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The Sultanate of Damagaram was a Muslim pre-colonial state in what is now southeastern Niger, centered on the city of Zinder.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(December 2021) |
The Sultanate of Damagaram was a Muslim pre-colonial state in what is now southeastern Niger, centered on the city of Zinder.
The Sultanate of Damagaram was founded in 1731 (near Mirriah, modern Niger) by Muslim Kanuri aristocrats, led by Mallam (r. 1736–1743). Damagaram was at the beginning a vassal state of the decaying Kanem–Bornu Empire, but it quickly came to conquer all its fellow vassal states of western Bornu. In the 1830s, the small band of Bornu nobles and retainers conquered the Myrria kingdom, the Sassebaki sultanates (including Zinder). By the 19th century, Damagaram had absorbed 18 Bornu vassal states in the area.
Zinder rose from a small Hausa village to an important center of the Trans-Saharan trade with the moving of the capital of Damagaram there in 1736. The large fortress of the southeast central city (Birini) was built shortly thereafter, and became a major hub for trade south through Kano and east to Bornu. The Hausa town and Zengou, its Tuareg suburb, [1] expanded with this trade.
Damagaram had a mixed relationship with the other major regional power, the Sokoto Caliphate to the south. While it provided aid to the animist Hausa-led refugee states to its west (in what is now Niger) who were formed from the rump of the states conquered by the Sokoto Caliph, Damagaram also maintained good relations with its southern neighbors. Damagaram sat astride the major trade route linking Tripoli to Kano, one of the more powerful Sokoto sultanates, which provided the economic lifeblood of both states. An east–west trade from the Niger River to Bornu also passed through Zinder, making relations with animist neighbors like Maradi or the Gobirwa as profitable, and thus important. Damagaram also covered some of the more productive of Bornu's western salt-producing evaporation mines, as well as farms producing Ostrich feathers, highly valued in Europe.
In the mid-19th century, European travelers estimated the state covered some 70,000 square kilometers and had a population of over 400,000, mostly Hausa, but also Tuareg, Fula, Kanuri, Arab and Toubou. At the center of the state was the royal family, a Sultan (in Hausa the Sarkin Damagaram) with many wives (estimated at 300 by visitor Heinrich Barth in 1851) and children, and a tradition of direct (to son or brother) succession which reached 26 rulers by 1906. The sultan ruled through the activities of two primary officers: the Ciroma (Military commander and prime minister) and his heir apparent, the Yakudima. By the end of the 19th century, Damagaram could field an army of 5,000 cavalry, 30,000-foot soldiers. Damagaram could also call upon forces of the allied Kel Gres Tuareg who formed communities near Zinder and other parts of the sultanate.[ citation needed ] Gun carriages and cannons were produced in the state by the second half of the 19th century. According to Robin Law, such artillery were ineffective for war or rarely used practically. [2]
When the French arrived in force in the 1890s, Zinder was the only city of over 10,000 in what is today Niger. Damagaram found itself threatened by well-armed European incursions to the west, and the conquering forces of Rabih az-Zubayr to the east and south. In 1898, A French force under Captain Marius Gabriel Cazemajou spent three weeks under the Sultan's protection in Damagaram. Cazemajou had been dispatched to form an alliance against the British with Rabih, and the Sultan's court was alarmed at the prospect of their two most powerful new threats linking up. Cazemajou was murdered by a faction at the court, and the remainder of the French escaped, protected by other factions. In 1899, the reconstituted elements of the ill-fated Voulet–Chanoine Mission finally arrived in Damagaram on their way to revenge Cazemajou's death. Meeting on 30 July at the Battle of Tirmini, 10 km from Zinder, the well-armed Senegalese-French troops defeated the Sultan and took Damagaram's capital.
With colonialism came the loss of some of Damagaram's traditional lands and its most important trade partner to the British in Nigeria.
The French placed the capital of the new Niger Military Territory there in 1911. In 1926, following fears of Hausa revolts and improving relations with the Djerma of the west, the capital was transferred to the village of Niamey.
The brother of Sultan Ahmadou mai Roumji had earlier sided with the French, and was placed on the throne in 1899 as Sultan Ahamadou dan Bassa. Following French intelligence that a rising by Hausa in the area was preparing a revolt with the aid of the Sultan, a puppet Sultan was placed in power in 1906, though the royal line was restored in 1923. The Sultanate continues to operate in a ceremonial function into the 21st century.
The wealth of Damagaram depended on three related sources: taxes and income from the caravan trade, the capture and the exchange of slaves, and internal taxes.
Damagaram was originally an area of hunting and gathering activities. As the sultanate developed, the rulers encouraged the rural population to expand farming. Most of the land, especially that surrounding the capital Zinder, belonged to the Sultan and a few notables. In all cases, people who held land were obliged to pay an annual tribute to the sultan.
