1. Trade/Taxes
1.1. Salt, Slaves, and Gold
1.1.1. Salt mines in the north of Mali and now due to Mali's newly annexed territory they held 3 immense gold mines in the south, which was more than Ghana ever had.
1.2. Taxed every merchant passing through the land
1.3. Eventually opened up trade with Tripoli and Morocco to the north.
1.4. Mansa Musa went on Pilgrimage to Meca, spreading his nations VAST amounts of gold and in doing so attracting scholars and architects to bring back to the Mali Empire.
2. Military
2.1. Funded by the great trade and taxes that Sundiata put in place.
2.2. Main purpose: to guard the trade caravan from bandits.
2.3. Enflorce taxes
2.4. Raids on surrounding area to capture slaves
3. Structure of Government
3.1. Building up cities
3.1.1. Mansa Musa focused on developing cities that ran along water sources like the Niger River.
3.1.2. This included Timbuktu, which Mansa Musa made into a hub of knowledge and new architecture
3.2. Semi-confederation/semi-ruled by a King (known as the Mansa) who could veto anything that the tribute states supported.
3.3. Capital moved to Sundiata's old town of Niani which was further south than the original Ghana captial making it safer from Morrocan raiders from the north.
3.4. Sundiata was also able to rise to power due to his people having great lands for raising horses/calvary as well as knowing how to do metal work which would allow them to make better tools and weapons.
3.5. Mansa Musa's successors would not rule well and combined with high levels of slavery the country was thrown in civil war fracturing the nation
4. Origin
4.1. Rise of the Empire
4.1.1. Born from the ashes of the Ghana Empire.
4.1.1.1. Ghana's great wealth and power brought dangers from their neighbors who wished to take their wealth and power for themselves.
4.1.1.1.1. Invasions from neighbors who wished to seize Ghana's wealth splintered the state of Ghana into smaller fiefdoms
5. Fall of the Empire
5.1. Rivaled by rising neighboring state of Songhai
5.1.1. The Songhai was able to take advantage of the Mali's splintering and started to take over parts of it.
5.1.1.1. Was able to push them back but cut off from trade routes now
5.1.1.1.1. Found new trade with Europe for Gold and SLAVES
5.2. Moroccans invade with guns wipe out the Songhai and severely hurt what remained of the Mali in battle
5.2.1. Afterward wars would plague the nation until it's eventual collapse in the 1670
6. Famous Leaders
6.1. Sundiata and Mansa Musa
7. Customs and Culture
7.1. Religion
7.1.1. Mix of African religion and Islam (primarily the upper class adhered more to Islam than the lower classes, primarily because they were the ones who interacted with other Islamic Countries in the North.