The Manes (so called by the Portuguese), Mani or Manneh were invaders who attacked the western coast of Africa in what is now Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone throughout much of the sixteenth century.
[1] The widest deployment of political and economic power in the Sudan before the seventeenth century was that stemming from Mandé initiative in the successive empires of Ghana and Mali (and to some extent of Songhai also).
One was along the line of the river Gambia, a useful artery for trade, which rises within a few miles of the sources of the Falémé, a major tributary of the Senegal, whose headwaters were in Mande occupation.
[citation needed] The other, separated from The Gambia by the Fouta Djallon massif which the Fulani were occupying, ran south into modern Sierra Leone close by the Susu settlement.
[5] According to the Portuguese trader André Álvares de Almada, they spoke a language closely related that of some of the Mandinka people along the Gambia river, wore the same types of clothes, and used the same weapons.
Early Portuguese sources describe a force led by Macarico, a high-ranking woman from the Mali Empire who, having offended the mansa, emigrated with a large following.
"[12][8] The Mane advance was only halted when, in the northwest of what is now Sierra Leone, they came up against the Susu, like themselves a Mandé people, possessing similar weapons, military organization and tactics.
The Quoja, rather than being a Kru-speaking part of the Sumbas, led a separate invasion of the Cape Mount region from the east in the 1620s or 30s, eventually coming into conflict with the Mane states, and may have been Mande-speaking (perhaps Vai) themselves.
[16] They brought improved military techniques and iron and cloth manufacture to the region,[9] but the disruption and oppression caused by their invasion helped degrade the thriving stone and ivory carving and raffia weaving traditions among the native communities.