History of Nigeria (1500–1800)

Last updated February 14, 2024

The history of the territories which since ca. 1900 have been known under the name of Nigeria during the pre-colonial period (16th to 18th centuries) was dominated by several powerful West African kingdoms or empires, such as the Oyo Empire and the Islamic Kanem-Bornu Empire in the northeast, and the Igbo kingdom of Onitsha in the southeast and various Hausa-Fulani kingdoms.

Past archaeological digs have uncovered the fairly advanced lifestyle of some of the Hausa civilizations. Some were able to work iron which helped with tool and weapon making. They also showed a vast advancement in cultural expression which was rare for civilizations in the area around that time. Many of the settlements also contained expertly coursed stone walls which showed the need for either protection from animals or other settlements. These various settlements would later clash, craving a rise in power which may explain these elements uncovered in the archaeological sites.^[1]

These kingdoms developed in the context of the trans-Saharan slave trade, but they peaked in power in the late 18th century, thriving on the Atlantic slave trade due to the great demand for slaves by the European colonies. During and after the Napoleonic period, the western powers gradually abolished slavery, which led to a collapse in demand and consequently a decline of the West African empires, and the gradual increase of western influence during the 19th century (the "Scramble for Africa"), in the case of Nigeria concluding with the British protectorates of Northern and Southern Nigeria in 1900.

Savannah States

During the 16th century, the Songhai Empire reached its peak, stretching from the Senegal and Gambia rivers and incorporating part of Hausaland in the east. Concurrently the Sayfawa dynasty of Kanem-Bornu reconquered its Kanem homeland and extended control west to Hausa cities not under Songhai authority. Largely because of Songhai's influence, there was a blossoming of Islamic learning and culture. Songhai collapsed in 1591 when a Moroccan army conquered Gao and Timbuktu. Morocco was unable to control the empire and the various provinces, including the Hausa states, became independent. The collapse undermined Songhai's hegemony over the Hausa states and abruptly altered the course of the regional history of the tzu people.

Kanem-Bornu reached its apogee under mai Idris Aluma (ca. 1569–1600) during whose reign Kanem was reconquered. The destruction of Songhai left Borno uncontested and until the 18th century, Borno dominated northern Nigeria. Despite Borno's hegemony the Hausa states continued to wrestle for ascendancy. Gradually Borno's position weakened; its inability to check political rivalries between competing Hausa cities was one example of this decline. Another factor was the military threat of the Tuareg centered at Agades who penetrated the northern districts of Borno. The major cause of Borno's decline was a severe drought that struck the Sahel and savanna from the middle of the 18th century. As a consequence, Borno lost many northern territories to the Tuareg whose mobility allowed them to endure the famine more effectively. Borno regained some of its former might in the succeeding decades, but another drought occurred in the 1790s, again weakening the state. Nigeria was in control of white people at that time and the country was less busy, especially in Lagos.

The earliest signs of external contact in the Hausa area, which would lead to the development of the pre-colonial period, are found via carbon dating. These sites are classified by archaeologists as hills, large-scale occupation sites, and iron-working sites – although the former two are lacking stratified evidence. Objects retrieved from burial mounds in the region, such as Carnelian beads, potentially originate from as far as India. Along with this, a dig near Birnin Leka uncovered an Arabic-inscribed pottery vessel. The first main exposure to external contact would begin to change the hierarchy of the Hausa life.

Ecological and political instability provided the background for the jihad of Usman dan Fodio. The military rivalries of the Hausa states strained the region's economic resources at a time when drought and famine undermined farmers and herders. Many Fulani moved into Hausaland and Borno, and their arrival increased tensions because they had no loyalty to the political authorities, who saw them as a source of increased taxation. By the end of the 18th century, some Muslim ulema began articulating the grievances of the common people. Efforts to eliminate or control these religious leaders only heightened the tensions, setting the stage for jihad.

Akwa Akpa

The city-state of Akwa Akpa was founded in 1786 by Efik families (a branch of the Ibibio) who had left Creek Town, further up the Calabar River. They settled on the east bank in a position where they were able to dominate traffic with European vessels that anchored in the river, and soon became the most powerful Ibibio merchants in the region.^[2] The Europeans gave this city the name "Old Calabar" for unknown reasons.^[3] The city became a center of the slave trade, where slaves were exchanged for European goods.^[4] Most of the slave ships that transported slaves from Calabar were English; about 85% of these were owned by merchants based in Bristol and Liverpool.^[5] The main ethnic group transported out of Calabar as slaves was the Igbo, although they were not the main ethnicity in the area. Many were taken there for sale from wars of the interior.^[6]

Igbo States

The Onitsha Kingdom, which was originally inhabited by Igbo, was founded in the 16th century by Igbo migrants from Benin. Later groups like the Igala, and Igbo traders from the hinterland, settled in Onitsha in the 18th century. Another Igbo kingdom to form was the Arochukwu kingdom, which emerged after the Aro-Ibibio wars from 1630 to 1720. The Aro Confederacy dominated southeastern Nigeria with pockets of influence in Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon.

