Sama (Kaabu)

Origins

Sama was a province of the Mandinka Kaabu Empire in present-day Guinea-Bissau, which grew out of the westward expansion of the Mali Empire and became independent in the 16th century. Kaabu's history is known mainly from oral tradition and a few Portuguese accounts.

Rule and society

Sama, Pachana and Jimara were the three royal provinces whose Nyancho warrior aristocracy, traced through the female line, provided the Mansaba, the supreme king of Kaabu, in rotation. Each was ruled by its own mansa. The Nyancho lived largely from slave raiding and trade with Portuguese ports.

Decline and legacy

Sama declined with Kaabu in the 19th century under Fulani attacks from the Imamate of Futa Jallon. After the fall of Kansala in 1867 the province was absorbed into Fula-ruled states and later Portuguese Guinea.

Few sources survive for this state; details are uncertain.