Chapter 01 · c. 700 – 1050 CE
The Ghana Empire and the Sanhaja Sahara
Before Islam took deep root, the southern reaches of Mauritania lay within the great trans-Saharan trade empire of Ghana, while the veiled Sanhaja Berbers ruled the desert routes to the north.
The lands of present-day Mauritania straddle the boundary between the Saharan desert and the Sahel, and for centuries they were shaped by the trans-Saharan trade in gold, salt and slaves. From around the eighth century the southern part of the territory fell within the reach of the Ghana (Wagadou) Empire, a powerful Soninke kingdom whose wealth rested on its control of the gold trade between West Africa and the Mediterranean world.
Ghana's capital is generally identified with Koumbi Saleh, in the south-east of modern Mauritania near the Malian border. Archaeological excavation has revealed a substantial stone-built town that, at its height, may have held tens of thousands of inhabitants, with a separate quarter for Muslim merchants. It was one of the great emporia of the medieval Sahara, drawing caravans from across the desert.
To the north and west, the desert was the domain of the Sanhaja, a confederation of nomadic Amazigh (Berber) peoples famous for the litham, the veil worn by their men. The Sanhaja controlled the caravan routes that linked sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa, but in the early eleventh century their confederation fractured, opening a period of unrest from which a religious and military movement would soon arise.
“Koumbi Saleh, in the south-east of present-day Mauritania, is generally identified as the capital of the ancient Ghana Empire.”
— Encyclopaedic accounts of medieval West Africa
Turning points
- c. 8th centuryFormation
- c. 9th–11th centuryEconomy & Trade
Koumbi Saleh as a Saharan emporium
Koumbi Saleh, widely identified as Ghana's capital, grows into a major trading town with a Muslim merchants' quarter and, at its peak, tens of thousands of inhabitants.
See the data - early 11th centuryPeoples & Migration
Break-up of the Sanhaja confederation
The confederation of veiled Sanhaja Berbers controlling the western Saharan trade routes fragments, producing warfare and unrest among the desert tribes.
See the data
Chapter sources: Mauritania, History of Mauritania, Koumbi Saleh, Almoravids (Berber confederation)
Chapter 02 · c. 1040 – 1147 CE
The Almoravid Jihad
Out of the Sanhaja desert rose the Almoravids, a puritan reform movement that swept north into Morocco and Spain and south against the Ghana Empire.
Around 1039 a Sanhaja chief returning from the pilgrimage brought back the theologian Abdallah ibn Yasin to teach a stricter form of Islam among his people. Ibn Yasin's preaching, combining religious reform with military discipline, gathered a following known as the al-Murabitun, or Almoravids. From bases in the western Sahara the movement grew into a formidable fighting force welded together by faith.
After Ibn Yasin's death in 1059, leadership of the desert wing passed to the Sanhaja amir Abu Bakr ibn Umar, who is associated with the fortress of Azougui in the Adrar. While Abu Bakr's cousin Yusuf ibn Tashfin carried the movement north—taking Marrakesh and crossing into Muslim Spain—Abu Bakr turned south against the Ghana Empire. Medieval tradition holds that the Almoravids captured Koumbi Saleh around 1076, hastening Ghana's decline, though modern historians debate how decisive that campaign was.
At its height the Almoravid empire stretched from the Senegal River to the heart of Spain, the only state ever to unite the western Maghreb, the desert and al-Andalus under a power rooted in what is now Mauritania. The dynasty fell to the Almohads in the mid-twelfth century, but the Almoravid jihad had firmly anchored Islam in the western Sahara, the religious foundation of all that followed.
Turning points
- c. 1040Religion
- 1059War & Rupture
Death of Ibn Yasin; Abu Bakr leads the desert wing
After Ibn Yasin is killed in 1059, Abu Bakr ibn Umar takes command of the Almoravid forces in the Sahara, while Yusuf ibn Tashfin leads the northern conquests.
See the data - c. 1076War & Rupture
Almoravids said to take Koumbi Saleh
Tradition records that Almoravid forces under Abu Bakr captured the Ghanaian capital of Koumbi Saleh around 1076, contributing to the decline of the Ghana Empire—though the campaign's scale is debated.
See the data - 1147Politics & Power
Fall of the Almoravid empire
The Almoravid empire, which had stretched from the Senegal River to Spain, is overthrown by the Almohads, but Islam remains firmly rooted in the western Sahara.
Figures of the era
Abdallah ibn Yasindied 1059
Founder of the Almoravid movement
A Muslim theologian who preached a stricter Islam among the Sanhaja Berbers and forged them into the al-Murabitun (Almoravids), the reform movement that would conquer the western Maghreb and Spain.