Igbo gods, like those of the Yoruba, were numerous, but their relationship to one another and human beings was essentially egalitarian, reflecting Igbo society as a whole. A number of oracles and local cults attracted devotees while the central deity, the earth mother and fertility figure Ala, were venerated at shrines throughout Igboland.

A popular theory that Igbos were stateless rests on the paucity of historical evidence of pre-colonial Igbo society. But, archaeological finds of Igbo Ukwu have revealed a rich material culture in the heart of the Igbo region in the 8th century, but there is little evidence to cover the period from then to the oral traditions of the 20th century. Benin exercised considerable influence on the western Igbo, who adopted many of the political structures familiar to the Yoruba-Benin region. Ofega was the queen for the Onitsha Igbo.

Related Research Articles

The Kanem–Bornu Empire existed in areas which are now part of Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, Libya and Chad. It was known to the Arabian geographers as the Kanem Empire from the 8th century AD onward and lasted as the independent kingdom of Bornu until 1900.

Niger or the Niger, officially the Republic of the Niger, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is a unitary state bordered by Libya to the northeast, Chad to the east, Nigeria to the south, Benin and Burkina Faso to the southwest, Mali to the west, and Algeria to the northwest. It covers a land area of almost 1,270,000 km² (490,000 sq mi), making it the largest landlocked country in West Africa. Over 80% of its land area lies in the Sahara. Its predominantly Muslim population of about 25 million lives mostly in clusters in the south and west of the country. The capital Niamey is located in Niger's southwest corner.

The history of Nigeria can be traced to the earliest inhabitants whose remains date from at least 13,000 BC through early civilizations such as the Nok culture which began around 1500 BC. Numerous ancient African civilizations settled in the region that is known today as Nigeria, such as the Kingdom of Nri, the Benin Empire, and the Oyo Empire. Islam reached Nigeria through the Bornu Empire between and Hausa Kingdom during the 11th century, while Christianity came to Nigeria in the 15th century through Augustinian and Capuchin monks from Portugal to the Kingdom of Warri. The Songhai Empire also occupied part of the region. Through contact with Europeans, early harbour towns such as Calabar, Badagry and Bonny emerged along the coast after 1480, which did business in the transatlantic slave trade, among other things. Conflicts in the hinterland, such as the civil war in the Oyo Empire, meant that new enslaved people were constantly being "supplied".

Hausa–Fulani are people of mixed Hausa and Fulani origin. They are primarily found in the Northern region of Nigeria, most of whom speak a variant of Hausa or Fula or both as their first language.

The Jihad of Usman dan Fodio was a religio-military conflict in present-day Nigeria and Cameroon. The war began when Usman dan Fodio, a prominent Islamic scholar and teacher, was exiled from Gobir by King Yunfa, one of his former students.

The Sokoto Caliphate, also known as the Sultanate of Sokoto, was a Sunni Muslim caliphate in West Africa. It was founded by Usman dan Fodio in 1804 during the Fulani jihads after defeating the Hausa Kingdoms in the Fulani War. The boundaries of the caliphate are part of present-day Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Nigeria. By 1837, the Sokoto state had a population of around 10-20 plus million people, becoming the most populous empire in West Africa. It was dissolved when the British, French and Germans conquered the area in 1903 and annexed it into the newly established Northern Nigeria Protectorate, Senegambia and Niger and Kamerun respectively.

The Sahelian kingdoms were a series of centralized kingdoms or empires that were centered on the Sahel, the area of grasslands south of the Sahara, from the 8th century to the 19th. The wealth of the states came from controlling the trade routes across the desert. Their power came from having large pack animals like camels and horses that were fast enough to keep a large empire under central control and were also useful in such kind of battle. All of these empires were also quite decentralized with member cities having a great deal of autonomy.

The culture of Nigeria is shaped by Nigeria's multiple ethnic groups. The country has 527 languages, seven of which are extinct. Nigeria also has over 1150 dialects and ethnic groups. The three largest ethnic groups are the Hausas that are predominantly in the north, the Yorubas who predominate in the southwest, and the Igbos in the southeast. There are many other ethnic groups with sizeable populations across the different parts of the country. The Kanuri people are located in the northeast part of Nigeria, the Tiv people of north central and the Efik-Ibibio are in the south south. The Bini people are most frequent in the region between Yorubaland and Igboland.

