The West African Slave Plantation: A Case Study

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Author: Mohammed Bashir Salau

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The West African Slave Plantation

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The West African Slave Plantation A Case Study Mohammed Bashir Salau

THE WEST AFRICAN SLAVE PLANTATION

Copyright © Mohammed Bashir Salau, 2011. All rights reserved. First published in 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States – a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978–0–230–11590–3 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bashir Salau, Mohammed, 1966– The West African slave plantation : a case study / Mohammed Bashir Salau. p. cm. ISBN 978–0–230–11590–3 (hardback) 1. Slave trade—Africa, West—History—19th century. 2. Slave trade— Nigeria—Kano (Emirate)—History—19th century. 3. Slavery—Africa, West—History—19th century. 4. Slavery—Nigeria—Kano (Emirate)— History—19th century. 5. Plantations—Nigeria—Kano (Emirate)— History—19th century. I. Title. HT1331.B37 2011 306.3'620966—dc22 2011011003 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by MPS Limited, A Macmillan Company First edition: August 2011 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America.

For my wife, Raliat Talatu, and my children, Faridah, Farid, and Fawaz


Contents

List of Maps and Figure

ix

Acknowledgments

xi

Introduction

1

1

Kasar Kano: Historical Setting

21

2 The Development of the Fanisau Plantation Complex

41

3 The Management of Plantations in the Fanisau Complex

77

4

91

Sociocultural Life at Fanisau

5 Slave Resistance, Control of Slave Labor, and Groundnut Production

111

6 General Conclusion

129

Notes

137

Bibliography

175

Index

189


List of Maps and Figure

Maps I.1 The Sokoto Caliphate 1.1

2

Kano

24

2.1 Fanisau and other ribats established by Ibrahim Dabo in the Kano Emirate 2.2

Barth’s map indicating the ward he resided in as well as the emir’s palace and other Kano City wards in the mid-nineteenth century

48

56

Figure 2.1

Kano in the mid-nineteenth century

68


Acknowledgments

This book is mainly based on my doctoral dissertation in history, which was defended at York University, Toronto, in July 2005. I wish to reiterate my gratitude to Professor Paul E. Lovejoy for his dedication in supervising the project during and beyond my period as a graduate student as well as for his support for all kinds of professional activities. I could not have asked for a better supervisor. Of the many other people who have helped my academic enterprise I thank Professors Jose Curto and A. S. Kanya-Forstner, who served as examiners of my thesis, and who generally provided invaluable counsel. Professors Femi Kolapo, Richard Roberts, and Raphael Njoku provided ample help with their encouragement and incisive comments. Similarly, Professors Edmund Abaka, Jan Hogendorn, Joseph P. Ward, and Akin Ogundiran have encouraged me and significantly helped my academic enterprise. Many thanks are also due to my fellow students at York University for their encouragement, support, and companionship during my time there as a Ph.D. student. In particular, I thank Ismael Musa Montana, Yacine Daddi Addoun, Mariana Pinho Candido, and Henry Lovejoy for generously proofreading versions of some of the chapters and for offering useful advice. Some of this material has previously appeared elsewhere: part of the Introduction as well as parts of Chapter 5 and the Conclusion appeared in the Journal of African History, portions of chapters 4, 5, and the Conclusion were presented at the Sixth Caribbean Reasonings Conference held at the University of West Indies, Jamaica, in June 2008; and part of Chapter 2 draws on a paper published by African Economic History. I give thanks to all of those who offered comments and criticism concerning these early versions of my work. Also, I will be forever indebted to the reader of Palgrave Macmillan for his or her many suggestions which have helped to turn my dissertation into a book.

xii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to Chris Chappell and members of the editorial board of this series for accepting this work for publication. I also want to recognize other staff at Palgrave Macmillan for their efforts in producing this book. In particular, I thank Sarah Whalen, Heather Faulls, and the team at MPS Ltd. Many thanks to Stephen Savell who produced the maps. I am also indebted to my indexer, David Prout, and to Cambridge University Press for permission to reproduce the map on Sokoto Caliphate. For their financial support, I thank: the British Library, which awarded me the Endangered Archives Programme grant; the York/UNESCO Nigerian Hinterland Project; the Harriet Tubman Resource Centre on the African Diaspora; York University; and The University of Mississippi. For their consistent encouragement, my heart also goes out to my parents, brothers, and sisters. Of my brothers, I especially thank Abdulwaheed, Sulaiman, and Abdulrazaq for fostering my education and research. Finally, my deepest gratitude is reserved for my wife and children. They were with me every inch of the way, and without their boundless love and affection, this book would never have happened.

Introduction

T

here are many neglected themes in the history of the Islamic world. Few, however, are as neglected as the role of plantations in that history. Yet what bits of information we have on the subject tend to suggest that, contrary to popular belief, plantations were a vital factor not only in the consolidation of some Muslim states, but also in determining some of the ways in which these societies reacted and adjusted to the challenges that confronted them. At least, one can come to such a conclusion on the strength of the evidence provided in some of the works discussed below. Despite this literature, there is a gap because, among other reasons, scholars have not pursued the efforts of those who pioneered the history of plantations in Muslim societies. It is partly to fill this lacuna that the present study has been undertaken. This book attempts to trace the history of plantations in the Sokoto Caliphate with particular reference to an area of the Kano Emirate known as Fanisau. Special attention will be paid to the political and economic policies that influenced the growth of the plantation sector and to the role of estates in socioeconomic developments, especially at local and emirate levels. Some important questions to be addressed are as follows: Why were plantations established in Fanisau? How were they managed? What was the nature of master-slave relationships? Who were the estate owners, and how did their operations have an impact on Fanisau, and on Kano more generally? This study demonstrates that the history of plantations at Fanisau was closely related to the history of the emirate, and more broadly to that of the Sokoto Caliphate. An examination of the plantation sector at Fanisau opens a window to the society of the Sokoto Caliphate, the largest state in nineteenth-century sub-Saharan Africa. Although the primary focus of this book is on Fanisau, another important subject of concern relates to the term “plantation.” It is therefore important to discuss it.

Map I.1 The Sokoto Caliphate

INTRODUCTION

3

“Plantation” is an ambiguous term. It has been used to designate (1) a “colony”; (2) an “economic unit producing agricultural commodities . . . for sale and employing a relatively large number of unskilled laborers who . . . are closely supervised”; (3) farm units that had twenty or more slaves; and (4) large-scale, specialized agricultural units that developed in order to serve the needs of vast and widespread markets for particular commodities.1 Most commonly, “plantation” has been used to describe large-scale agriculture, employing slave labor who are often organized around the gang system. According to Lovejoy: Such organization depended upon the existence of individuals who had access to land and labor and who commanded the capital that could acquire these factors. The term is used to distinguish the cultivation of land in large aggregates from small scale farming by peasants. Such practices, which involved outputs that more than fed the slave producers, required a distributional system for agricultural surplus, either through the market mechanism or some comparable means of redistribution.2

In the case of Muslim areas in West Africa, we are dealing with a region where scholars generally agree that slaves constituted a significant percentage of the population, especially in the nineteenth century. Writers also widely acknowledge that slave labor was commonly mobilized in large agricultural estates in these West African regions. But it does not necessarily follow that the existence of numerous slaves and/or a large estate means a plantation. Both the number of slaves and the size of an agricultural holding may be conditions or prerequisites for the foundation of a plantation. This seems to explain why many historians use the organizational form of the institution in question to distinguish it from other types of farms dependent on slave labor. Kenneth Stampp, for instance, appreciates the existence of slaves in both small and large agricultural units in the antebellum South, but points to the fact that plantation units, unlike small agricultural holdings, largely employed about twenty slaves or more.3 More important, however, he argued that what distinguished a plantation from a small agricultural unit was its management. Specifically, he explained that a plantation was often organized around a clearly defined system of managerial hierarchy involving the master leaving the fields to become a manager while placing the direct supervision of slave gangs with overseers, “hence the normal relationship between field-hands and their masters was not that of fellow workers but of labor and management.”4

4


As Stampp and other scholars,5 Lovejoy, suggests that although the number of slaves may vary, the classification of a plantation is mainly tied to management and not acres, as the former is of primary importance to the quality of slave life.6 In rejecting the argument that the term “plantation” is inappropriate to the Sokoto Caliphate, he argues that, as in the New World, the organization of numerous agricultural holdings in the Sokoto Caliphate was characterized partly by the “predominance of labor, often organized in gangs,” and by the direct supervision of slaves “by slave headmen or officials who were then responsible to persons with managerial functions.”7 Given these and other organizational similarities between Sokoto Caliphate agriculture and plantations in the New World, Lovejoy concludes that the last definition of “plantation” cited above seems the most useful in examining the Sokoto Caliphate. I entirely concur with his assessment and will therefore use that definition in the context of this study.8 The term “plantation” has been almost exclusively associated with North American, Caribbean, and Brazilian economies.9 Nevertheless, I shall employ it in this particular African case study for a number of reasons. The term helps to express the significance of the plantation model in the historical development of slavery in the Kano Emirate. Moreover, there is no precise word for this term in the languages spoken in Kasar Kano (land of Kano, that is, the Kano Emirate). Of the two major local terms that refer to plantation, rinji and gandu, the latter has gained the widest usage in the extant literature. Yet, this is one of the most ambiguous of all the local words. Gandu is a Hausa word with roots most probably in the Songhay empire before the sixteenth century.10 As Polly Hill has noted, “[I]t may denote a farm (or farms), a group of men, the relationship between the men concerned, a condition of trust, a large farm, a farm owned by a chief by virtue of his office, tribute (or tax), or a store of money ( gandun kudi).”11 Indeed, as Lovejoy indicates, gandu has been identified not only with “slave villages,” but also with large-scale agricultural activities based on slave gang labor during the nineteenth century.12 Given the ambiguity inherent in the term gandu (or rinji),13 the term “plantation” is accordingly employed in the following analysis. The lack of a precise term for plantation is not peculiar to Kasar Kano, perhaps because the term is a recent innovation. In fact, this lack of a precise term for the institution in question is also a feature of the broader Sokoto Caliphate and the Islamic world in general. Although some words in the context of Muslim societies (such as tungazi, dumde, and gandu

INTRODUCTION

5

in the Sokoto Caliphate) have come to mean “plantation,” each has only limited usage and none has acquired the universal meaning of “plantation” within the Islamic world. The lack of a precise and universally acceptable term for “plantation” in the Islamic world might also have resulted from the fact that there is no mention of the institution in the Quran (the main religious text of Islam). The Hadith (the collection of tradition attributed to Muhammad, the last prophet of Islam) and Sunna (the collection of sayings and customs of Muhammad) also do not sanction the use of slave gangs in agriculture. Nor do they sanction any organizational process that includes the use of that form of labor. Rather than discuss issues related to slave plantations, the Quran, Hadith, and Sunna mainly consider the question of the legal status, treatment, and manumission of slaves.14 In spite of the silence of the Shari’a (Islamic law) on plantations, we know that such institutions were identifiable features of Islamic societies. Indeed, available evidence indicates that slave gangs were employed in estates in southern Morocco during the fifteenth century.15 Similarly, we know that slave gangs were occasionally employed in Ottoman Empire agriculture during various periods. As Ehud R. Toledano writes on the nineteenth century, for example: The ruling elite appropriated the surplus via a variety of revenue assessment and collection mechanisms, relying on free peasantry to till relatively small plots, produce for subsistence, and provision the urban centers of the empire. In such a system, slave labor was rare, localized, and short term, and gang cultivation did not exist at all. These realities were changed in the late 1850s and early 1860s with the introduction of a large agricultural slave population from the Caucasus.16

There are other examples of plantation slavery in Islamic societies outside West Africa. For instance, in the nineteenth century, when British naval patrols restricted maritime slaving in the Indian Ocean, Omani Arabs settled on Zanzibar and put slaves, who they increasingly found unmarketable abroad, to work locally on clove plantations. Swahili landowners on the adjoining mainland brought other slaves to produce grain to feed the large captive population on the islands.17 In West Africa, various Islamic states employed slaves in plantations from the medieval era through the nineteenth century. The Askias (rulers or kings) of Songhay, beginning with Dawud, possessed numerous estates along the banks of the River Niger, from Dendi in the southeast to the

6


Lake Debo area in the northwest. These royal estates were set aside for the production of rice, of which about 800 tons were sent to Gao every year.18 Outside Songhay, plantation slavery existed in several Islamic areas of western Sudan during the nineteenth century, and was most likely practiced in Kanem/Borno throughout the medieval era.19 In examining the Sokoto Caliphate, many scholars have either been reluctant to examine practices that might reflect adversely on the Islamic legitimacy of the Sokoto Caliphate leadership20 or have remained content with echoing the much-publicized myth of “feudal economy” in precolonial Hausaland.21 Therefore, much of the extant literature on the region avoids either using the term “plantation” or downplays the significance of the institution in the Sokoto Caliphate’s economy. In his study on the British colonial domination of the Sokoto Caliphate, Mahmud Modibbo Tukur22 questions the notion that the emirates subjugated by the British had hitherto been slave societies (characterized dominantly by slave production). In doing this, he marshaled evidence to show that the term “slave” has been indiscriminately applied to African states like the Sokoto Caliphate and concludes that what the British found in the emirates was more like serfdom than slavery in the classical sense. In essence, Tukur suggests that plantations did not exist in the Sokoto Caliphate; not surprisingly, he did not apply this term in his work. Considering the evidence provided by nineteenth-century writers (both indigenous and foreign) and by subsequent sources, however, Tukur’s suggestion is implausible. Bala Achi also used local terminologies, especially gandu, in his analysis of the royal estates of Hausaland. In his view, “[C]orvee labor was more important [than slaves] to the sarakuna” at these holdings. However, he also notes that many free persons migrated out of the immediate jurisdiction of the sarakuna (kings/rulers) because they detested forced labor. Hence, the nobles had to turn to the mobilization of slave labor on their estates. In spite of this assertion, Achi did not seriously explore the nature of master-slave relationships at the royal estates. Also, like other scholars discussed below, he never adequately explored the interface between the court and the rural plantation economy in Hausaland. Outside general studies on the Sokoto Caliphate, most of the studies that focus on individual emirates of this particular Muslim state, as the works of Tukur and Achi, also avoided using the term “plantation.” Thus, for instance, for similar reasons to those outlined above, Yusuf Bala Usman

