Samori Touré, the Moving EmpireUpper Niger lands · 1882–1898“How do you fight an empire? Samori answered: become one — and when they come, pick yours up and carry it.”Samori Touré began as a trader's son and built the Wassoulou Empire with discipline, diplomacy and workshops — his own smiths repaired rifles and made cartridges, because he understood early what the Brussels arms ban of 1890 would later prove: dependence is defeat on a delay.The lesson the elders kept: Self-reliance in arms and grain is the spine of resistance; cut off from both, even genius must kneel — but stories are not extradited.