Sokoto, Kingdom of

Two unrelated developments that are to have a major influence on virtually all of the area that is now Nigeria ushers in a period of radical change in the first decade of the nineteenth century.

First, between 1804 and 1808, the Islamic holy war of Usman dan Fodio establishes the Sokoto Caliphate, which not only expands to become the largest empire in Africa since the fall of Songhai but also has a profound influence on much of Muslim Africa to the west and to the east.

Second, in 1807 Britain declares the transatlantic slave trade to be illegal, an action that occurs at a time when Britain is responsible for shipping more slaves to the Americas than any other country.

Although the transatlantic slave trade will not end until the 1860s, it is gradually replaced by other commodities, especially palm oil; the shift in trade has serious economic and political consequences in the interior, which leads to increasing British intervention in the affairs of Yorubaland and the Niger Delta.

The rise of the Sokoto Caliphate and the economic and political adjustment in the south strongly shape the course of the colonial conquest at the end of the nineteenth century.

Many Muslim scholars and teachers had become disenchanted by the late eighteenth century with the insecurity that characterizes the Hausa states and Borno.

Some clerics (mallams) continue to reside at the courts of the Hausa states and Borno, but others, who join the Qadiriyah brotherhood, begin to think about a revolution that will overthrow existing authorities.

Prominent among these radical mallams is Usman dan Fodio, who, with his brother and son, attracts a following among the clerical class.

Many of his supporters are Fulani, and because of his ethnicity he is able to appeal to all Fulani, particularly the clan leaders and wealthy cattle owners whose clients and dependents provide most of the troops in the jihad that begins in Gobir in 1804.

Not all mallams are Fulani, however.

The cleric whose actions actually start the jihad, Abd as Salam, is Hausa; Jibril, one of Usman dan Fodio's teachers and the first cleric to issue a call for jihad two decades earlier, is Tuareg.

Nonetheless, by the time the Hausa states are overthrown in 1808, the prominent leaders are all Fulani.

Simultaneous uprisings confirm the existence of a vast underground of Muslim revolutionaries throughout the Hausa states and Borno.

By 1808 the Hausa states have been conquered, although the ruling dynasties retreat to the frontiers and build walled cities that remain independent.

The more important of these independent cities includes Abuja, where the ousted Zaria Dynasty flees; Argungu in the north, the new home of the Kebbi rulers; and Maradi in present-day Niger, the retreat of the Katsina Dynasty.

The Borno mai is overthrown and Birni Gazargamu destroyed, but Borno does not succumb.

The reason, primarily, is that another cleric, Al Kanemi, fashions a strong resistance that eventually forces those Fulani in Borno to retreat west and south.

In the end, Al Kanemi overthrows the centuries-old Sayfawa Dynasty of Borno and establishes his own lineage as the new ruling house.

The new state that arises during Usman dan Fodio's jihad comes to be known as the Sokoto Caliphate, named after his capital at Sokoto, founded in 1809.

The caliphate is a loose confederation of emirates that recognizes the suzerainty of the commander of the faithful, the sultan.

When Usman dan Fodio dies in 1817, he is succeeded by his son, Muhammad Bello.

A dispute between Bello and his uncle, Abdullahi, results in a nominal division of the caliphate into eastern and western divisions, although the supreme authority of Bello as caliph is upheld.

The division is institutionalized through the creation of a twin capital at Gwandu, which is responsible for the western emirates as far as modern Burkina Faso—formerly Upper Volta—and initially as far west as Massina in modern Mali.

As events turn out, the eastern emirates are more numerous and larger than the western ones, which reinforces the primacy of the caliph at Sokoto.

Usman dan Fodio, an Islamic scholar and an urbanized Fulani, had been actively educating and preaching in the city of Gobir with the approval and support of the Hausa leadership of the city.

However, when Yunfa, a former student of dan Fodio, became the Sultan of Gobir, he had restricted dan Fodio's activities, forcing him into exile in Gudu.

A large number of peoples had left Gobir to join dan Fodio and as a response on February 21, 1804, Yunfa declares war on dan Fodio.