INTRODUCTION

7

and Ibrahim Jumare avoided using the word “plantation” in their separate studies on Katsina and the Sokoto Rima basin areas, respectively.23 Even many scholars of slavery whose works focus on West Africa (including the Islamic areas of this broad region) and Africa in general, prefer to adopt terms like “slave villages” or local terms denoting plantations largely because of their conviction that West African / African economies were based on serfdom. In a recent study that compares servile social categories in medieval Europe and precolonial Africa, for instance, Joseph Inikori argues that the dependent population in the Sokoto Caliphate and other parts of West Africa, similar to medieval European serfs, possessed land large enough to provide an income to support their households, and that given this and several other considerations it is misleading to refer to West African servile institutions as “slave plantations.” For him, the appropriate label is “serf villages.”24 There have been a number of studies on slavery in West Africa, including in the Sokoto Caliphate, that have used the term “plantation” and have argued without reservation that this was a widespread feature in the economy of many West African societies. These include the works of Richard Roberts on the societies of the Middle Niger Valley and John Hunwick’s work on Songhay.25 Relevant studies that specifically focus on the Sokoto Caliphate, include M. G. Smith’s work on slavery and emancipation in the Zaria Emirate and Jamaica; Jan Hogendorn’s work on two plantation villages in the Zaria Emirate; Ibrahim Hamza’s work on Dorayi; Ann O’Hear’s work on the Ilorin region of the Sokoto Caliphate; and the numerous general works of Lovejoy on the Sokoto Caliphate.26 Collectively, studies that employed the term plantation in their analysis have served to further our understanding of such issues as origins of plantations, scale of plantation slavery, economics of slave use on plantations, plantation life, and plantation structure. Much of this work, however, has dealt with the general history of slavery in relatively broad West African regions or with a specific theme related to West African plantations, rather than with the specific internal movements/histories of individual plantation complexes themselves. In terms of works that deal with the Sokoto Caliphate region, for instance, Hogendorn’s work covers the economics of slave use on two plantations in the Zaria Emirate but is less concerned with the history of the estates, while Lovejoy’s works, among other contributions, proposes a general theory on the evolution of plantations in the economy of the Sokoto Caliphate but he did not account for the internal

8


and historic development of any particular plantation center in the state.27 Similarly, Hamza’s work on Dorayi focuses on demonstrating that plantations were more widespread in the settlement than previously assumed and is less concerned about providing a detailed account of the history and nature of the Dorayi plantation complex.28 This work presents the history of plantation slavery in Fanisau, a unit of the Kano Emirate. Unlike some previous works like those of Smith and Hogendorn that restrict their temporal analysis mainly to the early twentieth century,29 this work is not so restricted in time. Rather, it considers both the nineteenth century and the early twentieth centuries as periods that represents the emergence and the decline of the Fanisau plantation complex. For most of the period considered in this study, Fanisau was one of the relatively few ribats (fortified settlements) in the Kano Emirate. Although scholars like Nasiru Ibrahim Dantiye and John Edward Philips have written on ribats in the Kano Emirate, specifically on issues like slavery, taxation, and administration,30 this study provides a relatively more detailed account of the daily life of the slave economy of Kano Emirate ribats while at the same time highlighting attention on how the court interfaced with the rural ribat economy. Also, the study helps to shed light on why most of the slaves used in the Sokoto Caliphate army, or rather most of those stationed at ribats, also became plantation laborers. The Fanisau case study calls into question the assumption that servile institutions in West Africa were “serf villages” and not “slave plantations.” This study focuses to some extent on the origins, life, and labor of the servile population in Fanisau. It shows that a large majority of this population was separated from their kin groups and was mainly acquired through raids from non-Muslim societies around the Sokoto Caliphate. Also, it shows that a majority of the servile population in Fanisau, unlike medieval European serfs, were, in addition to being organized into slave gangs for agricultural production, not tied to the land. Rather, they were tied to the emir of Kano and other wealthy private slave owners, and they could be sold. In 1955, M. G. Smith, published the first full work dealing with slavery in an Islamic area of West Africa from a comparative perspective. Choosing Zaria and Jamaica in this particular comparison, Smith argued that slavery was less harsh in the African context than in Caribbean sugar estates, in part because of the different type of crops produced, and in part because Islamic injunctions influenced Muslim slave owners to assimilate newly acquired

INTRODUCTION

9

slaves into society. To prove that master-slave relations were harmonious in the Zaria Emirate and that slavery served to promote slave assimilation in the region, Smith presented relevant slaveholders as patriarchs who abided strictly with Islamic laws on slavery. He also highlighted the fact that the process of emancipation was not turbulent, rather that most slaves remained in Zaria following emancipation. Indeed, according to him, most of these ex-slaves retained a master-servant relationship with their previous masters in the immediate post-emancipation era in spite of the abundance of land and legal protection offered to freed slaves. Although Smith recognized that slaves were sometimes maltreated in the Zaria Emirate, he explained that these exceptional cases of ill treatment were necessary to pressure slaves into embracing Islam. He explained that, once assimilated into Islam, various incentives and rights granted by slave owners usually encouraged slaves to submissively or voluntarily assimilate to Hausa culture.31 Although Smith’s theory is reminiscent of Ulrich Bonnell Phillips’s claim that slavery was mild and progressive in the Old South,32 scholars like Polly Hill, Michael Watts, and Inikori have popularized Smith’s theory.33 Other scholars like Hogendorn and Lovejoy have, however, questioned the notion that slavery was mild and progressive in the Sokoto Caliphate.34 The case of Fanisau backs the claims of these revisionist scholars, and in doing so also shows that manumission/intergenerational mobility was less common in the Sokoto Caliphate, and in West Africa / Africa in general, than generally believed.35 In Fanisau, as elsewhere in the Sokoto Caliphate, Islamic law encouraged the freeing of slaves as a mark of piety or charity or for expiation. While masters freed some of their slaves to such considerations, slaves also used the channels of liberation defined by Islamic law, especially self redemption, to obtain their freedom. Despite, the existence of slave manumission through such varied means, this book shows that slave resistance usually discouraged manumission while slave masters often ignored traditions and laws that encouraged it. In the latter regard, for instance, in spite of Islamic laws, royal slaves could not be freed through self purchase while masters were generally very selective about whom they voluntarily freed. Indeed, they often had a preference for freeing slaves they considered to have “good behavior,” or those they characterized as “honest,” “hardworking,” “too sick,” and “too old” (to engage in rigorous plantation activities). In Fanisau, therefore, only relatively few slaves were freed by slave masters and even then their emancipation occurred within the context of intermittent warfare and perpetual

10


breeding that usually furnished new slaves to, among other functions, replace those granted freedom. Some historians have highlighted the role of slave labor in groundnut production during the “cash crop revolution” in West Africa in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Writing on Northern Nigeria, Jan Hogendorn argues that in the face of better profit opportunities that the groundnut business presented during the early twentieth century, Kano traders, whose operations were based on a system of clientage, took several measures to ensure that a large proportion of the crop would be grown, at the expense of cotton. Specifically, they sent their clientage agents into the countryside to spread news, directly via village headmen and traders in village and hamlet markets, about, among other things, the relatively higher profit that could be obtained by selling nuts. They also recruited village heads to act as agents in popularizing particular clientage networks at harvest time. Finally, Kano traders often sent agent-buyers to outlying areas to not only identify hardworking and honest farmers, but also to encourage such individuals to grow more groundnuts in part by assuring them of instant purchase and/or by handing them credits and/or gifts.36 According to Hogendorn, the methods adopted by Kano traders generally raised the acreage brought under cultivation, resulting in the groundnut boom experienced shortly after the Baro-Kano rail line was completed: 1912 and in 1913–14. In his estimation, the first year resulted in the sale of over 10,000 tons of groundnuts while the second year, in spite of the terrible drought experienced in 1913–14, resulted in the sale of over 11,900 tons of groundnuts. Having tied the expansion in groundnut production to entrepreneurship, market, and the completion of the Baro-Kano railway, Hogendorn recognizes that expansion in production occurred within the context of abundant land and scarce labor. In his view, the labor problem was compounded primarily because: [s]ubsistence food production had to be maintained, the decline of slavery probably reduced the work force, wage labour was difficult to hire just at the time it was most necessary, and women did not play a very important role in groundnut cultivation because of the heavy workload involved. Women, however, did do the decortication, which was slow and time consuming.37

Overall, Hogendorn recognizes that because of labor problems, slavery and other forms of unfree labor were involved in groundnut production.

INTRODUCTION

11

He also appreciates that the reallocation of labor from other crops and activities and the reduction of leisure by farmers helped to address labor problems. Largely because of silences in the sources, however, Hogendorn could not establish whether slave or non-slave labor played a larger role in production. In other words, as mentioned, he was in a dilemma over where the labor involved in the changeover to groundnut production came from. Hogendorn’s work has been criticized, to a greater or lesser extent, by several writers who think, among other things, that his assumptions are based on “voluntaristic notions” that present colonialism in Northern Nigeria as undisruptive. Major critics like Michael Watts, Robert Shenton, and Louise Lennihan generally stress that expansion in groundnut / cash crop production only occurred through a reallocation of labor from other tasks and that this process itself, which was never costless, was mainly fostered by colonial land / peasantization policies.38 Hogendorn and Lovejoy subsequently rejected the notion that colonial land policies served to create peasants. Rather they argue that colonial land policies (and other non-land colonial policies), mainly served to enhance the ability of the British administrators, local authorities, and merchants to control slave labor. Having established several ways in which colonial land policies shaped the control of slave labor, Hogendorn and Lovejoy ultimately concluded that although peasants and freed slaves were important suppliers of labor, slavery was the dominant source of labor for groundnut/agricultural production in the early colonial era and that, in fact, slavery and plantations were still widespread in Northern Nigeria during this period.39 The problem with their analysis, however, is that it offers no real proof that slaves and freed slaves were growing groundnuts on plantations or elsewhere. Detailed analysis in Steven Pierce’s study fails to address this problem in part because of his focus on “small scale landholdings” and in part because he highlights attention on Ungogo, rather than on neighboring Fanisau.40 The problem posed by Hogendorn and Lovejoy’s analysis therefore remains. While the problem posed by Hogendorn and Lovejoy’s analysis remained unresolved, Gareth Austin recently published a work in which he explores the causal relations between the “cash crop revolution,” “the slow death of slavery,” and debt bondage. He lamented that there is still no adequate study of the contribution of slave and other forms of coerced labor to the “cash crop revolution” of the early colonial period.41 As a contribution to the debate on the specific nature of labor in the transition to cash crop cultivation in West Africa, this book reinforces

12


the interpretation of numerous scholars who have highlighted the role of slave labor in groundnut production during the “cash crop revolution” in the region during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It also expands Hogendorn’s argument on the African initiatives involved in the expansion of groundnut production in colonial Northern Nigeria. In particular, it provides evidence on the key role of the emir of Kano (Abbas) and important merchants in the transition to groundnut cultivation and the significant use of slave labor by these large estate holders. Although the focus on Fanisau in some respects makes this study unique, the focus on such an individual plantation complex also has relevance in the comparative approach to the study of slavery. By and large, there are numerous studies of individual plantations in various parts of the New World,42 but there is still no book-length case study on an individual plantation complex in Africa. The absence of a full case study may be in part because Africanists do not have access to the kind of data that is available for village and plantation studies in the West Indies or the United States. This work, however, has an exceptional source: a large fund of oral interviews taken during the 1970s by a team of researchers led by Lovejoy. It also draws on a significant number of written sources. These rich sources, which will be discussed in more detail later in this chapter, made it possible to present a detailed account of the plantation economy in the Fanisau region of the Sokoto Caliphate thereby making more-standard material for comparative slavery available. In addition to that, this study also embraces the comparative approach by comparing the materials available for the study of slavery in Fanisau to those from the antebellum south and by making other comparisons at various points in the text. Overall, the comparative approach employed in this study owes much of its origins to works of leading scholars on plantation slavery in Africa who ask us to embrace it because it draws attention to important facts and could offer new insights to old theories.43 My work, as hinted, diverges from the conventional approach applied to most studies of slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate, which for the most part has questioned whether plantation slavery was important in the society. The conventional approach is based on the uncritical matching of Islamic theories and Sokoto Caliphate practices. Frederick Cooper’s research on East Africa points to the fact that the tradition of matching Islamic theories with specific practices is a feature of scholarship on other parts of Africa. According to him, such tradition is mainly responsible for the

