Mossi states | Mossi Kingdoms, Burkina Faso, West Africa | Britannica (original) (raw)

Mossi states, complex of independent West African kingdoms (fl. c. 1500–1895) around the headwaters of the Volta River (within the modern republics of Burkina Faso [Upper Volta] and Ghana) including in the south Mamprusi, Dagomba, and Nanumba, and in the north Tenkodogo, Wagadugu (Ouagadougou), Yatenga, and Fada-n-Gurma (Fada Ngourma).

Though Mossi traditions held that ancestors came from the east—perhaps in the 13th century—the origins of the kingdoms are obscure. The Mossi, unlike their forest neighbours, relied on long-ranging light cavalry with which they harassed the empire of Mali to the north and that of Songhai, with which they vied for control of the Middle Niger. From about 1400 they acted as trading intermediaries between the forest states and the cities of the Niger. Confined by Songhai after 1600 to a more southerly region, they nevertheless remained independent until the French invasions of the late 19th century. See also Mali; Songhai empire.