Breh with all due respect, what do you know? I am not sure what you were writing about, because it seems like you are unaware that the Mande people are all over West Africa. The Mande people are from the founders of the Empires of Ghana; Mali and Songhay. While the Mande are originally from modern day Mauritania, Mali and parts of Senegal; through conquest and trade, they were were able to extend their territory into the modern day countries of Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Niger and all the way into Northern Nigeria.
The Mande people are the:
Mandingos/Mandinka/Malinke who live mostly in Mali, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau, Senegal, Ivory Coast and Liberia;
Mende who live mostly in Sierra Leone, but they are also in Liberia;
Bambara who live mostly in Mali;
Susu who live mostly in Guinea and Sierra Leone;
Soninke who were the founders of the Kingdom of Ghana, but who now live mostly in Senegal and Gambia;
Dioula/Juula who live all over West Africa.
Marka who live most in Mali and Burkina Faso
Bissa who live mostly in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo and Benin
Mano who live mostly in Ivory Coast and Liberia;
Kpelle who live mostly in Liberia
Yalunka who live mostly in Guinea
Dan who live mostly in Ivory Coast and Liberia
Loko who live mostly in Liberia
Vai who live mostly in either Guinea or Liberia
Ligbi who live mostly in Ghana and in the Ivory Coast
Loma who live mostly in Liberia and Guinea
Mandé peoples - Wikipedia
There are a bunch of other Mande tribes that I can not even recall right now, but here are their languages and where they are generally found in West Africa
Mande languages
East Mande
(Dan–Busa)
Southeast
Bisa–Busa
Central West Mande
(Manding–Kpelle)
Jogo languages
Manding languages
Mokole languages
Southwest Mande
Other Central
Northwest Mande
(Samogo–Soninke)
Samogo languages
Other Northwest
Busa language (Mande) - Wikipedia
Now that is not even discussing the partial Mande tribes like the Mossi people that are a mix of Mande people and Mampursi people (who are Gur). The Mossi live mostly in Benin, Ivory Coast, Togo, Ghana and Mali.
Mossi people - Wikipedia
Mamprusi people - Wikipedia
In any event the Mande people lived inland, but as stated earlier they spread into other regions of West Africa as Mali suffered instability and Songhay arose. Some Mande tribes had left Mali over a period of time, but there was at least one or more mass exoduses when as Songhay began to cut off Mali's Northern trade routes. One mass exodus of Mande people that we know of was recorded by the Portuguese. That exodus was called the Mane Invasion (Mane means Mande); which was an invasion from the North, South and East into modern day Sierra Leone and Liberia. The Portuguese didn't know of the reason for the invasion, but the Mande themselves indicated that it was to gain trade routes to the sea so that they could trade with the Europeans and in order to get salt.
Mane invasions (16th century)
So Mande actually live Benin and Ghana, which made me
at your post. Btw, Mande targeted in the the slave trade because of their knowledge of rice growing and their ability as blacksmiths. Finally, it sounds like you gave your results from Ancestry DNA or 23andme. I don't know why you would think that those results would not indicate that you are Mande, because those results are not literal. If you have a high Togo/Benin score your ancestry could actually be heavily from Burkina Faso; but since they don't test in Burkina Faso they will assign your DNA to the next closest region which would be Togo/Benin. If you have a high Nigeria test score, especially on 23andme then there is a strong likelihood that you are from Cameroon or even Congo; which are two areas that are grossly underrepresented by 23andme. So the country results are not literal, which should be pointed out that 23andme understands, because they only assign a confidence level of 50% to that anyway. However, the results do point to regional affinity.
You should probably take the African Ancestry test to learn you actual paternal and maternal tribes, because I got high results for Congo and Benin/Togo result as well; but my maternal haplogroup came back to the Mende in Sierra Leone and my paternal haplogroup is Bissa from Burkina Faso. So both of my direct parental lines are Mande.
I should point out you that most slaves in the USA are from the Rice Coast; Upper Volta and Congo. Nigeria didn't even ship that many slaves to the USA, because Usman Dan Fodio didn't even collapse the Yoruba Kingdoms until 1804, which was after the period in which most African Americans were already in place in the USA. It was the Dagomba people in Ghana/Upper Volta that targeted the Mande people in order to pay tribute in the form of slaves to the Ashanti.