INTRODUCTION

13

view that a form of slavery was conterminous with Islam. He explains, and I concur that “to seek, as some scholars have, a general ‘pattern’ of slavery in ‘Islamic Africa’ or ‘African Muslim society’ is to follow a path that leads nowhere,” partly because such perception clouds important distinctions among slave systems while it also presents Islam as unchanging and unified.44 Partly because there is no such thing as “Muslim slavery,” in this study I recognize also that although plantation slavery has been identified and studied in several Islamic states, the reliance on slave gangs in agricultural production was not a universal practice in the Muslim world. Of course, there were many Muslim societies in which plantation slavery was unknown. This study also appreciates that the Quran, Hadith, and Sunna make no mention of plantation slavery; and that plantation slavery existed wherever it did in response to economic needs.45 However, these and other related considerations are not enough to warrant the conclusion that plantation slavery was not important in Kano and in several other Islamic societies.46 As, Lovejoy as well as other scholars who have challenged this traditional position47 contend, no cultural system follows its ideals, and whether or not plantation slavery was consistent with Islam is not the issue, but instead it is a question of reconstructing economic and social institutions based on the evidence. Also as Jonathan P. Berkey has noted, it is necessary to explore other aspects of the human condition, such as “how practices attach themselves to certain values within the Islamic framework as a method of legitimization and how practices contribute themselves, at least in the eyes of some Muslims, to the process of redefining Islam.”48 The latter approach is more historically critical and is pursued in this study. But, since any such critical approach must necessarily depend on careful interpretation of source materials, it is therefore necessary to turn our attention to highlighting relevant resources at this point. Materials for the study of slavery in the antebellum South consist of plantation records, inventories (which in turn have provided significant statistical data), wills, newspapers, legislative papers, and several other forms of written records. These materials are relatively abundant, and have contributed to the growth of both macro and micro studies on plantations in the region. By contrast, a researcher discovers virtually little or no written materials on many parts of the Sokoto Caliphate. With specific regard to extant written scholarly works, the researcher also discovers that macro studies (mainly qualitative) on broad regions in the Sokoto Caliphate or on the state in general are dominant. Indeed,

14


there is no book-length study on any given plantation complex to date. Accordingly, very little extant written materials directly relate to the history of Fanisau. Indeed, unlike most plantation centers already studied in the antebellum South, there are, at least to my knowledge, no plantation records and no inventories related to the settlement under focus. It seems to me, however, that such records or some form of these, must have existed. As this book will demonstrate, the emir’s estates in Fanisau were vast, and were managed on a daily basis by a hierarchy of slave officials headed by the holder of a title known as shamaki. With such structure in place and based on the established vast extent of the emirs holdings, the shamaki or any of his subordinate officials must have kept some form of record. Unfortunately, however, I do not have any of them. In the absence of plantation records, especially inventories, this book will obviously do very little in terms of quantifying the past of Fanisau. Also, in the absence of such records, this study necessarily has relied on other forms of materials, and has to be innovative in their use. The materials used in this book could be broadly classified as primary and secondary sources. They consist of written documents, Arabic texts, archival holdings, and above all, oral data. Let us evaluate and establish their respective merits and limitations. (a) Primary Sources: This book draws upon published primary sources, especially the books and journals produced/generated by European travelers who visited Fanisau and/or other parts of the Sokoto Caliphate during the nineteenth century: C. H. Robinson, P. L. Monteil, Heinrich Barth, Hugh Clapperton, and others. Only Clapperton, however, provided a contemporary account of developments at Fanisau, including his encounter with the Kano nobles.49 I shall thus use this primary source more than others. Published primary sources such as these are particularly useful for checking and establishing the chronology of events derived from oral data. But, accounts by European travelers cannot be accepted at face value, any more than any other data can. The information foreigners provide was often derived from third parties and interpreters, thereby affecting accuracy. An important published contemporary account is by Mahmudu Koki, a local scholar of Kano,50 who assisted in the compilation of a Hausa dictionary in the 1930s.51 Although largely based on the early twentieth century, this source provides some necessary information on Kano nobles at Fanisau during the nineteenth century.

INTRODUCTION

15

There are no published contemporary Arabic texts that focus exclusively on Fanisau. Nevertheless, Taqyid akhbar jama’at al-Shaykh alladhina bi kanu wa ma jara baynahum wa bayna al-taghut al-Wali min al-hurub by Muhammad b. Salih (a judge of Kano during the reign of Abdullahi Dabo) discusses Dabo’s war with Dan Tunku and refers in passing to the settlement. Salih also provides us with one of the earliest accounts of the jihad.52 Other important Arabic sources include the works of Abd al-Karim al-Maghili, Adam b. Muhammad al-Arabi b. Adam al-Funduki al-Kanawi, and Muhammad Bello. Many of these have been translated and published.53 They generally provide details on government, religion, and history, but give little or no information on plantations. In addition to published primary sources, unpublished primary sources, especially archival materials and oral data, have also been useful for this study. The archival sources included documents of the British colonial administrators, dating from the occupation of Northern Nigeria at the beginning of the twentieth century. British officials embarked on a massive collection of oral tradition and other data from the region. Based on carefully defined procedures, the information collected and subsequently recorded was mainly intended to guide the British in the making and execution of colonial policies. These colonial records—which have been categorized as intelligence reports, assessment and re-assessment reports, and organization and re-organization reports—contain information on local customs, mythology, and language, as well as information for purposes of taxation and the administration of justice. Various institutions hold colonial reports. For our purpose, the collections in the Nigerian National Archives, Kaduna, and those held at the Harriet Tubman Institute at York University are most useful. The latter collection includes documents not only from the Kaduna archives, but also colonial records from the Public Record Office, London, and from archives located elsewhere. Despite their potential significance as primary sources, these particular archival documents reveal little or nothing on nineteenthcentury Fanisau. The materials are also wrought with preconceived racist notions, which limit their usefulness. Oral data constitute the most extensive source for the history of Fanisau. The oral data used in this study are mostly concerned with the economic history of the Sokoto Caliphate. The collection of these materials began in the late 1960s when Lovejoy did his Ph.D. fieldwork on commerce in

16


Northern Nigeria and used reel-to-reel tapes to record oral data collected through structured interviews with kolanut traders or their descendants in the region.54 Subsequently, in 1975 this same scholar worked with others, including Hogendorn and Yusuf Yunusa, in a project that collected oral data on the economic history of the central savanna.55 Most of the materials from this project were deposited with the Northern History Research Scheme at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, but Lovejoy also retained copies, which he deposited at the Harriet Tubman Institute along with those he and others not connected with the Economic History Project collected during the course of their independent work.56 Oral data used in this study are from former slaves, the sons and daughters of slaves, and the families of plantation owners and their assistants. At the time their testimonies were recorded, these informants were based in various parts of the Kano Emirate; it is therefore possible to check the content of a testimony derived from one part of the emirate against another recorded elsewhere in the same emirate. It is also possible to internally check the testimonies from any given unit of the Kano Emirate. Outside checking testimonies against other testimonies in the given collection, the oral data used in this study could be checked against colonial records, nineteenth-century European accounts, and Arabic materials. Also, the collection could be checked against other oral data on the Kano Emirate recorded as part of projects that are not related to the 1975 research on the economic history of the central savanna such as the oral data collected by Paul Lovejoy in the course of writing his Ph.D. thesis on kola trade at the University of Wisconsin in the late 1960s and early 1970s. More importantly, some of these testimonies were either collected at Fanisau or at plantations nearby and therefore have information on daily life, resistance, and accommodation that are not found in conventional sources. Indeed, it is this source that enabled this writer to understand the development of the complex of plantations at Fanisau. No doubt a problem of chronology arose in reference to the establishment/growth of the ribat since the oral data mostly applies to the late nineteenth century when the complex was fully developed. This problem of chronology and understanding change over time has, however, been addressed in this book through periodization related to the accession of Ibrahim Dabo in 1819, Clapperton’s visits in the 1820s, Barth’s visit in the 1850s, and the Basasa (Kano civil war of 1893–94), ending with the colonial conquest and the escape of many slaves.

INTRODUCTION

17

That said, the informants whose testimonies are relied on in this study include Hamidu Galadiman Shamaki (70 years old in 1975, hence born in 1905). Yunusa recorded his testimony on April 4, 1975, at Fanisau. As the chief overseer of the emir’s estates in this settlement as well as a descendant of the slaves introduced there from the Ningi region, he was knowledgeable about the affairs of the settlement, especially as they related to plantations. Muhammadu Rabi’u (59 years in 1975, hence born in 1916) was interviewed by Yunusa on July 13, 1975, at Fanisau. At the time of the interview Rabi’u was an Islamic scholar as well as a farmer. He was very knowledgeable not only about the history of the settlement but also about the history of slavery in the Kano Emirate. Alhaji Miko Hamshaki (97 years in 1969, hence born in 1872) was recorded by Lovejoy on September 8, 1969. He was the son of Madugu Kosai who owned one of the private estates in the vicinity of Fanisau. Kosai was a kolanut merchant and an established slave trader. Salaman Kano (55 years in 1975 hence born in 1921) was interviewed by Yunusa on September 20, 1975. At the time, Salaman Kano resided at the emir’s palace in Kano City and held the title Salama, which was the third most important title that royal slaves held in nineteenth-century Kano. He was well informed on developments in the palace and on slavery at royal estates in the emirate. In addition to relying on the information provided by the above informants I have also relied considerably on the testimonies of Uthman AbdulAzizi and Sani Kanyan Amana. Yusuf Yunusa and I interviewed AbdulAzizi in January 2008 at Fanisau while I was in Kano on another mission.57 He was then 73 years old, and he as well as his late parents had lived all their lives in Fanisau. He, therefore, has useful knowledge on, among other topics, the precolonial history of Fanisau. Yunusa and I interviewed Sani Kanyan Amana on the same date we obtained AbdulAzizi’s testimony. Kanyan Amana was 105 years old, but yet with good memory, when we interviewed him at Zango Uku, a village located a few kilometers west of present-day Fanisau. He was a descendant of slaves introduced into Fanisau during the nineteenth century from the Maiduguri region of present-day Nigeria. Both his mother and father were owned by a famous merchant/planter, Madugu Kosai, resident at Fanisau.58 Kanyan Amana was born at the holding of this same merchant, and hence ultimately became a slave in the same setting. Partly based on his background, Kanyan Amana had a good knowledge of both Kosai and

18


slavery in Fanisau, Overall, both AbdulAzizi’s and Kanyan Amana’s testimonies are valuable partly because they not only corroborate previous oral data, but also provide new useful information. (b) Secondary sources: The published secondary literature is mostly focused on historical developments in the Sokoto Caliphate or on specific regions of the state, including the Kano Emirate. The work of Murray Last, R. A. Adeleye, Abubakar Sa’ad, Michael Mason, and Fika are good examples of such studies.59 These, and related studies, provide valuable insights into political and economic conditions within the Sokoto Caliphate. On the problematic of slavery, I rely heavily upon the works of Lovejoy, Smith, Hogendorn, and others who have comprehensively studied the phenomenon within the context of Hausaland.60 However, much of this literature says little about the Kano Emirate, and even less about Fanisau.61 The unpublished secondary sources include B.A. honor essays, M.A. theses, and Ph.D. dissertations, as well as unpublished papers presented at conferences or seminars. Most useful in this category are the works that focus either primarily on Kano or on the theme of slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate, such as those by Yunusa, Sa’idu, Shea, and Dantiye.62 Most of these unpublished sources have similar strengths and limitations as the published works discussed earlier. It is significant to note at this point that although this study examines plantation development in Fanisau by drawing on the unpublished and published sources mentioned above, I did not possess the source material that will allow me to give a detailed comparison of the royal and private estates and to comprehensively explore, among other issues, the life and labor of the relatively few freeborn residents of the study area. This book examines plantation development in Fanisau as follows. Chapter 1 looks at the historical setting. Specifically, it explores the long history of Hausaland in general, and that of Kano in particular. It also discusses the growth of the plantation sector in the latter community before the jihad (1804–08) and the impact that the jihad had on the plantation sector. Chapters 2 to 5 investigate the plantation complex at Fanisau, Chapter 2 explaining geographical features. It also examines developments after the jihad, including the establishment of a fortified ribat63 that became the focus of a plantation complex. Beyond that, the chapter examines the histories of some Fanisau estates, the layout of the community, and the place of Kano emirs in the administration of the

INTRODUCTION

19

settlement. Chapter 3 explores the operation of plantations and highlights the nature of labor organization and crop production. Chapter 4 considers the cultural and social life of slaves while Chapter 5 examines the nature and incidence of slave resistance at Fanisau before outlining the slave control strategies employed by slave masters mainly during the early colonial era. This chapter also addresses the issue of groundnut production in colonial Fanisau. Finally, the conclusion summarizes the major findings of the study.