Chapter sources: Almoravids (Berber confederation), Abdallah ibn Yasin, Abu Bakr ibn Umar, History of Mauritania, Koumbi Saleh
Chapter 03 · c. 1200 – 1700
Arab Migration, the Char Bouba War and the Caravan Ksour
Successive waves of Arab Beni Hassan tribes moved south into the desert, and after the Char Bouba war their language and warrior elite remade Moorish society around the great caravan towns.
From the thirteenth century onward, Arab tribes of the Banu Maqil—among them the Beni Hassan (Arabic Beni Hassan, or Awlad Hassan)—began migrating south and west into the western Sahara. Over several centuries these Bedouin newcomers spread their language and customs among the indigenous Sanhaja Berbers, giving rise to the Moorish (Bidan) society of Mauritania and to Hassaniya, the Arabic dialect that takes its name from the Beni Hassan and remains the vernacular of the country.
The decisive contest came in the seventeenth century with the Char Bouba war (often dated to roughly 1644–1674), also called the Marabout War. It pitted Sanhaja religious leaders against the Arab warrior tribes, and its outcome confirmed Arab military dominance: the descendants of the Beni Hassan warriors became the upper, sword-bearing stratum, while many Berbers turned to scholarship and religion as the zawaya (marabout) class. From this settlement emerged the Moorish emirates—Trarza and Brakna in the south-west, Tagant in the centre and Adrar in the north—each ruled by an emir drawn from the Hassan elite.
Across these centuries the desert towns of Ouadane, Chinguetti, Tichitt and Oualata, founded from the eleventh and twelfth centuries to serve the trans-Saharan caravans, flourished as trading entrepots and as celebrated centres of Islamic culture and learning. Their mosques with square minarets, libraries of manuscripts and stone-and-earth houses crowded along narrow streets made them renowned across the Muslim world; Chinguetti in particular became so esteemed a place of pilgrimage and scholarship that Mauritania is still sometimes called the 'land of Chinguetti'.
“Founded in the 11th and 12th centuries to serve the caravans crossing the Sahara, these trading and religious centres became focal points of Islamic culture.”
— UNESCO on the Ancient Ksour of Mauritania
Turning points
- 11th–12th centuryCulture & Ideas
- 13th–17th centuryPeoples & Migration
Beni Hassan Arab migration
Waves of Banu Maqil Arabs, including the Beni Hassan, migrate south into the western Sahara, spreading Hassaniya Arabic and gradually transforming the region's Berber society.
See the data - c. 1644–1674War & Rupture
The Char Bouba (Marabout) war
Sanhaja Berber religious leaders fight the Arab Beni Hassan tribes; the war's outcome confirms Arab warrior dominance and the social hierarchy of Moorish society.
See the data - late 17th centuryPolitics & Power
Chapter sources: Beni Ḥassān, Char Bouba war, Ancient Ksour of Ouadane, Chinguetti, Tichitt and Oualata, Ancient Ksour of Ouadane, Chinguetti, Tichitt and Oualata, Mauritania, History of Mauritania, Emirate of Brakna
Chapter 04 · 1900 – 1960
French Conquest and Pacification
France advanced into the desert at the turn of the twentieth century, but resistance among the emirates and nomadic tribes meant the colony was not fully 'pacified' until the 1930s.
French ambitions in the western Sahara grew from their established position on the Senegal River. From 1902 the administrator Xavier Coppolani led a campaign to extend French control northward by combining diplomacy with the marabout tribes and military pressure on the emirates. Coppolani was assassinated in 1905, but the conquest continued, and in 1904 the territory was formally organised as the civil territory of Mauritania within French West Africa.
Colonial authority long remained thin, concentrated along the southern river belt and the principal trade routes. The desert emirates and nomadic confederations resisted fiercely, and French 'pacification' proceeded slowly and unevenly. Adrar was occupied in 1909, but raiding and resistance persisted across the deep Sahara, and full military control of the far north was not achieved until the 1930s.
Under colonial rule Mauritania remained one of the most lightly administered and least developed parts of French West Africa, with no real colonial capital on its own soil—it was governed for a time from Saint-Louis in Senegal. Political life began to stir only after the Second World War, as a small educated elite emerged and the territory moved, with the rest of French Africa, toward self-government and eventual independence.
Turning points
- 1902Colonisation
Coppolani's pacification campaign begins
Xavier Coppolani launches France's drive to extend control over Mauritania, combining alliances with marabout tribes and military pressure on the emirates.
See the data - 1904Colonisation
Mauritania organised within French West Africa
The territory is formally constituted as the civil territory of Mauritania within French West Africa.
See the data - 1905War & Rupture
Assassination of Coppolani
Xavier Coppolani is killed at Tidjikja, a setback to the French advance, though the conquest of the interior continues afterward.
See the data - 1930sColonisation
Completion of the conquest
After decades of resistance by the desert emirates and nomadic tribes, French military control over the far north of Mauritania is finally consolidated in the 1930s.
