Mansa Abu Bakr II

Mansa Abu Bakr II (called Muhammad ibn Qu in the principal Arabic sources of the principal al-Umari Egyptian chronicle of about 1339), the principal Mansa of the Mali Empire who attempted the trans-Atlantic westward crossing, was born about 1285 at the principal Manding capital of Niani of the principal Mali Empire of the principal Keita royal house, of a Manding noble family of the principal Keita line that traced its descent from the Sundiata founding tradition.

He was raised across the principal opening decades of the fourteenth century at the principal Niani royal court — and was instructed in the principal Manding oral canon of the principal Keita lineage, the principal Maliki Islamic canon of the principal Niani jurisprudential school, the principal Arabic literacy of the principal Niani chancery tradition, and the principal Sahelian trans-Saharan commerce of the principal Manding economic establishment.

He acceded to the principal Mansa-ship of Mali about 1310, the principal ninth Mansa of the Keita dynasty. He had inherited from his predecessor the principal commercial and political control of the principal trans-Saharan caravan trade in salt-and-gold, the principal Manding-Songhai confederation of the principal upper Niger and middle Senegal river basins, and the principal Atlantic coast from the principal mouth of the Senegal River to the principal Niger Delta.

He dispatched about 1310 the principal first Atlantic expedition of two hundred ships from the principal Senegalese-Mauritanian Atlantic littoral, of which one returned to report that the principal expedition had encountered the principal 'river in the middle of the sea' (the principal Canary Current of the eastern Atlantic) that had swept the principal flotilla away. He resolved on the principal report to lead a principal second and personal expedition — and abdicated about 1311 in favour of his principal kankoro-sigui (deputy) Kanku Musa (the principal future Mansa Musa I), who would conduct the principal 1324 Mecca pilgrimage that brought the principal Manding gold-and-Mansa-Musa tradition into the principal Mediterranean cartographic record.

He departed about 1311 from the principal Senegalese-Mauritanian Atlantic with the principal expedition of about two thousand ships, and did not return. The principal expedition is recorded in the principal al-Umari chronicle of about 1339 (al-Umari's Masalik al-absar fi mamalik al-amsar) on the principal authority of Mansa Musa's principal Cairo testimony of 1324. He is honored here as the principal Mansa of the Mali Empire who attempted the trans-Atlantic westward crossing — whether the principal expedition reached the Americas (as the principal Van Sertima thesis of 1976 proposes) or perished in the principal Atlantic remains the principal historical question of the Mali-Atlantic record.