1

Kasar Kano: Historical Setting

Introduction The area in which Fanisau is located has a long history of consistent interaction with other settlements and peoples constituting a fraction of Kasar Kano. This chapter examines that larger historical setting. Thus, it starts by discussing the history of Kasar Kano before proceeding to explain early plantation developments in that region.1 The chapter also examines the jihad and its impact on the plantation sector in what became the Kano Emirate during the nineteenth century. Kasar Kano to 1804 The territory that became known as the Kano Emirate underwent a long and gradual process of state formation.2 Initially, the region consisted of small autonomous Hausa-speaking societies each headed, at least on the eve of 999 AD, by individuals whose authority over the rest of the people was based on ritual jurisdiction. Members of each of these small autonomous political units were involved in hunting, gathering, agriculture, and craft production. It is clear that their overall productive activities, plus a combination of other factors, attracted people from various parts of West Africa toward the Kano region right from the early period. Also, it is apparent that those attracted, both immigrants and the transient, helped to foster the development of a centralized state known as Kano after 999 AD.3 Bagauda led the immigrant group that had the most significant impact on the formation of a centralized state in the Kano region. According to various sources, the Bagauda-led group moved to the Kano region, specifically to a small community known as Sheme, from the north east in

22


the year 999 AD. Thereafter, they compelled the local people to recognize Bagauda’s political rule as the first sarki (king) of Kano. In consolidation of the sarauta (kingship) system, the Bagauda-led group and their descendants, collectively known as the Bagaudawa, helped to significantly extend the powers of both Bagauda and several subsequent sarakuna (kings) through diplomacy and conquest.4 The sarauta system that the Bagaudawa established was elaborate. It survived under different dynasties up to the turn of the nineteenth century when it was overthrown by the jihad forces discussed later in the chapter. The sarki was the head of government under the sarauta system. He was assisted by many titleholders including masu ungwani (ward heads) and sarakunan kauye (village chiefs).5 The Kano area had been long exposed to the market economy before the emergence of the sarauta system. However, with the development of the sarauta system and the related emergence of Kano City as the royal city, Kano City became a relatively more important trading center as well as the southern terminus of the trans-Saharan trade. The increasing importance of the Kano region in trans-Saharan and West African commerce after the emergence of the sarauta system was partly because the sarakuna supported the expansion of commerce by establishing new local markets, protecting trade routes, establishing trade links with other states and by supplying a number of trade items, such as slaves. Apart from the sarakuna, merchants were also involved in the growing importance of commerce in the Kano region. For instance, with the encouragement of commerce by the Kano sarakuna, they traded an increasing amount of gold, slaves, leather goods, indigo cloth, and other products produced in the region for items like salt and horses from the north and kolanut from the south and west. Given such intervention by merchants and other forces in commerce, it is unsurprising that by the late eighteenth century the Kano region was already the second most important commercial center in Hausaland.6 Although we do not know when the first Muslims visited the Kano area, Islam was evidently introduced there through a variety of sources or elements associated with the trans-Saharan trade, and indeed trade within the savanna. The earliest Muslims to arrive in Kano included Wangarawa from Mali, Arabs from North Africa, and scholars from Kanem-Borno.7 For the sarakuna of Kano, as for rulers elsewhere in West Africa, embracing Islam was a new means of promoting commerce and of exalting themselves.8 Accordingly, the early Kano sarakuna acquired the rudiments

KASAR KANO

23

of Islam from the first Muslims to visit the region. As elsewhere, however, they seem to have adopted the religion superficially, until it became a state religion during the reign of the eleventh sarki, Yaji (1349–85).9 Although Islam was firmly rooted in Kano before the twentieth sarki, Muhammad Rumfa (1453–99), came into power, during his reign the religion grew in importance and, more than previously, set the parameters for governance, education, trade, and indeed other social and economic activities.10 To better understand why Islam grew in importance during Rumfa’s reign, it is important to stress here that, on assuming office, Rumfa’s main interest was strengthening the power of the sarki in relation to those of other titleholders. Prior to his reign many titleholders had accumulated vast amounts of wealth and had increasingly sought to usurp the responsibilities of the sarakuna. For instance, during the reign of the sixteenth sarki, Abdullahi Burja (1438–52), his galadima (prime minister), Dawuda, took over what was until then the responsibility of the sarki: the command of the army during military campaigns. Galadima Dawuda also eventually became disloyal to the sarki.11 In recognition of the fact that titleholders like Galadima Dawuda served as divisive forces in the state and in his determination to undermine their growing influence in both urban and rural areas, Rumfa took several measures. It is not necessary to detail all of them here; suffice it to say that he allied himself with the socially dominant group, especially the ulema (religious scholars), and strengthened the application of Islamic principles of administration in government. To do this, Rumfa commissioned a renowned Muslim cleric, Abd al Karim al-Maghili, to write a treatise on Muslim government. Ultimately, the treatise of al-Maghili12 and other Islamic texts and traditions furnished Rumfa with religious grounds to introduce new offices in order to enhance the authority of the sarki. Among the first offices introduced was the council of nine leading office holders, tara ta Kano (the nine of Kano). Members of this specific council included the sarki’s leading slave officials. In addition to forming tara ta Kano, Rumfa enlarged the state bureaucracy by creating new offices in both urban and rural areas. We know that most of those he recruited for these new offices were slaves. It is also apparent that Rumfa favored the appointment of slaves into new offices because as kinless aliens they had developed considerable dependence on the sarakuna, and this dependence had made them more loyal and reliable than freemen.13 Overall, Rumfa easily centralized powers in his hands by pioneering the use of slave officials in Kano.

Map 1.1

Kano

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Largely because of the successful/effective centralization of powers in his hands, Rumfa’s reign marked the peak of the sarauta system / Kano power in the pre-jihad era. Partly in recognition of the importance of slave officials in Rumfa’s success as sarki, subsequent sarakuna of Kano maintained the use of royal slaves in administration. Also, after the jihadists conquered Kano in the first decade of the nineteenth century, the policy of using royal slaves in administration was maintained.14 As the Fanisau case study hopes to further demonstrate, the jihad leaders in Kano maintained this policy partly because they had to grapple with similar problems that led Rumfa to place slave officials at the center of the state and its administration. In contrast to Rumfa, however, his successors, especially those who ruled during the pre-jihad era, made less serious use of Islam in administration and allowed more blending of Islamic and local beliefs. While undermining the influence of Islam in Kano, they fought numerous battles against Katsina and other Hausa states while some of them were caught in the middle of a conflict between the Songhay empire to the west and the Borno empire to the east.15 Although both Songhay and Borno at various times controlled Kano, I hope to show in the following analysis that these developments, as earlier political development in the Kano region, did not stop the growth of slave plantations in the Hausa state in question. Plantations in Kasar Kano: Early Developments New World estate owners were mainly Christian migrants from Europe while many estate owners on the East African Coast were Muslims from Arabia.16 In Kano, however, estate owners did not include migrants from other continents. Rather, some of them were long-standing residents of the region while others were immigrants from other African communities located primarily in the North Africa area as well as in the western and central Sudan. Although Kano estate owners were from diverse places and of diverse ethnic backgrounds, they largely embraced the local Hausa culture and identity. Starting from at least the fourteenth century, they were also primarily Muslims as well as kings and merchants. Given the religious orientation of Kano estate owners, plantation development in Kano was, as plantation development on the East African Coast and elsewhere were, molded by Islamic influences. Although plantation development in Kano was molded by Islamic influences, there should be no doubt that Islam did not create plantations in

26


the region or in any other part of the world. Indeed, it is evident that in the context of Kano, as elsewhere, expanding international trade and other indigenous developments rather than Islam encouraged the establishment of the first estates in the settlement.17 To be sure, we know that Kano began establishing slave estates when it became involved in the trans-Saharan trade, which included the trade in slaves. That trade was, in turn, part of a larger pattern in trade and slavery in the savanna and Sahel regions of Africa. Although the establishment of the first plantation in Kano was more directly related to expanding trade, with the expansion of the trans-Saharan trade a pattern of slavery deriving from Islamic traditions also developed in Kano, as well as in other regions related to the desert-edge commerce.18 With regard to the enslavement process, for instance, Islamic influence was apparent as early as the fourteenth century. As Mervyn Hiskett writes: The first mention of slaves in the Kano chronicle is in the reign of Tsamia, chief of Kano from 1307–1343, when we are told that the pagans of Kano gave tribute of 200 slaves to the chief. It is not stated that Tsamia was a Muslim but the context implies that he may have been.19

Within the century after Tsamia’s rule, plantations began to be established in Kano, and it is not surprising that the enslavement process resulting in the foundation of pioneering slaving institutions had to be in accord with Islamic principles.20 Nevertheless, Islamic ethics were not a serious consideration in the early development of the plantation sector, but this would change after the Sokoto jihad in 1804–08, as the following chapters will demonstrate. The Kano Chronicle, a compilation of oral tradition written down only at the end of the nineteenth century, provides the earliest documented reference to plantations in Kano.21 According to M. G. Smith, the term ibdabu used in the Kano Chronicle refers to “throne slave estates” or royal plantations. He also confirms that this institution made its first appearance during the reign of Abdullahi Burja.22 Abdullahi Mahadi and Bala Achi agree that the reign of Burja marks the beginning of plantations in Kano but have avoided the use of the term ibdabu in defining this type of institution.23 In the context of Kasar Kano, it may, therefore, be argued that it was when plantations, especially royal estates, appeared that the terms connoting the institution began to appear, too. The Kano Chronicle is thus a key document that establishes the early existence of plantations. While the term ibdabu was apparently used after the reign of Burja,24 it seems

KASAR KANO

27

to have fallen into disuse while other terms that subsequently appeared, particularly gandu and rinji, assumed more common usage in identifying plantations. As mentioned, these latter terms are the most frequently used in recent scholarly works on Kano.25 In explaining why the first plantations emerged in Kasar Kano, it is necessary to underline that, at least from the fourteenth century, the state played various roles in the economy. Such state intervention was influenced by the realization, on the part of the rulers (sarakuna), that wealth was important for the acquisition and consolidation of power. Indeed, the development of the state increasingly produced the need for more and more resources to maintain expanding bureaucracies. Resources were also needed for the acquisition of ceremonial materials, such as trumpets, drums, flutes, as well as exotic clothing, that were absolutely necessary for the image of the sarki and other aristocrats, called the masu sarauta. On top of these expenses were the varied needs of an expanding number of courtiers, including slaves, bawa (pl. bayi), and ulema, particularly those that were patronized by the masu sarauta. In view of the importance of satisfying these needs, the rulers of fourteenth-century Kano resorted to direct participation in various economic activities rather than imposing heavy taxes on their subjects. The rulers knew that the latter action might have resulted in rebellion and emigration. They also knew that wealth was available in land (i.e., in agriculture, mining and forests), in the use of the labor (of the freeborn commoners or talakawa and slaves), and in manufacturing and commerce. Consequently, the sarakunan Kano pursued policies aimed at the promotion of state ownership of businesses/resources. However, it appears that it was only in the first half of the fifteenth century that plantations were established to develop this policy.26 Once plantations began to be established, they became important sources of wealth in Kano. Galadima Dawuda is credited with settling slaves on twenty-one plantations,27 which were located southwest of Kano City. They furnished annual tribute in grain and other crops used to support large numbers of slaves and freemen employed in the capital. Politically, plantations were instrumental in freeing the ruler of Kano from dependence on the Madinka and Daurawa lineages and other free strata among his subjects. The resulting centralization increased his dependence at least initially, on that senior official, the Galadima, who controlled the plantations. The progressive expansion of the Galadima’s power and the associated vulnerability of the sarki in the face of this development are

28


best illustrated by events that took place after the death of Burja. During this period, two successive sarakuna were deposed within eight days as a result of a power struggle that was settled by the Galadima. The nineteenth sarki, Yakubu, was clearly under the influence of the Galadima. As Smith suggests, it was probably Galadima Dawuda who installed Yakubu. In due course it was Rumfa who, among other things, attempted to check the control of plantations by the Galadima and at the same time attempted to reduce the vulnerability of the position of the sarki.28 Plantations remained important in the political economy of Kano from then until the jihad era, and the plantation sector experienced visible growth, too. However, the scale of growth achieved by Galadima Dawuda remained unrivaled. This was partly due to the decline in slave supply channeled toward the plantation sector and partly because the initial effort of Galadima Dawuda provided Kano with a plantation slave population that reproduced itself.29 Thus, extant documents indicate that it was only during the reign of the twenty-ninth sarki, Kutumbi (1623–48), that new royal plantations were established, and this time only four were founded at Ibdabu, Gandu, Tokarawa, and Rimin Kwashe.30 The growth of the plantation sector was impeded by political factors. In the first place, wars with neighboring states negatively affected the sector.31 Kano faced invasion and defeat from Kwararafa32 and Katsina, and some plantations were presumably destroyed in the course of these engagements even though new ones were probably established. Ultimately, the state’s defeat created instability, caused more outside attacks, and drove away commerce.33 Indeed, it is clear that many wealthy merchants (due to unstable political conditions) deserted Kano for other places, especially Katsina, and this fact suggests that many plantations may have disappeared during troubled times.34 Before the nineteenth century Kano also experienced several severe multi-year droughts that affected agriculture, and probably affected the plantation sector. One major drought at the turn of the seventeenth century lasted for eleven years. In the eighteenth century, the drought of the 1740s and early 1750s, experienced in all of West Africa, also affected Kano. Another occurred in the 1790s, and although it was not as devastating as the great drought of the midcentury, it depleted grain stores at Kano.35 Ironically, however, drought localized to other regions resulted in the establishment of new plantations in Kasar Kano. For instance, drought in

