Walata

Walata, the Soninke Biru, lay on the eastern edge of the Aoukar basin and in the thirteenth century replaced Awdaghust as the southern end of the caravan route that ran from Sijilmasa through the salt mines of Taghaza. It grew into a trading and religious centre under the Ghana and Mali empires. Ibn Battuta, who stayed about fifty days in 1352–53, found it excessively hot, with a few small date palms in whose shade the people sowed watermelons, plenty of mutton, and a Muslim population of the Massufa, a Sanhaja people. He was surprised by the independence and respect that women enjoyed.

From the second half of the fourteenth century Timbuktu gradually took Walata's place as the end of the Saharan road, and the town became a poor backwater. Mali lost control of it in 1433. In 1480 the Mossi besieged Walata for a month and sacked it, but its people rallied, chased the raiders and rescued many of the captives. When Leo Africanus came in 1509–10 he found three large villages and some huts among the palms, and a prince who paid heavy tribute to the king of Timbuktu, Songhai having become the language of the town. Early in the seventeenth century Hassaniya Arabs came in, and for a century and a half three Soninke families, the Lemhajib, ruled the town while becoming absorbed into the Arab and Berber world.