Bambuk

Bambuk was a gold-producing region between the upper Senegal and Falémé rivers, absorbed into the Mali Empire in the thirteenth century. Soninke and Malinké communities lived in largely autonomous mountain villages.

Around 1550 a Portuguese party reached the Falémé but perished. The French built Fort Saint Pierre in 1714 and two trading posts in 1724, all abandoned by 1759. Bambuk never formed a lasting kingdom, and its divided villages suffered repeated raids by Khasso and Bundu in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.