Tuareg

The Tuareg are a Berber-speaking pastoralist people of the Sahara and Sahel, historically organized in a hierarchical confederation system of noble, vassal, artisan and formerly enslaved status groups, and long associated with control of the trans-Saharan salt and gold caravan trade. Tuareg society is matrilineal in inheritance despite a patrilineal political structure in many confederations, and Tuareg women traditionally hold a distinctively high degree of social and property autonomy compared to many neighboring Muslim societies. Tuareg communities have been party to a series of documented armed rebellions and autonomy movements in Mali and Niger from the 1960s onward, seeking greater recognition and resource control in the postcolonial Saharan states.