Northern Nigeria was an autonomous division within Nigeria, distinctly different from the southern part of the country, with independent customs, foreign relations and security structures. In 1962, it acquired the territory of the British Northern Cameroons, which voted to become a province within Northern Nigeria.

The Wangara are a subgroup of the Soninke who later became assimilated merchant classes that specialized in both Trans Saharan and Secret Trade of Gold Dust. Their diaspora operated all throughout West Africa Sahel-Sudan. Fostering regionally organized trade networks and Architecture projects. But based in the many Sahelian and Niger-Volta-Sene-Gambia river city-states. Particularly Dia, Timbuktu, Agadez, Kano, Gao, Koumbi Saleh, Guidimaka, Salaga, Kong, Bussa, Bissa, Kankan, Jallon, Djenné as well as Bambouk, Bure, Lobi, and Bono State goldfields and Borgu. They also were practicing Muslims with a clerical social class (Karamogo), Timbuktu Alumni political advisors, Sufi Mystic healers and individual leaders (Marabout). Living by a philosophy of mercantile pacifism called the Suwarian Tradition. Teaching peaceful coexistence with non-Muslims, reserving Jihad for self-defence only and even serving as Soothsayers or a "priesthood" of literate messengers for non-Muslim Chiefdoms/Kingdoms. This gave them a degree of control and immense wealth in lands where they were the minority. Creating contacts with almost all West African religious denominations. A group of Mande traders, loosely associated with the Kingdoms of the Sahel region and other West African Empires. Such as Ghana, Mali, Songhai, Bono State, Kong, Borgu, Dendi, Macina, Hausa Kingdoms & the Pashalik of Timbuktu. Wangara also describes any land south of Timbuktu and Agadez. The Bilad-Al-Sudan or Bilad-Al-Tibr, "Land of Black" or "Gold."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hausa Kingdoms</span> Collection of states started by the Hausa people

Hausa Kingdoms, also known as Hausa Kingdom or Hausaland, was a collection of states started by the Hausa people, situated between the Niger River and Lake Chad. Hausaland lay between the Western Sudanic kingdoms of Ancient Ghana, Mali and Songhai and the Eastern Sudanic kingdoms of Kanem-Bornu. Hausaland took shape as a political and cultural region during the first millennium CE as a result of the westward expansion of Hausa peoples. They arrived to Hausaland when the terrain was converting from woodlands to savannah. They started cultivating grains, which led to a denser peasant population. They had a common language, laws and customs. The Hausa were known for fishing, hunting, agriculture, salt-mining, and blacksmithing.

The history of Nigeria before 1500 has been divided into its prehistory, Iron Age, and flourishing of its kingdoms and states. Acheulean tool-using archaic humans may have dwelled throughout West Africa since at least between 780,000 BP and 126,000 BP. Middle Stone Age West Africans likely dwelled continuously in West Africa between MIS 4 and MIS 2, and Iwo Eleru people persisted at Iwo Eleru as late as 13,000 BP. West African hunter-gatherers occupied western Central Africa earlier than 32,000 BP, dwelled throughout coastal West Africa by 12,000 BP, and migrated northward between 12,000 BP and 8000 BP as far as Mali, Burkina Faso, and Mauritania. The Dufuna canoe, a dugout canoe found in northern Nigeria has been dated to around 6556-6388 BCE and 6164-6005 BCE, making it the oldest known boat in Africa and the second oldest worldwide.

This is a timeline of Nigerian history, comprising important legal and territorial changes and political events in Nigeria and its predecessor states. To read about the background to these events, see History of Nigeria. See also the list of heads of state of Nigeria.

The Hausa are a native ethnic group in West Africa. They speak the Hausa language, which is the second most spoken language after Arabic in the Afro-Asiatic language family. The Hausa are a culturally homogeneous people based primarily in the Sahelian and the sparse savanna areas of southern Niger and northern Nigeria respectively, numbering around 86 million people, with significant populations in Benin, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Chad, Central African Republic, Togo, Ghana, as well as smaller populations in Sudan, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Senegal, Gambia. Predominantly Hausa-speaking communities are scattered throughout West Africa and on the traditional Hajj route north and east traversing the Sahara, with an especially large population in and around the town of Agadez. Other Hausa have also moved to large coastal cities in the region such as Lagos, Port Harcourt, Accra, Abidjan, Banjul and Cotonou as well as to parts of North Africa such as Libya over the course of the last 500 years. The Hausa traditionally live in small villages as well as in precolonial towns and cities where they grow crops, raise livestock including cattle as well as engage in trade, both local and long distance across Africa. They speak the Hausa language, an Afro-Asiatic language of the Chadic group. The Hausa aristocracy had historically developed an equestrian based culture. Still a status symbol of the traditional nobility in Hausa society, the horse still features in the Eid day celebrations, known as Ranar Sallah. Daura is the cultural center of the Hausa people. The town predates all the other major Hausa towns in tradition and culture.