KASAR KANO

29

the Sahel or desert edge gave birth to a standard form of response that helped to minimize the effect of natural calamity. Many desert dwellers moved south, sometimes permanently. Those who stayed temporarily, especially the nobles, usually took refuge on farms of their sedentary clients for the duration of the drought and returned back north when conditions returned to normal. It is noteworthy, however, that the southward population movement from the Sahel was not only experienced during moments of drought. A constant, if less dramatic flow away from the zone in question took place in prosperous times as well, partly as a result of individual success in the desert. As Baier and Lovejoy have observed, the desert-edge sector entailed many risks for investors, be they merchants, farmers, hunters, or pastoralists; but its potential profits were sufficient to attract people. In time, those who prospered in the desert reinvested their capital in the savannah to expand their activities, or to withdraw after minor local crop failure or loss of animals, or as an insurance against potential disaster in the riskier desert. In brief, the desert provided profits that were then reinvested in economic ventures in Kano and other parts of the savannah. Such movements to the south, in addition to those impelled by drought, resulted in the existence of communities in Kano and other parts of the savannah that were tied to the desert-edge network and that often included plantations.36 Consequently, it was common for desertedge traders, especially Tuareg, who had established such estates in the vicinity of Kano, to visit the state annually.37 Most of them brought salt in caravans that sometimes exceeded three thousand camels. After depositing this item with local agents for re-export or sale, the Tuareg purchased the supplies they needed and visited their plantations to collect their share of the grain harvests. One tenth of the total crop was transferred to the local chief for the sarki, as required by the Muslim law of zakka,38 and this fact establishes an additional influence of Islam on plantation development before the nineteenth century. In addition, Tuareg estate owners were expected to make appropriate gifts to the chiefs of the areas in which their holdings were located and to its ruler before setting out for home. For many years scholars have defined slavery as the opposite of freedom.39 We now know that this definition could be misleading and that since unfreedom like freedom is a relative concept, varying degrees of unfree labor often coexisted or overlapped with slavery in many contexts.40 It is also now clear that in various parts of the world there is a close connection between droughts or famine and the development of

30


slavery and other forms of unfree labor.41 The influence of droughts on the growth of unfree labor is evident in Kano, where such historic harsh natural conditions as well as other financial problems normally forced many poor freemen who could barely eke out a living to sell their children into slavery or to embrace debt bondage for the survival of other kin/household members. In Kano, those who borrowed money, seeds or goods from rich individuals to see them though bad seasons were largely known as barori. It is clear that in return for the aforementioned items, or rather in return for subsistence, barori served creditors for a period of time, or pawned their children or relatives for a period of time, to work off their debt and terminate the bondage. However, barori could also embrace debts that they could never repay in their lifetime.42 In Kano, as elsewhere, debt bondage or dependence on patrons sometimes resulted in the use of barori labor alongside those of slaves in several productive or nonproductive capacities, including on plantations. As barori, talakawa or freeborn commoners were sometimes subject to labor exactions from the state or from leaders of their communities/households, particularly under a labor arrangement locally known as gayya (collective farm work). Historically, it is difficult to establish the first moment when gayya and/or barori were employed in production in Kano. However, we know that the practice of using these forms of labor, even on plantations where slave labor predominated, predated the nineteenth century43 and was maintained, as discussion on Fanisau in subsequent chapters will confirm, for over a century thereafter. Whereas it is certain that slavery existed with other forms of unfree labor in pre-jihad Kano, it is impossible to state with precision the ratio of slaves to other unfree people in society at this time. Nevertheless, there is some evidence to suggest that slaves constituted a significant proportion of the Kano population, and that plantation slavery was widespread in Kasar Kano by the turn of the nineteenth century.44 This is not to suggest that the dislocation of the jihad, especially between 1806 and 1810, did not have an adverse impact on the agricultural economy. To be sure, although new plantations must have been established during the course of the movement, starting from the moment the jihadists congregated at their first military camp in Kasar Kano, Kwazzazabo, many villages as well as plantations were either destroyed or abandoned.45 Ultimately, the disappearance of many estates contributed to the poverty of the first jihad

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ruler, Suleiman, and increased his political and economic dependence on the Fulani clan chiefs.46 Plantations in Kasar Kano: Impact of the Jihad It is not necessary to outline the causes of the jihad and the life history of its main leader here, since several writers have discussed these issues in detail.47 It is noteworthy, however, that the works of dan Fodio and his successors maintained the scholarly tradition of promoting Islamic laws/principles established by al-Maghili and others during the pre-jihad period. For instance, in Wathiqat ahl al-sudan, dan Fodio outlined succinctly what is lawful and unlawful in Islam when he discussed what compulsory actions Muslims, as individuals or as a community, were expected to take in their daily operations. In the text, dan Fodio also justified holy war and condemned the enslavement of free Muslims in any such movement. Similarly, in Infaq al-maisur, Muhammed Bello highlighted attention on Islamic notions of the rise of states.48 More important than maintaining the scholarly tradition established by al-Maghili, however, dan Fodio and his successors were able to bring the Hausa states as well as other regions for the first time under the jurisdiction of a unified administration that had its headquarters at Sokoto following the successful execution of the jihad. A group of Fulani clans championed the incorporation of Kano into the vast Sokoto Caliphate established by dan Fodio. On the eve of the jihad, these clans had their bases at Utai (50 kilometers southeast of Kano), Gwale, Kiru, Zuwa (40 kilometers southwest of Kano), and the Matsidau regions of Kano, respectively. Individuals who already had slaves working in agriculture and who ultimately became big plantation operators headed most, if not all, of these clans.49 Virtually all of these clan heads were also known personally to dan Fodio, and it seems that at the outbreak of the jihad they maintained cordial relationships. For instance, Malam Bakatsine and Suleimanu of the Modibawa clan were students of dan Fodio, and they remained in contact with their teacher after their education. The point here is that such long-standing ties contributed to the ready acceptance of the jihad by the Fulani clan leaders at Kano (once dan Fodio sent an invitation letter to them through the Muezzin Goje and a certain Adama). Strategies on how to achieve success were first made at dan Zabuwa’s compound in Zuwa. Consequently, the jihadists migrated to a strategic

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location known as Kwazzazabon Yan Kwando from where they later embarked on the conquest of the Kano region. The takeover of Kano by the jihadists was by no means without resistance. Indeed, the last sarkin Kano, Alwali (1781–1805), was killed in a fortified town known as Burumburum in the last significant resistance. With the defeat of Alwali, the Fulani clans who formed the new aristocratic group in Kano were integrated into the Sokoto Caliphate. The political system that ultimately emerged in post-jihad Kano conformed, more than ever before, to Islamic traditions. However, the intra-clan competition for power that followed the victory of the jihadists against the forces of Alwali threatened the establishment of this system. The perceptive brother of dan Fodio, Abdullahi, noted this threat during his visit to Kano in 1817, probably during the reign of the first emir, Suleiman (1805–19). This influenced him to write a text in which he condemned the jihadists’ ignorance, lack of concern for education, pursuit of power for its own sake, appointment of unqualified people to office, and their selling of freemen as slaves. Furthermore, in order to foster stability as well as strict application of the Shari’a, Abdullahi wrote a treatise, Diya al-hukkam, on Islamic government for the new rulers. In it, he called for the thorough implementation of the Shari’a under leaders with religious knowledge and political acumen. He also stressed that the duty of every Muslim was to abide by Islamic precepts and principles. On the whole, Abdullahi’s treatise (along with several other works he wrote) and some of the writings of Usman dan Fodio and Mohammed Bello comprised the constitution of the new order at Kano.50 The application of this historic constitution encouraged many dramatic socioeconomic changes and, of course, some of these changes were related to the development of the plantation system in the society. Although the plantation sector experienced severe dislocation in the first decade of the nineteenth century, the following decades, particularly beginning with the reign of the second emir, Ibrahim Dabo (1819–46), experienced a remarkable expansion of the plantation sector. According to one estimate, slaves constituted nearly half of the population of Kano by the middle of the nineteenth century, and a significant number were settled in plantations.51 Indeed, most estates were newly established in the nineteenth century and plantation slavery materialized as the most productive sector of the economy.52 Among other sources, contemporary observations on nineteenth century Kano offer evidence of the recent origin of plantations and/or their high incidence. For instance, at Zangeia,

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a settlement situated close to Sarina, Clapperton noted that “[t]he inhabitants were slaughtered or sold by the Felatahs, and plantations of cotton, tobacco, and indigo now occupy the place where houses stood.”53 Also, at another location relatively closer to Sarina he stated that “[t]he country continued beautiful, with numerous plantations.”54 In the region of what is now known as Dawakin Kudu, Clapperton passed by an area “clear of wood, well cultivated, and divided into plantations.”55 Other references to plantations in the Kano Emirate are discernable in Barth’s narrative and in the works of more recent writers.56 The growth of the plantation sector in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was ultimately related to the reigns of Dabo and the following emirs who ruled after him: Usman I (1846–55), Abdullahi (1855–83), Muhammad Bello (1883–93), Muhammad Tukur (1893–94), Aliyu (1894–1903), Muhammad Abbas (1903–19), Usman II (1919–26), and Abdullahi Bayero (1926–53). It is apparent that the growth of the plantation sector during the reigns of these emirs resulted in three major categories of large holdings. First, there were official estates or estates attached to political offices known as gandu sarauta, rinjin sarauta, or bado (gift or grant). Specifically, these estates could not be sold or otherwise disposed of since they were components of a political title. Second, wealthy commoners and merchants, many of whom were immigrants, owned estates acquired primarily from state officials in return for homage and political support. Generally, estates owned by such private holders remained in their families and could be sold or rented. These plantations were known as gandu or rinji, and they often came with some form of tax exemption. Third, there were estates belonging to aristocratic families, often deriving from land grants made at the time of the jihad. Of these types of estates, it is easiest to establish the number of those attached to political offices at the turn of the twentieth century. By this date, almost all the offices in the emirate had plantations attached to them. The practice was so pervasive that even a significant number of slave tax collectors, jakadu, had plantations in the areas under their jurisdiction. In view of this fact and considering that Kano had about 4,000 village and town heads as well as other officials, including about 185 high office holders, it has been estimated that the number of estates in Kano probably exceeded 4,000.57 Estates in Kasar Kano varied in size, some a hundred acres or more. Some of the holdings of wealthy merchants were so large that, according to Mahadi, one “needed a horse to cover its length and breadth in a day.”58

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It follows, therefore, that in relatively small plantations, there were often a fewer number of slaves, while in very extensive estates, hundreds of slaves were usually settled. At least, the 185 estates belonging to the high officials fall within the latter category.59 The emir of Kano had a significant number of plantations, including thousands of acres of land cultivated by slave gangs. These included three rinji in the Minjibir area: Gasgainu and Yokanna under Jakada Garko; and Sawaina under the shamaki.60 The Gasgainu plantation had 1,053 acres under cultivation when the colonial administrators measured it in 1912, while the comparable figures for Yokanna and Sawaina were 351 and 264 acres, respectively. Overall, these were just a portion of the total estates owned by the emir. Some of the emir’s holdings were private lands, and other members of the aristocracy also possessed private estates. For instance, Emir Ibrahim Dabo’s daughter, Kumbotso, owned a vast estate in what became Kumbotso, while another of Dabo’s sons, Maliki, owned an estate that came to be known as Tudun Maliki, near Kumbotso. In the Dan Isa subdistrict, immediately outside Kano City, bordering the Challawa River, the Chiroma of Kano had an estate known as Rinjin Kashin whose main field was 42 acres in extent, while Dan Buram owned another estate of about 255 acres at Wase. In addition, there were many other plantations in the Dawaki ta Kudu District, as well as in other parts of the Kano Emirate.61 Apart from aristocrats, merchants and other commoners also had estates, some of which were extensive. Ibrahim Hamza, for instance, identifies Gidan Barau, Gidan Sambo and several plantations at Dorayi, just outside the walls of Kano, while by the end of the nineteenth century, Kundila, reputedly the wealthiest commoner in Kano, had about 1,000 slaves, and most of them worked in his plantations. Also, ex-office holders and other rich men of Kano had estates. These estates could be bought and sold, subdivided, inherited, and rented.62 The climatic, demographic, political and economic changes that occurred in Kasar Kano led to the acceleration in the growth of plantations during the nineteenth century. First was the absence of severe multi-year droughts comparable to that of the preceding century. Except for the droughts experienced in 1847 and 1855, others that occurred in the 1830s, 1863, 1873, 1884, 1889, and 1890 were relatively localized. Moreover, although the droughts of 1847 and 1855, referred to as Dawara and Banga-Banga, respectively, were experienced throughout the emirate and even beyond, they were, as compared to the droughts of the eighteenth

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century, lesser in severity and lasted for relatively shorter periods, often not beyond a year.63 In view of these factors, it is unlikely that nineteenthcentury droughts retarded the development of the plantation sector, as was likely in the preceding period.64 The remarkable population growth experienced in nineteenth-century Kano also favored the development of plantations. In 1824, Clapperton estimated the population of Kano City alone at between thirty and forty thousand people. Barth, in 1851, estimated it at sixty thousand, and in 1896, Robinson numbered its inhabitants at over one hundred thousand.65 The growth in the population of the Kano Emirate required an increase in the production of food staples, which was only achieved through the expansion of the agricultural slave population and plantations.66 In the economic sphere, the growth of industrialization and trade both in Kano and elsewhere in the Sokoto Caliphate had a major impact on the development of the plantation system. In manufacturing, the Kano Emirate unquestionably had the highest concentration of industries in the caliphate. In turn, it was the largest producer and dyer of cloth in that region, and indeed in West Africa, in the nineteenth century.67 By midcentury, when Barth visited Kano, the cloth produced there, especially the dyed and beaten cloth, was in considerable demand, not only for local consumption, but also for export, as Barth noted, as far as Murzuk, Ghat, and even Tripoli; to the west, not only to Timbucktu, but in some degree even as far as the shores of the Atlantic, the very inhabitants of Arquin dressing in the cloth woven and dyed in Kano; to the east, all over Bornu, although there it comes in contact with the native industry of the country; and to the south it maintains a rivalry with the native industry of the Igbira and Igbo, while toward the southeast it invades the whole of Adamawa, and is only limited by the nakedness of the pagan sans-culottes, who do not wear clothing.68

