liberia_ (1906). Most of these works contain extensive bibliographies. (H. H. J.)
_The Melle Empire._--The tradition which ascribes the arrival of the Mandingo in the western Sudan to the 10th or 11th century is referred to in the previous section. It is not known by whom the Melle (Mali) state was founded. Neither is there certainty as to the site of the capital, also called Melle. Idrisi in the 12th century describes the Wangara (a Hausa name for the Mandingo) as a powerful people, and El Bakri writes in similar terms. But the first king whose name is preserved was Baramindana, believed to have reigned from 1213 to 1235. His territory lay south of that of Jenné, partly within the bend of the Niger and partly west of that river. The people were already Moslem, and the capital was a rendezvous for merchants from all parts of the western Sudan and the Barbary States. Mari Jatah (or Diara), Baramindana's successor, about the middle of the 13th century conquered the Susu, then masters of Ghanata (Ghana). Early in the 14th century Mansa, i.e. Sultan, Kunkur Musa, extended the empire, known as the Mellistine, to its greatest limits, making himself master of Timbuktu, Gao and all the Songhoi dominions. His authority extended northward over the Sahara to the Tuat oases. Mansa Suleiman was on the throne when in 1352-1353 Melle was visited by Ibn Batuta. By this monarch the empire was divided into three great provinces, ruled by viceroys. For a century afterwards Melle appears to have been the dominant Sudan state west of the Lower Niger, but it had to meet the hostility of the growing power of the pagan Mossi, of the Tuareg in the north and of the Songhoi, who under Sunni Ali (c. 1325) had already regained a measure of independence. Cadamosto nevertheless describes Melle in 1454 as being still the most powerful of the negro-land kingdoms and the most important for its traffic in gold and slaves. The Songhoi sovereign Askia is said to have completed the conquest of Melle at the beginning of the 16th century. It nevertheless retained some sort of national existence--though with the advent of the Moors in the Niger countries (end of the 16th century) native civilization suffered a blow from which it never recovered. Civil war is said to have finally wrought the ruin of Melle about the middle of the 17th century.[2] The Portuguese, from their first appearance on the Senegal and Gambia, entered into friendly relations with the rulers of Melle. Barros relates (_Da Asia_, Decade I.) that John II. of Portugal sent embassies to the court of Melle by way of the Gambia (end of the 15th century). At that time the authority of Melle was said to extend westward to the coast. The king, pressed by the Mossi, the Songhoi and the Fula, solicited the help of his "friends and allies" the Portuguese--with what result does not appear; but in 1534 Barros himself despatched an ambassador to the king of Melle concerning the trade of the Gambia. By way of that river the Portuguese themselves penetrated as far as Bambuk, a country conquered by the Mandingo in the 12th century. By Barros the name of the Melle ruler is given as Mandi Mansa, which may be the native form for "Sultan of the Mandi" (Mandingo).