Despite some early losses at the Battle of Tsuntua and elsewhere, the forces of dan Fodio begin taking over some of the key cities starting in 1805.

The war lastesfrom 1804 until 1808 and the forces of dan Fodio are able to capture the states of Katsina and Daura, and the important kingdom of Kano in 1807 and Gobir in 1808.

The Caliphate had been founded in February 1804 at Gudu when Dan-Fodio was proclaimed Amir al-Mu'minin, defender of the faithful.

Usman dan Fodio had then declared a number of flag bearers among those following him, creating an early political structure of the empire.

Muhammed Bello, the son of dan Fodio, founds the city of Sokoto, which becomes the capital of the Sokoto Caliphate in 1809.

There will be thirty emirates and the capital district of Sokoto—which itself is a large and populous territory although not technically an emirate—by the middle of the nineteenth century in what is today Nigeria.

All the important Hausa emirates, including Kano, the wealthiest and most populous, are directly under Sokoto.

Adamawa, which had been established by Fulani forced to evacuate Borno, is geographically the biggest, stretching far to the south and east of its capital at Yola into modern Cameroon.

Ilorin, which becomes part of the caliphate in the 1830s, is initially the headquarters of the Oyo cavalry that had provided the backbone of the king's power.

An attempted coup d'etat by the general of the cavalry in 1817 had backfired when the cavalry itself revolted and pledged its allegiance to the Sokoto Caliphate.

The cavalry is largely composed of Muslim slaves from farther north, and they see in the jihad a justification for rebellion.

In the 1820s, Oyo had been torn asunder, and the defeated king and the warlords of the Oyo Mesi had retreated south to form new cities, including Ibadan, where they carry on their resistance to the Sokoto caliphate and fight among themselves as well.

Usman dan Fodio's jihad had created the largest empire in Africa since the fall of Songhai in 1591.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, when the Sokoto Caliphate will be at its greatest extent, it will stretch fifteen hundred kilometers from Dori in modern Burkina Faso to southern Adamawa in Cameroon and include Nupe lands, Ilorin in northern Yorubaland, and much of the Benue River valley.

In addition, Usman dan Fodio's jihad had provided the inspiration for a series of related holy wars in other parts of the savanna and Sahel far beyond Nigeria's borders that lead to the foundation of Islamic states in Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast, Chad, Central African Republic, and Sudan.

An analogy has been drawn between Usman dan Fodio's jihad and the French Revolution in terms of its widespread impact.

Just as the French Revolution affects the course of European history in the nineteenth century, the Sokoto jihad affects the course of history throughout the savanna from Senegal to the Red Sea.

Oyo, the great exporter of slaves in the eighteenth century, had collapsed in a civil war after 1817, and by the middle of the 1830s the whole of Yorubaland is swept up in these civil wars.

New centers of power—Ibadan, Abeokuta, Owo, and Warri—contest control of the trade routes and seek access to fresh supplies of slaves, which are important to repopulate the turbulent countryside.

At this time, the British withdraw from the slave trade and begin to blockade the coast.

The blockade requires some adjustments in the slave trade along the lagoons that stretch outward from Lagos, whereas the domestic market for slaves to be used as farm laborers and as porters to carry commodities to market easily absorbs the many captives that are a product of these wars.

War and slave raiding are complementary exercises among the Yoruba, who need capital to buy the firearms with which they fight in a vicious cycle of war and enslavement.

Military leaders are well aware of the connection between guns and enslavement.

Some of the emerging Yoruba states have started as war camps during the period of chaos in which Oyo breaks up and the Muslim revolutionaries who are allied to the caliphate conquer northern Yorubaland.

Ibadan, which will become the largest city in black Africa during the nineteenth century, owes its growth to the role it plays in the Oyo civil wars.

Ibadan 's omuogun (war boys) raid far afield for slaves and hold off the advance of the Fulani.

They also take advantage of Benin's isolation to seize the roads leading to the flourishing slave port at Lagos.

The threat that Ibadan will dominate Yorubaland alarms its rivals and inspires a military alliance led by the Egba city of Abeokuta.

Dahomey, to the west, further contributes to the insecurity by raiding deep into Yorubaland, the direction of raids depending upon its current alliances.