According to Robinson, “[I]t would be well within the mark to say that Kano clothes more than half the population of the Central Sudan, and any European traveler who will take the trouble to ask for it, will find no difficulty in purchasing Kano made cloth at towns on the coast as widely separated from one another as Alexandria, Tripoli, Tunis or Lagos.”69 Some of the communities in the Kano Emirate that produced cloth for export included the Kura, Dal, and Makarfi-Karaye (Zarewa). We know that the spread of the deep laso dyeing pit in these and other relevant

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communities of the emirate resulted in greatly expanded textile production, both for the local market and for export. The laso was cement formed from the residue of dye, used to line the pit, and hence was a by-product of the production process that increased with scale, and also enabled the use of larger vats than could be made from pottery. This greatly increased capacity of the pits almost completely replaced the large fired-clay pots which had been used earlier. The large dyeing pit, which also lasted longer than the fired-clay pots, meant that large amounts of cloth could be dyed more economically than before. Accompanying the introduction of the deep laso pits were other technical developments: cheaper mordants, improved glazing techniques, and better weaving.70 All of these technical innovations not only enhanced textile production but also, especially in the face of increasing demand for Kano textiles, stimulated the demand for cotton and indigo. To meet this demand, more plantations were established. Other external sources were also increasingly exploited for raw materials. Beyond that, plantations and other sources were relied on for foodstuff to feed the industrial labor force, which consisted of 50,000 dyers alone at the end of the nineteenth century.71 Another aspect of the growth in industrialization and trade in nineteenthcentury Kano that stimulated the growth of the plantation sector was the wealth these ventures generated. In the trading sector, for instance, a group of Agalawa and Tokarawa72 involved in small-scale trade in kola migrated to Kano, especially after the jihad.73 Once in the emirate, many of them resided in various locations outside Kano City. But some Agalawa and Tokarawa also lived in Kano City where their business operations were centered.74 Within a short period of time, the immigrants and another immigrant group known as Kambarin Beriberi (Borno merchants or merchants originally from the Borno) dominated the nineteenth-century kola business.75 Although few of the pioneer Agalawa and Tokarawa merchants had capital beyond the meager resources of most Hausa peasants in Kano, within a generation or two of their settlement there, they were able to acquire substantial capital primarily through their involvement in kola marketing.76 By the early 1850s, for example, the Kano City traders may have been earning returns of 50 percent on kola sales, although this figure probably did not include all operating expenses. Nevertheless, merchants with ten donkeys may have cleared as much as 1,000,000 cowries a year. Since 25–30 cowries were “a sum which may keep a poor man from starvation for five days” in the 1850s, the relative affluence of the Agalawa, Tokarawa, and Kambarin

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Beriberi is apparent. In part, this economic prosperity was a result of frugality; all three groups were well-known for this, but it also reflected a willingness to travel great distances under considerable hardship.77 Whatever other factors might have contributed to their prosperity, after their accumulation of wealth these merchants were involved in other investments, including plantations. By the end of the nineteenth century, the most prominent merchants who owned estates in the Kano Emirate included Sharubutu, Kundila, Yakubu Tambarin Agalawa, Umaru Sule, Iguda dan Daku, Abdullahi Utai, Lawan Nasarari, and Musa dan Maraya mai-tsugen-aiki.78 The wealthiest had several hundred slaves on plantations, though property was usually subdivided into scattered smaller farms. For example, a man might own two or three choice plots within the city walls of Kano, while another three or four estates were outside the walls and some a dozen or more miles away.79 At the turn of the twentieth century, estates established by rich merchants were concentrated in a belt between Utai and Sumaila, southeast of Kano City, through Madobi and Bebeji to the west, and in a pocket between Fanisau and Kunya to the north of Kano City. As other holdings in other parts of the emirates, the estates in the aforementioned zone diversified the investments of the Agalawa, Tokarawa, and Kambari Beriberi, provided them with insurance in case of a poor year in trade, and helped feed the large number of dependants employed in their commercial activities.80 It is instructive to note that it was not only immigrant traders who facilitated the expansion of the plantation sector in nineteenth-century Kano. Other free Kanawa commoners, especially those who participated in longdistance trade, used the slaves and wealth they acquired to enhance plantation development.81 Moreover, the expanding number of state officials in the Kano Emirate82 also amassed considerable wealth through taxation, tax exemption, receipt of gifts, and several other means, which provided capital to invest in plantation agriculture. On top of this, state officials knew that ownership of plantations accorded high prestige and provided insurance against political disaster that was especially the lot of noblemen and their descendants.83 Consequently, most, if not all, officials invested in plantations. The produce from such estates was used for several purposes, including feeding the growing number of slaves, courtiers (fadawa), and their families, as well as livestock, especially horses. Furthermore, in times of serious shortage, estate produce was given to the needy. The political change that led to the rapid expansion of the plantation sector is obviously related to the jihad.84 Specifically, the aristocrats

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who assumed political control, as in other parts of the Sokoto Caliphate, enacted policies geared toward political and economic consolidation, as well as enhancing Islam.85 The focus of this political and economic policy of entrenching a Muslim state was to subdue heathens, establish ribats,86 encourage sedentarisation, and promote trade and production. It is permissible to comment briefly on these policies before proceeding to show how they led to the rapid increase in plantations. The need to establish ribats as frontier fortresses and the infrastructure to protect the country of Kano was evident since the overthrow of Alwali’s regime; but policies only became institutionalized during the reign of Ibrahim Dabo. Partly influenced by the jihadi ideology that approved enslavement through holy war against heathens, Dabo embarked on a war of consolidation against rebel Fulani clan leaders in the Kano region as soon as he was turbaned emir. Subsequently, he campaigned against the Ningi people and led expeditions across the frontiers of Kano. Dabo’s successors pursued his policy of political expansion, and by the end of the nineteenth century the political boundary of the Kano Emirate had broadened significantly.87 As a result, from the reign of Dabo onward, there was a steady flow of slaves into the emirate. The wars of expansion and consolidation enabled the caliphate authority to annex many political units, and consequently merchants could travel more freely to expand their range of operations. In turn, an enlarged network of trade routes linked emirates, thus facilitating the regular flow of slaves from one area of the caliphate to another, and beyond.88 As the most important commercial center of the caliphate, Kano, therefore, received a significant number of slaves through trade with such areas as Tiv, Adamawa, Bauchi, Gombe, Wadai, Bagarmi, Zinder, Jukun, and Idoma.89 Other factors were to contribute to the increased flow of slaves into Kano during the nineteenth century: for instance, the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade by the British in 1807 and the eventual slackening of demand for slaves across the Sahara. facilitated this growth. With respect to the establishment of ribats, Dabo was particularly influenced by his experiences at the ribat of Lajinge,90 where he paid homage to Caliph Mohammed Bello soon after his appointment as Emir of Kano. Dabo’s stay there, however brief, afforded him the opportunity to observe what a ribat was like and increased his determination to establish such institutions in the Kano Emirate. Eventually, Dabo was responsible for establishing several ribats,91 which instituted a policy of the founding

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of ribats that continued up to the last decade of the nineteenth century, when at least five were established in the reign of emir Aliyu (1894–1903). These were Magami, Siti, Kwajali, Sansanin, Kanawa, and Kawo Gumbas. emir Aliyu is also known to have been responsible for rebuilding the ribat of Dando, which was sacked and destroyed by the Ningawa.92 In addition to the ribat policy, Dabo and subsequent Kano rulers stepped up the program of settling nomadic Fulani and Tuareg. In implementing this program, nomadic Fulani from Ganjuwa and Shira in the Bauchi Emirate as well as others from various other regions settled in the Kano Emirate. Tuareg also settled in Bichi and other parts of Kasar Kano.93 To consolidate their political and economic positions in accordance with Islamic precepts, the emirs of Kano, from Dabo onward, encouraged trade and industry. As the ultimate policy makers, the Kano rulers also realized that agricultural production was critically related to trade and industry. Raw materials were needed for industry, and the increasing population had to be sustained. This awareness made the emirs and other state officials pay attention to every aspect of agricultural production, and involved them in land acquisition, labor management, and livestock rearing.94 Taken together, the ideological perspective, the aristocratic notions of enforcing the strict application of the Shari’a, the strengthening and extending of boundaries of the Islamic community by enslaving heathens, establishing ribats, settling nomads, and fostering economic development were compatible with the development of plantations. First, the policy of political expansion, which involved enslaving non-believers, made available more land and slave labor, which in turn facilitated the increase in plantations. Second, in line with Islamic practices, the founding of ribats resulted in the massive settlement of slaves,95 both in the interest of extending the boundary of the Islamic community but also in enhancing plantation activities (which was, in turn, necessary partly for the advancement of trade and industry). Indeed, the relative political stability that followed the founding of ribats encouraged the foundation of more plantations.96 Finally, the policy of sedentarisation stimulated the growth of the plantation sector since any individual who would benefit the economy and society was allocated land, slaves, and sometimes sarauta. The ease with which land and slaves could be acquired, in conjunction with the growing demand for agricultural products, urbanization, and industrialization, laid the basis for the development of plantations within the Kano Emirate.

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The plantation sector in Kasar Kano reached its pinnacle following the jihad, and throughout the nineteenth century, estates continued to influence political and economic developments. For instance, at the end of the century, Sarkin Kano Aliyu is recorded to have further boosted his power by bringing the estates at Nassarawa, Gandun Albasa, and Jigirya either under his direct control or that of his supporters.97 Conclusion This chapter has demonstrated that there were two main phases in the development of the institution in Kasar Kano. The first began from the medieval era and lasted up to the jihad period in the nineteenth century. Although characteristic of this first phase was the disruption of the growth of the plantation sector due to relatively prolonged drought and other factors, this chapter argued that the first estates established in this early period influenced political and economic developments in Kasar Kano. Among other things, they enhanced the power of Galadima Dawuda while undermining the influence of his superiors, especially the sarki. Sarki Rumfa however reversed the balance of power in due course by mainly assuming more control over plantation affairs. The second phase of plantation development began during the reign of Emir Ibrahim Dabo in 1819 and spanned through the turn of the twentieth century. This chapter argued that plantations continued to influence socioeconomic developments during this phase. The features of this period include the contraction of the external markets for slaves following the end of the Atlantic slave trade, the absence of multi-year drought, growth in industrialization as well as in trade and above all the unprecedented pursuit of policies geared toward the enhancement of the Islamic community by the aristocrats. It was these characteristics, I argue, that in turn resulted in the consolidation or intense growth of the plantation sector in that era.

2

The Development of the Fanisau Plantation Complex

Introduction Historical sources are not silent on the origin of Fanisau. According to one tradition collected by Yusuf Yunusa, the settlement was founded during Emir Ibrahim Dabo’s reign and was first settled by his “trusted slaves.”1 This view accords well with the assertion of the first European traveler, Clapperton, who visited Fanisau in the early 1820s, and who reported, “[A]fter breakfast I accompanied Hat Salah, the sheikh’s agent, to the sansan, which, since it became a town, is also called Fanisoe.”2 Both of the above accounts, however, confuse the origin of the gandu sarauta and the early settlement of the sansan (fortified settlement/town)3, respectively, with the origin of Fanisau itself. These accounts that attribute a nineteenth-century origin to the settlement are late creations, after Fanisau became a plantation complex as well as a sansan. Such myths must have arisen as a reflection of the loyalty of the slaves (especially those at the gandun sarki) and their descendants to the emir. A careful look at the available historical evidence begins with the account of the Kano Chronicle, which indicates that the early settlers of Fanisau were intimately connected with the occupants of the Dalla Hill region, where the city of Kano was founded traditionally in about 600 AD by a group of hunters skilled in killing elephants.4 In fact, the Kano Chronicle suggests, as does Uthman AbdulAzizi,5 that Gambarjado, the son of Nisau or one of the subordinate chiefs to the head of the Dalla group, was the first settler at Fanisau.6 Little is known about the life and activities of this founding father after he occupied the site. Thereafter, we know

