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| History of Northern Nigeria |
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The history of Northern Nigeria covers the history of the region form pre-historic times to the modern period of Northern Nigerian state. [1] [2]
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(July 2015) |
| History of Northern Nigeria |
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The history of Northern Nigeria covers the history of the region form pre-historic times to the modern period of Northern Nigerian state. [1] [2]
The Nok culture, an ancient culture dominated most of what is now Northern Nigeria in pre historic times, its legacy in the form of terracotta statues and megaliths have been discovered in Sokoto, Kano, Birinin Kudu, Nok and Zaria. The Kwatarkwashi culture, a variant of the Nok culture centred mostly around Zamfara in Sokoto Province is thought by some to be the same or an offshoot of the Nok. [3]
The history of Borno is closely linked to that of Kanem, which grew into an empire in the Lake Chad basin in the 13th century. At times it extended as far as Fezzan in southern Libya. The Mai (king) of Kanem and his court adopted Islam in the 11th century, just as the western empires had done. Islam was used to strengthen the political and social structures of the state, although many established customs were retained. Thus women continued to exert considerable political influence, especially the Magira (Queen Mother) and the Magara (the official “elder sister” of Mai). [4] : 72–73 [5]
The first ruler of Kanem was Saif, who founded his dynasty, the Sayfawa, which ruled the empire for a millennium (800 AD to 1846 AD). [4] : 74 The first Muslim ruler of Kanem was Mai Umme Jilmi (r. 1085-1097), who died on his way to Mecca in Egypt. His son and successor Dunama I (r. 1097-1150) is said to have made two pilgrimages to Mecca and was drowned by Egyptians near Suez on his third pilgrimage. In the late 12th century, Kanem maintained diplomatic relations with Tunisia. At this time, Kanem also maintained a madrasa (hostel) in Cairo, which was intended for students and pilgrims from his territory. Due to Kanem's growing influence in North Africa and the territorial expansion it achieved in the 12th and 13th centuries, the empire became very well known in the Islamic world of the time. [4] : 75
The Mai/King deployed his bodyguards and an army of nobles to extend his authority from Kanem to Borno. The civil war that disrupted Kanem in the second half of the 14th century led to the independence of Bornu. [5] The Sayfawa, who fled to Bornu, were severely weakened by the dynastic struggles in the late 14th and early 15th centuries. Mai Ali Ghaji (r. 1470-1508) established a large capital called Birnin N'gazargamu, which was the center of Bornu. Ali Ghaji carried out government reforms and put an end to civil unrest. With a reinvigorated army, he extended Bornu's influence to neighboring regions and even demanded tribute from some Hausa states. He also re-established diplomatic relations with North Africa. Ali's successors kept Kanem as a province of Bornu until the 19th century. [4] : 77–78
The most wealthy period in the history of the empire was the reign of Idris Alauma (1571–1603). Its documentation is due to the Imam Ahmed ibn Fartua, who recorded the first twelve years of Alauma's reign. Alauma ascended the throne after an interregnum during which Bornu was ruled by his mother Aicha. Shortly after his accession to the throne, he procured Turkish musketeers from North Africa as well as horses, camels and various weapons for his troops in order to strengthen Bornu's military power. He led numerous campaigns to pacify Bornu's neighbors and conquer territories. His troops carried out far-reaching campaigns: in the north from Fezzan in southern Libya to Kawar in northern Niger; in the east from the Kanem region in eastern Chad to the Mandara region in northern Cameroon; in the south he crushed the rebellion of a Marghi prince; and in the west he subdued Kano and demanded tribute from the Hausa states. In addition to waging war, Alauma also carried out administrative reforms. He began to replace customary law with Shari'a (Islamic Law) in certain matters and appointed qadis (judges) to rule on legal matters independently of the traditional rulers. He encouraged the construction of several mosques, which were built from baked bricks instead of reeds. He also undertook the pilgrimage to Mecca and financed the construction of a hostel for the Bornu pilgrims there. [4] : 79–82
