Farther east on the Majeerteen (Bari) coast,…

Farther east on the Majeerteen (Bari) coast, by the middle of the nineteenth century two tiny kingdoms emerge that will play a significant political role on the Somali Peninsula prior to colonization.

These are the Majeerteen Sultanate of Boqor Ismaan Mahamuud, and that of his kinsman Sultan Yuusuf Ali Keenadiid of Hobyo (Obbia).

The Majeerteen Sultanate had originated in the mid-eighteenth century, but only comes into its own in the nineteenth century with the reign of the resourceful Boqor Ismaan Mahamuud.

Ismaan Mahamuud's kingdom benefits from British subsidies (for protecting the British naval crews that are shipwrecked periodically on the Somali coast) and from a liberal trade policy that facilitates a flourishing commerce in livestock, ostrich feathers, and gum arabic.

While acknowledging a vague vassalage to the British, the sultan keeps his desert kingdom free until well after 1800.