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little about settlement patterns, except that there does not seem to have been any major significant immigration until the reign of the first jihad ruler of Kano, Suleiman. Until then, the settlement was essentially an agricultural community. Slavery was an identifiable feature at Fanisau before the jihad, as far as can be surmised, but slave labor was not significantly used in production and certainly not on the scale of plantations, at least not before c.1819. From 1819, however, plantations became the dominant feature of the Fanisau economy. Although references to this specific change can be found in historical accounts,7 there is yet no comprehensive study of the growth of a plantation complex during the nineteenth century, or of its influence on one of the most powerful emirates of the Sokoto Caliphate. Partly to address this imbalance, this chapter explores the development of the plantation system at Fanisau. In this regard, it first underlines the motive(s) for establishing a ribat at the settlement, and by extension the circumstances that led to the establishment of plantations there. The chapter also examines certain aspects of the relationship between the Kano emirs and Fanisau. Next, it explores the growth of private estates in the settlement. Finally, it provides insight into the layout and history of some important plantations at and near the settlement. By addressing the question of the development of the plantation system at Fanisau, it follows in the footsteps of the few writers who have provided detailed accounts of other plantation centers in the Kano Emirate. Before proceeding with the analysis of the nineteenth-century development of the Fanisau plantation complex, however, it is important to appreciate the geography of Fanisau. Fanisau: Reasons for Scholarly Neglect A number of studies have identified Fanisau as one of the most significant settlements in Kasar Kano. For example, as early as 1824, Clapperton described Fanisau as a “sansan,”8 while in a recent work Ruqayyatu Ahmed Rufa’i portrays it mainly as an important center of administration.9 Also, Dahiru Yahaya describes it as one of the major centers of defense in nineteenth-century Kasar Kano.10 Despite the identification of Fanisau as an important settlement, very little is known of its history before the jihad. Most writers who have focused on the Kano region make only passing reference to the settlement and this trend may be due to a number of factors.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE FANISAU PLANTATION COMPLEX

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In the first place, this may be connected to strategic considerations since any in-depth analysis of Fanisau’s history inevitably evokes the plantation character of the Sokoto Caliphate economy, something many scholars are uncomfortable with. The second reason for the lack of studies on Fanisau is related to the state of archaeological investigation in Hausaland in general. Archaeological excavations carried out in parts of what is now northern Nigeria have provided valuable historical evidence. Regardless of this, however, the amount of archaeological work is relatively scant, as it is for other parts of West Africa. Several archaeologists, including Thurstan Shaw, Bassey W. E. Andah, and Nasiru Ibrahim Dantiye, have noted this regrettable state of affairs,11 and without doubt until thorough archaeological investigations are conducted, the knowledge of the early period of Fanisau will remain limited. A third reason may be traced to the lack of scholarly interest shown by foreign travelers who visited Kasar Kano in Fanisau. For instance, although a renowned North African cleric, al-Maghili, allegedly visited the settlement, he did not mention it in any of his known works.12 This lack of interest by early Arab geographers, Muslim jurists, and itinerant traders in Fanisau is perhaps understandable. It was not located on the trans-Saharan trade route, and it was relatively insignificant before the jihad. Whatever the case, our knowledge of early Fanisau is limited. From fragmentary evidence in various accounts of neighboring areas within Kasar Kano, it is still possible to reconstruct a fairly coherent picture not only of the settlement’s geography, but also of some important aspects of the its history. Fanisau: The Geographical Setting Fanisau has sometimes been referred to as Panisau, Fanisoe, or Faniso.13 The area is part of what has been described as “Metropolitan Kano”14 or the “Kano closed settled zone.”15 Fanisau is located some 15 kilometers north-east of Kano City.16 It is currently an important unit of the Ungogo Local Government Area, and Minjibir (a town in the locality of the current Minjibir Local Government Area) was the most important settlement to the immediate north of Fanisau. To the west, it extends as far as the Ungogo town, and to the south as far as Gamar Kwari. Finally, to the east of Fanisau is another historic settlement known as Yada Kunya. Largely because of its close association with the emirs of Kano, Fanisau has played

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a major role in a variety of political and economic contexts at least since the early nineteenth century. In geographical terms, Kasar Kano can be divided into at least five relatively homogenous sub-ecological zones. These zones include the northern and northeastern region, which constitute the extreme parts of the Sudan savanna and hence the driest part of Kasar Kano. The central region (centered around the Dalla hill17) and the southeastern region (which receives more rainfall than the two regions already mentioned) constitute other sub-ecological zones. The other areas are the southern region and the western and southwestern region. In addition to the varying amounts of rainfall, the five ecological zones of Kasar Kano have other dissimilar geographic and climatic conditions that have been adequately highlighted elsewhere.18 It suffices to note for the present purpose, however, that Fanisau is situated in the ecological zone of the central region. The following sections will, therefore, explore the nature of this specific zone to provide a geographic framework for understanding the development of the plantation complex at the settlement. Fanisau has an average altitude of 1,381 feet above sea level. The highest point is just over 100 feet above the surrounding countryside and is in the form of the only hill that overlooks the main settled space. Beside this marked feature, flat or gently undulating plains characterize Fanisau.19 Two small rivers or streams traverse the Fanisau settlement; they are Juji and Tsakiya.20 For much of the wet season, these rivers flow from the southeast toward the northwest (the channel of the rivers also progressively diminishes in size in the course of this period). During the dry season, the water of the streams virtually disappears, thereby affecting economic activities in the settlement. Nevertheless, throughout the dry season the sandy beds store underground water, which is easily reached two-to-three feet below the surface.21 In common with the central region of Kano, Fanisau records temperatures that rarely fall below 42ºF and receives an average rainfall of 34.26 inches annually.22 But unlike areas in the southern parts of modern Nigeria, characterized by a lengthy rainy season stretching from March to November (a period of nine months), the damana (rainy season) in this area lasts for about five-to-six months.23 In fact, in terms of the distribution of rainfall, all but one inch of rain falls during May-September. The rains are normally preceded by violent dust storms followed by tornadoes, which are more pronounced at the beginning and the end of the rainy


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season. The average intensity of rainfall is high, with attendant problems of rapid surface run off, soil erosion, and waterlogging. In addition, a drop in mean monthly temperature usually accompanies the rain in July, August, and September. Historically, droughts have been experienced in Fanisau and the frequency matched the general pattern outlined for Kasar Kano in the preceding chapter. The rani (dry season) usually begins in early November. The dominant features at the early part of this season include low relative humidity as well as dari (severe cold) and a semipermanent dust haze usually associated with the northeasterly wind, the harmattan. These prevalent features contribute to the drying out of soil and vegetation as well as the hardening of the top soils, left bare after the harvest. Toward the end of the dry season, climatic conditions change noticeably. Thus, it starts becoming increasingly hot and uncomfortable, particularly from February onward. At this time, wind erosion occurs during dust storms. The later part of the dry season is locally known as the bazara (hot season) and it ends with the rains.24 As far as the soil type in Fanisau is concerned, the region is largely made up of brown and reddish brown soils typical of arid and semiarid regions.25 With this type of soil, agricultural activities are possible throughout the settlement. Indeed, the water-holding capacity of the soils in Fanisau is good, and crops generally respond to the application of manure and other fertilizers. As a result, the soil is favorable to the cultivation of diverse crops such as dawa (guinea corn), gero (millet), and beans, which are not as easily cultivated in the north and northeastern regions of Kasar Kano. In terms of population, Fanisau lies in the zone of the greatest population concentration in Kasar Kano. This zone, centered on Kano City, encompasses an area extending outward from the city for a radius of 30 miles and had an estimated population of about one million and an average density of 350 per square mile in the 1970s.26 Dabo and Dan Tunku Having introduced the geography of Fanisau above, we shall now explore the development of plantations in the settlement during the nineteenth century. The plantation system at Fanisau was developed after the establishment of a ribat. Simply put, a ribat, in the context of the Sokoto

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Caliphate, was a walled military settlement established to defend the frontiers and protect the agricultural hinterland of major population centers as well as its major trade routes. A few scholars have shed light on the relevant circumstances that influenced the establishment of ribats in the Kano Emirate as well as in other parts of the Sokoto Caliphate.27 In spite of this, it is necessary to provide a summary of the situation as it affects Fanisau, as this will enhance our appreciation of the course of the development of plantations at the settlement. By 1808, Fanisau was still a relatively insignificant settlement in Kasar Kano. At that time, however, Dan Tunku was already shaping political developments in the broader region.28 A rather turbulent Fulani, Dan Tunku was the non-Muslim Sarkin Fulani of Dambatta (or Dambarta)29 during the reign of the last pre-jihad ruler of Kano, Sarki Alwali. At the start of the jihad in 1808, it appears that Dan Tunku did not oppose Alwali and, as other Fulani chiefs who were then closely related to the throne, was aloof to the jihad movement. In fact, he initially fought against the jihadists. However, with increasing victories recorded by the jihadists (and which were directly witnessed by Dan Tunku at the battle of Dan Yayya)30 he crossed over from the Alwali camp and embraced Islam. Thereafter, Dan Tunku contributed significantly to the success of the jihad. For instance, he was instrumental in preventing an alliance between the forces of the Hausa Chiefs of Katsina,31 Kano, and Daura.32 Similarly, he also ultimately helped to defeat Alwali in Kano. Partly because of such roles, and partly because of his determination to not remain subordinate to the untitled clan leaders who had directed the Shehu’s affairs in Kano, Dan Tunku was given a sizeable region cut out from Daura, Katsina, and Kano to rule by Dan Fodio. Apparently, the latter also intended the former to be responsible to Emir Suleiman, who was crowned the emir of Kano following the success of the jihad in the area. However, Dan Tunku had more ambitious views. Accordingly, he exercised increasing autonomy by, for instance, not paying tax to Suleiman in spite of pressure from this post-jihad ruler, and by excising areas from the Kano Emirate. Probably because Suleiman was not so much concerned about worldly gains, he did very little to check Dan Tunku’s growing rebellion. On Suleiman’s death, however, Dan Tunku soon faced a more determined Kano ruler in the person of Ibrahim Dabo. The foundation of the ribat at Fanisau was associated with Ibrahim Dabo who was partly influenced by his visit to Muhammad Bello at


47

Lajinge shortly after he became emir, but who was most importantly influenced by his concern to check the rebellion by Dan Tunku at Kazaure.33 As Suleiman, Dabo demanded allegiance from Dan Tunku right from the start. In spite of this, Dan Tunku openly refused to obey Dabo saying that the newly appointed ruler, had neither been involved in the hijra (withdrawal or emigration) nor helped in the conquest of Kano. At that point, the incumbent ruler took various measures against Dan Tunku. For example, he appointed one of his loyal followers, Dambazau, to the office of Sarkin Bai and assigned him an extensive territory, consisting of some areas that Dan Tunku acquired in the jihad, to administer. This gift to Dambazau immediately led to trouble between Dabo and his supporters and Dan Tunku. In fact, fighting soon broke out and Dan Tunku gained some early successes. What is more interesting, however, is that this rebel successfully penetrated deep into Kano as Smith explains thus: Shortly after the new Sarkin Bai had moved to Ungogo to take over its administration, Dan Tunku invested the area, besieged the town, raided Fage three miles from the city, and gave Kano a severe fight. Dabo mobilized quickly and pushed Dan Tunku northwards, only to lose part of his force in an ambush. Dan Tunku’s success and diplomacy led several dissident Fulani chiefs to take up arms against Dabo openly.34

In this situation, the rebels staged raids in the northern region of Kano, especially areas bordering Dan Tunku’s strongholds at Dambatta and Kazaure. In reaction to these northern incursions, and to push Dan Tunku northward, Dabo decided to fortify Fanisau, Ungogo,35 and Dawaki,36 with Fanisau converted into a military camp and marshalling center for emirate troops.37 In spite of the establishment of ribats at Fanisau and other parts of Kano, the struggle between Dabo and Dan Tunku was protracted, and much of the activity involved the area under study. On January 24, 1824, El Wordee and Hat Salah informed Clapperton that the emir had occupied Fanisau in 1819 and since then had made “excursions against the rebels, without ever bringing them to a decisive engagement.”38 Clapperton visited Fanisau to meet Ibrahim Dabo and discovered that “the governor then intended to march against Dantaqua, a former governor of Kano who was deposed, and who, having rebelled, had seized upon a large town and territory called Doura [Daura], only distant one day’s journey, or about

Map 2.1

Fanisau and other ribats established by Ibrahim Dabo in the Kano Emirate


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twenty-two English miles, according to the common allowance for a day’s journey.”39 Subsequently, he reported that the governor returned to the sansan with his army; and the current report was, that they had entered the capital of the enemy; and, supposing Duntungua to have fled to the forest, they began to enjoy themselves in banquets and carousals, when Duntungua suddenly fell upon them with his army, and killed fifteen thousand men, the rest flying in the greatest confusion to Fanisoe.40

When Clapperton visited Kano again two years later, he learned, at the house of Hadje Hat Salah Byoot, that Ibrahim Dabo “had today left town for Faniso the town of the Sansan or gathering place as he is now collecting his army to go against the inhabitants of Doura who are in rebellion.”41 However, a few days later Clapperton noted that the walled town of Toffa had been allowed to decay “since the death of Duntungwa the Rebelious Govr of Dumburta,”42 and this fact suggests that the engagement between Dabo and Dan Tunku had ended by 1826. The importance of Fanisau dates from this period, 1819–26. But it is instructive to note that although the problem related to Dan Tunku was apparently resolved by 1826, the harassment experienced by Dabo and his successors from external adversaries, especially Damagaram,43 Maradi,44 Borno,45 and Gumel,46 sustained the status of Fanisau as a ribat.47 Kano Emirs and Fanisau The foregoing discussion shows that Dabo’s main intent in converting Fanisau into a ribat was to defend the state against rebels/enemies, and viewed critically this was a typical motive in the establishment of such institutions elsewhere in the Sokoto Caliphate.48 The objective, therefore, was to weaken or destroy these enemies, and, at the same time, to reduce the emir’s economic and military dependence on “hostile” communities. It seemed absurd that such a goal could be achieved by importing basic food into Kano from any region outside Dabo’s control, especially from rebel strongholds or non-Muslim communities. Besides, ever since the first soldiers were mobilized into various ribats established in 1819, the emir and his successors not only had to provide for the expanding number of slaves, horses, dependants, and clients resident in the Kano City palace, Gidan Rumfa, but were also increasingly faced with the need to provide