The economy of Borno was dominated by the Trans-Sudanese slave trade and the desert trade in salt and livestock. The need to protect its trading interests forced Borno to intervene in Kanem from the 15th to 16th centuries. Despite its relative political weakness during this period, the court and mosques of Borno gained a reputation as centers of Islamic culture and scholarship under the patronage of a series of skillful kings. [6]
In the 9th century a set kingdoms emerged in Northern Nigeria to replace the Kabara Nation, these Kingdoms share a similar ethno-historical dynamic cemented in their belief in a common origin. The lore of the Fourteen Kingdoms unify the diverse heritage of Northern Nigeria into a cohesive system. Seven of these Kingdoms developed from the Kabara legacy of the Hausa people. As vibrant trading centers competing with Kanem–Bornu and Mali slowly developed in the Central Sudan, a set Kingdoms merged dominating the great savannah plains of Hausaland, their primary exports were leather, gold, cloth, salt, kola nuts, animal hides, and henna. [3] The Seven Hausa states included: [7]
The growth and conquest of the Hausa Bakwai resulted in the founding of additional states with rulers tracing their lineage to a concubine of the Hausa founding father, Bayajidda. Thus they are called the 'Banza Bakwai meaning Bastard Seven. The Banza Bakwai adopted many of the customs and institutions of the Hausa Bakwai but were considered unsanctioned or copy-cat kingdoms by non-Hausa people. These states include: [8]
Between 500 CE and 700 CE Hausa people, who are thought to have slowly moved from Nubia and mixing in with the local Northern and Middle Belt population, established a number of strong states in what is now Northern Nigeria and Eastern Niger. With the decline of the Nok and Sokoto, who had previously controlled Central and Northern Nigeria between 800 BCE and 200 CE, the Hausa were able to emerge as the new power in the region. They are closely linked with the Kanuri people of Kanem–Bornu, Lake Chad, the Birom, Gwari, Nupe and Jukun. The Hausa aristocracy, under influence from the Mali Empire adopted Islam in the 11th century CE. By the 12th century CE, the Hausa were becoming one of Africa's major powers. The architecture of the Hausa is perhaps one of the least known but most beautiful of the medieval age. Many of their early mosques and palaces are bright and colourful and often include intricate engraving or elaborate symbols designed into the facade. By 1500 CE, the Hausa utilized a modified Arabic script known as Ajami to record their own language; the Hausa compiled several written histories, the most popular being the Kano Chronicle. [9]
In the 19th century, the Fula people led a series of jihads across sudanic Africa. In Northern Nigeria and the central Sudan, Usman dan Fodio led the Fula in a bid to overthrow the Hausa Sultanates. By 1803, a new state known as the Sokoto Caliphate had replaced most of the former sultanates that had held sway over the region. The Sokoto Caliphate was under the overall authority of the Commander of the Faithful. Under Dan Fodio, the Empire was bicephalous and divided into two territories each controlled by an appointed vizier. Each of the territories was further divided into autonomous Emirates under mainly hereditary local Emirs. The Bornu Empire was initially absorbed into the Sokoto Caliphate of Usman dan Fodio, but broke away after a few years later. [9]
The Initial contact of Northern Nigeria with the British was predominantly trade-related, and revolved around the expansion of the Royal Niger Company, whose interior territories spread north from about where the Niger River and Benue River joined at Lokoja, a place called (Mount Patti Hill). The Royal Niger Company's territory did not represent a direct threat to much the Sokoto Caliphate or the numerous states of Northern Nigeria. This changed, when Fredrick Lugard and Taubman Goldie laid down an ambitious plan to pacify the Niger interior and unite it with the rest of the British Empire in 1897 Lugard proclaimed a protectorate over Northern Nigeria and hostilities though sporadic soon followed; the Calipharte itself never responded to Lugards onslaught, this allowed him pacify the Emirates one by one. In February 1903, the fort of Kano fell and its slave market closed, sokoto and other regions soon followed. By the early 1920s the last pockets of resistance located in the Kanem had been pacified.