Nigerians or the Nigerian people are citizens of Nigeria or people with ancestry from Nigeria. The name Nigeria was derived from the Niger River running through the country. This name was allegedly coined in the late 19th century by British journalist Flora Shaw, who later married Baron Frederick Lugard, a British colonial administrator. Nigeria is composed of various ethnic groups and cultures and the term Nigerian refers to a citizenship-based civic nationality. Nigerians derive from over 250 ethno-linguistic groups. Though there are multiple ethnic groups in Nigeria, economic factors result in significant mobility of Nigerians of multiple ethnic and religious backgrounds to reside in territories in Nigeria that are outside their ethnic or religious background, resulting in the mixing of the various ethnic and religious groups, especially in Nigeria's cities. The English language is the lingua franca of Nigerians. Nigeria is divided roughly in half between Muslims, who live mostly in the north, and Christians, who live mostly in the south; indigenous religions, such as those native to the Igbo and Yoruba ethnicities, are in the minority.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African empires</span> Umbrella term for some pre-colonial African kingdoms

African empires is an umbrella term used in African studies to refer to a number of pre-colonial African kingdoms in Africa with multinational structures incorporating various populations and polities into a single entity, usually through conquest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nigerian traditional rulers</span> Subnational monarchs in Nigeria

Nigerian traditional rulers often derive their titles from the rulers of independent states or communities that existed before the formation of modern Nigeria. Although they do not have formal political power, in many cases they continue to command respect from their people and have considerable influence in their community.

The pre-colonial history of Northern Nigeria encompasses the history of Northern Nigeria before the advent of European explorers and the subsequent pacification of Northern Nigeria by the British Empire. In pre-historical times, the area known as Northern Nigeria was home to the Kwatarkwashi/Nok culture. Elements of human civilisation have also been discovered around the Niger River near Kainji Dam.

The history of Northern Nigeria covers the history of the region form pre-historic times to the modern period of Northern Nigerian state.

The medieval and early modern history of Africa spans from the medieval and early modern period until the colonial period in the history of Africa.

References

↑ Sule, Abubakar (8 Dec 2014). "The archaeology of northern Nigeria: trade, people and polities, 1500 BP onwards". Azania. 49 (4): 439–. doi:10.1080/0067270X.2014.968330. S2CID 162811398.
↑ Arthur Glyn Leonard (2009). The Lower Niger and Its Tribes. BiblioBazaar, LLC. pp. 21–22. ISBN 978-1-113-81057-1.
↑ G. I. Jones (2001). The Trading States of the Oil Rivers: A Study of Political Development in Eastern Nigeria. James Currey Publishers. p. 15ff. ISBN 0-85255-918-6.
↑ "The Middle Passage". National Great Blacks in Wax Museum. Archived from the original on 2010-10-23. Retrieved 2010-09-02.
↑ Sparks, Randy J. (2004). The Two Princes of Calabar: An Eighteenth-century Atlantic Odyssey . Harvard University Press. p. 39. ISBN 0-674-01312-3.
↑ Chambers, Douglas B. (2005). Murder at Montpelier: Igbo Africans in Virginia. Univ. Press of Mississippi. p. 22. ISBN 1-57806-706-5.

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[1] Sule, Abubakar (8 Dec 2014). "The archaeology of northern Nigeria: trade, people and polities, 1500 BP onwards". Azania. 49 (4): 439–. doi:10.1080/0067270X.2014.968330. S2CID 162811398.

[2] Arthur Glyn Leonard (2009). The Lower Niger and Its Tribes. BiblioBazaar, LLC. pp. 21–22. ISBN 978-1-113-81057-1.

[Jones2001-3] G. I. Jones (2001). The Trading States of the Oil Rivers: A Study of Political Development in Eastern Nigeria. James Currey Publishers. p. 15ff. ISBN 0-85255-918-6.

[4] "The Middle Passage". National Great Blacks in Wax Museum. Archived from the original on 2010-10-23. Retrieved 2010-09-02.

[5] Sparks, Randy J. (2004). The Two Princes of Calabar: An Eighteenth-century Atlantic Odyssey . Harvard University Press. p. 39. ISBN 0-674-01312-3.

[6] Chambers, Douglas B. (2005). Murder at Montpelier: Igbo Africans in Virginia. Univ. Press of Mississippi. p. 22. ISBN 1-57806-706-5.

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