See the data
Chapter sources: Mauritania, History of Mauritania
Chapter 05 · 1958 – 1978
Independence and the Daddah Republic
Mauritania became a sovereign Islamic republic in 1960 under Moktar Ould Daddah, built a new capital at Nouakchott, and then over-reached into the Western Sahara conflict.
In 1958 Mauritania became an autonomous republic within the French Community, and a new capital was founded at Nouakchott, then little more than a village on the coast. On 28 November 1960 the Islamic Republic of Mauritania achieved full independence. Moktar Ould Daddah, the first Mauritanian to qualify as a lawyer and the colony's first prime minister, became president in 1961 and built a one-party state intended to bind together the country's Arab-Berber Moors and its Black African peoples of the south.
Independence was contested from outside: neighbouring Morocco initially claimed Mauritania as part of a 'Greater Morocco' and blocked its early admission to the United Nations, though Mauritania was eventually admitted in 1961. Ould Daddah pursued a careful course of national consolidation, Arabisation of administration and education, and non-alignment, withdrawing from the franc zone and creating a national currency, the ouguiya, in 1973.
His government's fatal misstep came in the Western Sahara. Under the 1975 Madrid Accords, Spain agreed to leave the territory, and in 1976 Morocco and Mauritania partitioned it between them; Mauritania annexed the southern third as Tiris al-Gharbiyya. The poor and thinly populated country proved unable to bear the cost of war against the Algerian-backed Polisario Front, whose guerrillas struck deep into Mauritanian territory. The strain shattered the regime: in July 1978 a military coup ended Ould Daddah's eighteen years in power.
“Mauritania became independent on 28 November 1960, with Moktar Ould Daddah at the helm.”
— BlackPast.org
Turning points
- 1958Politics & Power
- 28 November 1960Independence
Independence of the Islamic Republic
Mauritania gains full independence from France; Moktar Ould Daddah leads the new state and becomes its first president in 1961.
See the data - 1973Economy & Trade
National currency and Arab orientation
Mauritania leaves the franc zone and introduces the ouguiya, reflecting Ould Daddah's policy of national consolidation and a turn toward the Arab world.
See the data - 1976War & Rupture
Annexation of southern Western Sahara
Following the 1975 Madrid Accords, Mauritania and Morocco partition Western Sahara; Mauritania annexes the southern third as Tiris al-Gharbiyya, drawing it into war with the Polisario Front.
See the data - 10 July 1978Politics & Power
Figures of the era
Chapter sources: Mauritania, Moktar Ould Daddah, Moktar Ould Daddah (1924–2003), Annexation of Western Sahara
Chapter 06 · 1978 – 2024
Coups, Withdrawal and the Modern State
After withdrawing from Western Sahara, Mauritania endured a succession of military coups while confronting the deep social legacy of slavery, outlawed in 1981 and criminalised in 2007.
The junta that took power in 1978 moved quickly to end the ruinous southern war. On 5 August 1979 Mauritania renounced all claim to Western Sahara and withdrew its troops, after which Morocco extended its own annexation over the abandoned territory. Freed from the conflict, the country nonetheless entered an era of chronic instability, with one military leader replacing another. Colonel Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya seized power in 1984 and ruled for two decades until he was himself overthrown in 2005.
Throughout these years the most intractable issue was slavery. Descent-based slavery, in which status passes from mother to child, had long been embedded in Moorish society. Mauritania abolished slavery by decree in 1981—often described as the last country in the world to do so—and made it a criminal offence in 2007, later recognising it as a crime against humanity in the 2012 constitution. Human-rights organisations report, however, that the practice has persisted in parts of the country and that prosecutions have been rare, a reality the project records soberly and on the basis of these sources.
Further coups in 2005 and 2008 underlined the army's grip on politics, but in 2019 Mohamed Ould Ghazouani succeeded the outgoing president Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz through the ballot box, described as Mauritania's first peaceful transfer of power between elected presidents since independence. The discovery of offshore gas and continuing reliance on iron-ore exports and fishing shape the economy of a state that remains a crossroads between the Arab Maghreb and Black Africa.
Turning points
- 5 August 1979War & Rupture
Withdrawal from Western Sahara
Mauritania renounces its claim to Tiris al-Gharbiyya and withdraws its forces, ending its part in the Western Sahara war; Morocco then absorbs the vacated territory.
See the data - 1981Politics & Power
- 12 December 1984Politics & Power
Ould Taya takes power
Colonel Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya seizes power in a coup and goes on to rule Mauritania for some twenty years.
- August 2005Politics & Power
Coup ends the Taya era
A military council overthrows President Ould Taya, beginning a period of transition punctuated by a further coup in 2008.
- 2007Politics & Power
Chapter sources: Mauritania, Annexation of Western Sahara, Polisario Front, Descent-based slavery in Mauritania, Enforcing Mauritania's Anti-Slavery Legislation