The protectorate of Northern Nigeria was proclaimed at Ida by Fredrick Lugard on January 1, 1897. The basis of the colony was the 1885 Treaty of Berlin which broadly granted Northern Nigeria to Britain, on the basis of their protectorates in Southern Nigeria. Hostilities with the powerful Sokoto Caliphate soon followed. [10] The Emirates of Kabba, Kontagora and Ilorin were the first to be conquered by the British. In February 1903, the great fort of Kano, seat of the Kano Emirate was captured, Sokoto and much of the rest of its Caliphate soon capitulated. On March 13, 1903, the Grand Shura of Caliphate finally conceded to Lugard's demands and proclaimed Queen Victoria, Queen and sovereign of the Caliphate and all its lands. [11]
The Governor, Frederick Lugard, with limited resources, ruled with the consent of local rulers through a policy of indirect rule which he developed into a sophisticated political theory. Lugard left the protectorate after some years, serving in Hong Kong, but was eventually returned to work in Nigeria where he decided on the merger of the Northern Nigeria Protectorate with Southern Nigeria in 1914. [12] Agitation for independence from the radically different Southern Protectorate however led to a formidable split in the 1940s. The Richards constitution, proclaimed in 1945 gave overwhelming autonomy to the North, including eventually in the areas of foreign relations and customs policy. [10]
From 1914 to 1953, the much larger Northern Nigeria was amalgamated with the Nigerian South in the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria, and its administration was virtually controlled from the South. During this period, local government was administered by a string of Lieutenant Governors and Chief Commissioners. In the 1940s agitation for Northernisation led to the Richards and eventually to the Macpherson constitution of 1953, which granted exceptional self-governing powers (including in the areas of foreign policy, customs and border control) to the North. [13]
Northern Nigeria was granted independence on March 15, 1953, with Sir Ahmadu Bello as its first premier. the Northern Peoples Congress under Sir Ahmadu Bello dominated parliament while the Northern Elements Progressive Union became the main opposition party. [14]
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.
Shehu Usman ɗan Fodio was a Fulani scholar, Islamic religious teacher, revolutionary and a philosopher who founded the Sokoto Caliphate and ruled as its first caliph. After the successful revolution, the "Jama'a" gave him the title Amir al-Mu'minin. He rejected the throne and continued calling to Islam.
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 Kanuri people are an African ethnic group living largely in the lands of the former Kanem and Bornu Empires in Niger, Nigeria, Chad, and Cameroon. As well as a diaspora community residing in Sudan. Those generally termed Kanuri include several subgroups and dialect groups, some of whom identify as distinct from the Kanuri. Most trace their origins to ruling lineages of the medieval Kanem-Bornu Empire, and its client states or provinces. In contrast to the neighboring Toubou or Zaghawa pastoralists, Kanuri groups have traditionally been sedentary, engaging in farming, fishing the Chad Basin, trade, and salt processing.
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.
Northern Nigeria was a British protectorate which lasted from 1900 until 1914 and covered the northern part of what is now Nigeria.
Islam is one of the largest religions in Nigeria and the country has the largest Muslim population in Africa. In 2018, the CIA World Factbook estimated that 53.5% of Nigeria's population is Muslim. Islam is predominantly concentrated in the northern half of the country, with a significant Muslim minority existing in the southern region. Most of Northern Nigeria is governed under Sharia law, while the rest of the country is governed under secular law.
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.
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.
The history of the territories which since ca. 1900 have been known under the name of Nigeria during the pre-colonial period 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.
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.
Shehu al-Hajj Muhammad al-Amîn ibn Muhammad al-Kânemî (1776–1837) was an Islamic scholar, teacher, religious and political leader who advised and eventually supplanted the Sayfawa dynasty of the Kanem-Bornu Empire. In 1846, Al-Kanemi's son Umar I ibn Muhammad al-Amin became the sole ruler of Borno, an event which marked the end of the Sayfawa dynasty's eight hundred year rule. The current Shehu of Bornu, a traditional ruler whose seat remains in modern Borno State, Nigeria, is descended from Al-Kanemi.
Sir Herbert Richmond Palmer was an English barrister, who became a colonial supervisor for Britain during the inter-World War period. He served as a lieutenant governor in Nigeria, governor and Commander-in-Chief of The Gambia and governor and Commander-in-Chief of Cyprus.
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 Kebbi Emirate, also known as the Argungu Emirate is a traditional state based on the town of Argungu in Kebbi State, Nigeria. It is the successor to the ancient Hausa kingdom of Kebbi. The Emirate is one of four in Kebbi State, the others being the Gwandu Emirate, Yauri Emirate and Zuru Emirate.
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.
Hausa literature is any work written in the Hausa language. It includes poetry, prose, songwriting, music, and drama. Hausa literature includes folk literature, much of which has been transcribed, and provides a means of recording, preserving, and transmitting knowledge, especially in regard to social, psychological, spiritual, or political roles.
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