Why the name, and who we are

The merchants whose weights were trusted

From the eleventh century, the gold of West Africa reached the wider world through one network of merchants. The Arabic geographers called them the Wangara.

Their gold sustained the empires of ancient Ghana (in today's Mali and Mauritania), Mali and Songhai. By way of the Saharan caravans it reached the mints of North Africa and medieval Europe. The Wangara were Mande-speaking traders who settled along the routes between the goldfields of Bambuk and Bure and the river and desert markets. Later they moved east into Hausaland. In Kano they are remembered as the Wangarawa, who arrived in the fifteenth century and became part of the city's trade.

The Wangara did not own the mines. They knew the miners, bought at the source and paid at the agreed weight. A Wangara weight was a true weight. In a trade where the product looks the same whether honest or stolen, that is the whole business.

Their descendants are a living community in Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Mali and northern Nigeria. We take the name as a standard to be held to, not as a claim of descent.

Why we chose it

The problem is on the home page. The Wangara answer to it is old: a buyer who goes to the source, pays at a stated price, moves the gold under control, and delivers metal whose weight and purity the buyer can rely on. We took the name because it describes the job.

What we commit to