In order to limit the environmental degradation of this conversion to agriculture, the sultan Tanimoune (1854–84) enforced laws to forbid the cutting of certain trees, with particular emphasis on the gawo tree (Faidherbia albida) with its fertilising properties: "He who cuts a gawo tree without authorization will have his head severed; he who mutilates it without reason will have an arm cut off." The sultan and later his successors also proceeded to plant trees, gawo trees in particular, and dispersed the seeds throughout the empire. Other protected trees were aduwa ( Balanites aegyptiaca ), kurna or magaria ( Ziziphus spina-christi and Ziziphus mauritiana ), madaci dirmi ( Khaya senegalensis ), magge and gamji ( Ficus spp.). The fallow period for land at that time was six years. [3]
The authority that the sultan claimed on trees was a new practice, breaking with customary views on trees in the Sahel. Traditionally, trees were considered 'gifts from the gods' and could not be owned by any individual, but belonged either to the spirits of the bush or to God. The policies of sultan Tanimoune anchored a new perception: they became called the 'trees of the sultan'.
The Sultanate of Damagaram has been ruled by the following sultans: [4]
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 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 and the second largest landlocked nation in Africa behind Chad. 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.
Zinder, formerly also spelled Sinder, is the third largest city in Niger, with a population of 235,605 as by the 2012 census. It is situated 861 km (535 mi) east of the capital Niamey and 240 km (150 mi) north of the Nigerian city of Kano.
The culture of Niger is marked by variation, evidence of the cultural crossroads which French colonialism formed into a unified state from the beginning of the 20th century. What is now Niger was created from four distinct cultural areas in the pre-colonial era: the Djerma dominated Niger River valley in the southwest; the northern periphery of Hausaland, made mostly of those states which had resisted the Sokoto Caliphate, and ranged along the long southern border with Nigeria; the Lake Chad basin and Kaouar in the far east, populated by Kanuri farmers and Toubou pastoralists who had once been part of the Kanem-Bornu Empire; and the Tuareg nomads of the Aïr Mountains and Saharan desert in the vast north. Each of these communities, along with smaller ethnic groups like the pastoral Wodaabe Fula, brought their own cultural traditions to the new state of Niger.
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.
Maradi is the second largest city in Niger and the administrative centre of Maradi Region. It is also the seat of the Maradi Department and an Urban Commune.
Zinder Region is one of the seven regions of Niger; the capital of the region is Zinder. The region covers 145,430 km². It is the most populous province of Niger.
The Region of Maradi is one of seven regions of Niger. It is located in south-central Niger, east of the Region of Tahoua, west of Zinder, and north of the Nigerian city of Katsina. The administrative centre is at Maradi. The population of the Region is predominantly Hausa.
Gobir was a city-state in what is now Nigeria. Founded by the Hausa in the 11th century, Gobir was one of the seven original kingdoms of Hausaland, and continued under Hausa rule for nearly 700 years. Its capital was the city of Alkalawa. In the early 19th century elements of the ruling dynasty fled north to what is today Niger from which a rival dynasty developed ruling as Sarkin Gobir at Tibiri. In 1975 a reunited traditional sultanate took up residence in Sabon Birni, Nigeria.
Tessaoua, formerly known as Tessawa, is a city located in the Maradi Region of Niger. It has a population of 43,409. Tessaoua is historically an important city in its region. It is situated in a central geographical location. Tessaoua is a midpoint on a historical trade route between Agadez, Niger, in the north and Kano, Nigeria, in the south. During the collapse of the sultanates of Bornu and Sokoto during the late 19th century, the local ruler declared his territory the sultanate of Tessaoua; he signed a treaty of protection with the French captain Cazemajou in 1897, prior to the explorer's murder in nearby Zinder.
The Dosso Kingdom is a precolonial state in what is now southwest Niger which has survived in a ceremonial role to the modern day.
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The Sultanate of Agadez was a Berber kingdom centered first in city of Agadez in the Aïr Mountains, located at the southern edge of the Sahara desert in north-central Niger. It was founded in 1405 by the Tuareg. The Agadez Sultanate was later conquered by the Songhai Empire in 1500. After the defeat of the Songhai kingdom in 1591, the Agadez Sultanate regained its independence. It experienced a steep decline in population and economic activity during the 17th century. The sultanate came under French suzerainty in 1906.
Niger–Nigeria relations refer to the current and historical relationship between Niger and Nigeria, two neighbouring countries in West Africa. Relations are based on a long shared border and common cultural and historical interactions.
Mirriah is a town and urban commune in Niger.
Slavery in Niger involves different practices which have been practiced in the Sahel region for many centuries and which persist to this day. The Bornu Empire in the eastern part of Niger was an active part of the trans-Saharan slave trade for hundreds of years. Other ethnic groups in the country similarly had a history of slavery, although this varied and in some places slavery was largely limited to the political and economic elite.
Marius-Gabriel Cazemajou was a French officer who died during an expedition in West Africa.
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Ahmadu Dan Tanimu, known as Ahmadu Kuran Daga or Ahmadu Mai Rinji was the Sultan of the Sultanate of Damagaram from 1893 to 1899. His reign marked the height of Damagaram's military and political prowess. He inherited thousands of muskets and dozens of canons from his father, along with canon factories and ammunition plants. Ahmadu soon found himself in a power struggle with the Emirate of Kano under Aliyu Mai Sango, Bornu under Rabih Az-Zubayr, and French Colonialists. After the assassination of French officer Marius Gabriel Cazemajou and his interpreter in Zinder under Ahmadu's orders, he was subdued and killed by the French in retaliation.
Zermou is a town and rural commune in Niger.
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