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the subsistence requirements of the full-time military personnel at these (and other subsequently established) defensive outposts. In tackling all the above-mentioned needs, the official response was to establish royal estates in several parts of Kano. Some of the most important holdings were sited in Fanisau. Although the desire to empower the emirate and its emir was mainly responsible for the establishment of royal estates at Fanisau, other factors facilitated the foundation and maintenance of the holdings. Among these were the relatively favorable nineteenth-century climatic conditions at the settlement.49 Factors related to the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade also influenced the foundation of royal estates at Fanisau.50 In 1807, Britain, the largest carrier of slaves to the Americas, made it illegal for her merchants to participate in the slave trade. Thereafter, the British government took several other measures to ensure that all countries in the Americas and other parts of the world prohibited the trade. Due to abolitionist activities, therefore, the market for slaves across the Atlantic and the Sahara diminished while prices for slaves within Africa dropped. All these developments were partly responsible for the retention of more and more slaves for local use in Africa.51 A considerable number of those retained at Fanisau were used at the royal estates.52 Conventional literature on slavery reveals that violence is a basic characteristic of enslavement and slavery.53 In Fanisau, enslavement was also often linked to original acts of violence and one of the common types of violence that accounted for most slaves in the settlement was warfare. Although enslavement through warfare was generally spearheaded by the state,54 it is evident that until the end of the reign of Emir Suleiman the state played little or no direct role in the introduction of slaves into the area under study. With the beginning of Dabo’s tenure, however, the state became directly involved in the issue of slave acquisition at Fanisau. Although the mixture of factors that influenced the state’s involvement and initiatives have already been outlined above, it is necessary to reiterate that Islam was one of the major components. Specifically, Islam sanctioned slavery and also approved of enslavement through holy war, jihad, against heathens.55 It was, therefore, natural that the nineteenth-century jihad movement and the subsequent wars of consolidation involving Fanisau influenced slavery in the settlement. The initial jihad wars were largely confined to the region of Kano and its environs. It is most likely that these wars provided opportunities for those already enslaved to secure


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their freedom or to escape from their masters,56 but they unquestionably did not occasion the introduction of slaves by the state into Fanisau. As indicated, during the period from the commencement of the jihad to the end of the reign of the first Emir, Suleiman (who was himself known to have personally possessed very few slaves in his palace and did very little to encourage the development of the city’s economy), virtually no slave received directly from state-sponsored raids was channeled into Fanisau. Indeed, most of the slaves from this source were first received during the reign of the second Emir, Ibrahim Dabo, who was committed to advancing Bello’s policy of expanding the Sokoto Caliphate through jihad. Following the Sultan, the Kano ruler usually assembled his followers and: motivated them to do jihad and read this verse of the Holy Quran: “So lose not heart, nor fall into despair, for ye must gain mastery if ye are true in faith”. He also read other verses of the Holy Quran and Hadith (sayings) of the apostle of Allah (May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him).57

In addition to the commitment to jihad, the severe political and economic problems that confronted Dabo encouraged his reliance on slavery in the city as well as in other parts of the emirate. Needless to say, most of the slaves introduced into Fanisau during his reign were products of the vigorous campaigns he undertook to consolidate the emirate. In addition to fighting external foes, Dabo campaigned for nine years before he succeeded in subduing the mentioned resistance. I cannot determine the exact chronology of the various wars Dabo and the other Kano rulers fought during the nineteenth century. However, outside minor battles and military expeditions, he and his war captains fought major battles against Zariya,58 Matazu,59 Ririwai,60 and several other communities.61 Fanisau was, of course, not the only ribat involved in these raids, but, as such establishments located elsewhere in the emirate, it was continually engaged during all major wars against the enemies of Kano throughout the nineteenth century.62 Regardless of the wars that the soldiers permanently based at Fanisau were involved in, the settlement’s primary military importance was as a ribat against Dan Tunku and secondarily against Damagaram.63 Some of the relevant skirmishes between Kano and these forces have been recorded. For instance, Clapperton, as mentioned, reported that Fanisau

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was involved in the assault against Dan Tunku.64 In another related development, the forces of Damagaram intensified their long-standing aggression against Kano65 during the reign of Emir Aliu especially in 1898–99. In one engagement between the two old enemies, Emir Aliu sent his forces against Emir Ahmadu of Damagaram who was then at Damargu.66 The former took that action against the advice of his malams (Muslim priests). In the ensuing battle, the Kano forces were defeated and seriously disorganized. Capitalizing on his victory, Ahmadu led his troops to Fanisau apparently for further military engagement. On arrival at the settlement, Ahmadu discovered that the famous ribat was deserted by Kano troops. However, this did not stop him from seizing some of the livestock and inhabitants of Fanisau including the emir’s slave who held the title kilishi (and who was, among others, responsible for the sitting arrangement in the emir’s court).67 It follows from the various accounts of the military engagements involving Fanisau, therefore, that the settlement lost some of its residents as a result of the numerous military activities. However, to replace those who lost their lives, the state settled slaves derived from warfare at Fanisau.68 Not only this, as a major base against the enemies of the emirate, the settlement became an important transit point for many slaves captured during warfare. We know that rich Kano men who were not resident in Fanisau, including merchants who dominated the desertedge sector, sometimes acquired slaves in the settlement.69 The sex and age characteristics of the plantation slaves at Fanisau are not clear. However, close examination of the major wars fought by Dabo and subsequent Kano rulers Kano throws light on slaves’ ethnic and religious background/origin. Dabo’s engagements, for instance, indicate that most if not all wars were fought against internal enemies who were largely fellow Muslims (and by implication Hausa-Fulani elements). Also, many foreign wars were fought against Muslims. Thus, contrary to Islamic social law, which stipulates that believers should not be enslaved, a considerable number of those enslaved at Fanisau, especially during Dabo’s reign, were Muslims, and this partly explains why traditions refer to the first slaves/residents introduced by this ruler as cucunawa (second generation slaves).70 This loose adherence to the Islamic principle of enslavement seems to have persisted in the subsequent part of the nineteenth century, although on a relatively smaller scale.71 In the conventional historiography, slaves are defined as outsiders or as people of a different background (in terms of either kinship group,


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race, ethnicity, nationality, and religion) from their owners.72 Within the context of the Kano Emirate, however, the loose adherence to the Islamic principle of enslavement described above lends credence to the suggestion of Gwyn Campbell and other scholars that it is sometimes difficult to classify those enslaved as outsiders, especially on limited considerations.73 Although it is difficult to differentiate some enslaved individuals from their masters on the basis of racial, religious, or other cultural considerations, most slaves in Fanisau were necessarily outsiders acquired, as in other slave societies, from different political or social groups, especially in the course of the foreign wars fought after Dabo’s reign predominantly against non-Muslims whose religious standing made them permanently or definitionally excluded from the imagined community that constitutes the Kano Emirate. Based on the available evidence on the majority of the foreign wars fought after Dabo’s reign, it appears that the bulk of the non-Muslim slaves received in Fanisau during the late nineteenth century originated from the Ningi region,74 which was constantly raided by Emir Usuman and his successors.75 Estimates on those enslaved through foreign wars, especially against the Ningi region, are expressed in some source materials, and these facts suggest a high level of enslavement through external warfare. For instance, it is on record that in 1871, Emir Abdullahi and his allies attacked Warji and enslaved 5200 people, while in 1895, C. H. Robinson noticed about a thousand enslaved Ningi people brought back to the city from a single campaign.76 Certainly, Fanisau was not the only region of the Kano Emirate where the slaves from wars against the Ningi were settled. But we know that over the course of time a considerable number of them were introduced into the society. As the nineteenth century progressed, people from the Ningi region constituted the majority of the slaves at Fanisau.77 The predominance of slaves of Ningi origin at Fanisau could also be partly explained by the large-scale loss of Hausa-Fulani slaves to enemies by Dabo during his early campaigns. Apart from the wars with peoples of the Ningi region, late-nineteenth-century rulers of Kano also fought other significant wars, especially with Maradi78 and Damagaram, and these also resulted in the introduction of more slaves into Fanisau and other parts of the emirate.79 The recruitment of slaves through warfare with Ningi and other peoples based outside the Kano Emirate suggests that slavery in Fanisau involved significant geographic movements. The pattern of movement

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was, however, not similar to that of the intercontinental or trans-Atlantic movement to the New World.80 Regardless of this fact, the pattern of movement of enslaved individuals into Fanisau that took place over relatively short distances also involved some form of unpleasant experiences for captives or the enslaved, as Hogendorn’s work on the Zaria Emirate suggests.81 Irrespective of their experiences during the course of relocation and irrespective of whether they were captured in the course of internal or foreign wars, enslaved prisoners brought into Fanisau were generally treated in accordance with Islamic theory. Thus, some of them may have been publicly executed, as in Dorayi82 and other parts of Kano, while Muslim captives were mainly ransomed.83 In the case of those eventually enslaved, they were theoretically distributed in a manner whereby the emir took one-fifth of them while the officers who took part in the campaign shared the rest. This division of war booty was called humusi in Hausa. At Fanisau, and other parts of the Sokoto Caliphate, the strict application of this booty distribution principle, however, often proved abortive for several reasons. For instance, some title-holding war captains such as the Salama, Dan Rimi, and shamaki, who were supposed to keep part of the slave booty, were also slaves, and hence their share inevitably went to the emir(s).84 Although slaves were acquired through warfare at Fanisau, like elsewhere, there were other means through which the state acquired the slaves that it introduced into the settlement. Firstly, the emir, as the ultimate ruler of the Kano Emirate, usually received different forms of gifts from his subjects and clients85 known as gaisuwa. Gifts often consisted of slaves, and were partly made to indicate loyalty to the emir. As soon as the emir was given slave(s) as gaisuwa, he usually distributed them to his top palace slave officials who in turn redistributed them to the various royal estates, including Fanisau.86 Second, gado (inheritance) also provided the state with slaves that were either retained at Fanisau or channeled therein. For instance, whenever a hakimi (district head) died, his slaves were shared according to established traditions. Consequently, of the total number of slaves, one-third was given to the emir, one-third to one of the three top slave officials namely the shamaki, Dan Rimi, and Salama, who was the specific intermediary between the emir and the deceased noble, and the last one-third was usually inherited by the successor of the deceased district head. Following such division, the emir’s


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share and that of his slave officials were usually pulled together and redistributed to state plantations, including to those at Fanisau.87 Third, the state also acquired slaves at Fanisau through breeding. Evidently, there was considerable slave reproduction experienced among state-owned slaves at Fanisau. In all cases, the child of a slave was also a slave and his or her birth merely enhanced enslavement and the state’s property in the settlement. Partly for this reason, the state encouraged marriage between slave men and women at Fanisau. In addition to the slaves born at Fanisau, the state also introduced slaves born into slavery in other parts of the emirate into the settlement. In fact, oral data indicates that these were the first “trusted” elements that constituted the settlement.88 However, oral data also suggests that in spite of the acquisition of slaves through breeding, the slave population in Fanisau did not primarily expand through this natural means as the slave population in the United States did.89 Fourth, the state obtained some of the slaves it introduced into Fanisau through purchase from merchants. In the nineteenth century, these traders brought slaves and other merchandise directly to the emir either at Kano City or at any other location at which he was then temporarily based, including Fanisau. These predominantly Muslim merchants, whose business was enhanced by the unprecedented level of state intervention that followed the establishment of the jihad regime in Kano and the Sokoto Caliphate in general, traversed neighboring and distant settlements such as Borno, Adamawa,90 Bida,91 Bagarmi,92 and Gonja93 for business activities and, in the process, imported slaves into Kano.94 By the mid-nineteenth century the merchants who patronized Kano City had transformed it into a great depot of slaves as well as a center of slave trading, to the extent that one estimate reveals that by 1862 between 2,500 and 3,000 slaves were being displayed daily for sale at the Kano market.95 Although some of the slaves were ultimately re-exported, others were retained in the emirate, and of these the emir bought some and sent them to his estate at Fanisau.96 As a ribat and plantation complex, Fanisau was one of the most important pillars upon which the power and prestige of the Kano emirs rested. The post-jihad rulers recognized this fact right from the start and did all they could not to lose effective control of the settlement.97 In recognition of the significance of Fanisau, the successive emirs of Kano visited the settlement more regularly than they visited other “daughter” palaces, and by extension other royal estates and ribats, in the emirate.98 Such visits were

Map 2.2 Barth’s map indicating the ward he resided in as well as the emir’s palace and other Kano City wards in the mid-nineteenth century


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usually announced, two or three days in advance, to relevant individuals at Gidan Rumfa99 by the emir. Early in the morning, on the day of departure, a trumpet and some cymbals were usually blown and beaten, respectively, to get all those accompanying the emir to assemble at the palace gate.100 Almost simultaneously, the emir’s horse was prepared for saddling, and thereafter led to the vicinity of the ruler’s inner room. Once there, the emir was subsequently prepared and assisted by his dogarai (bodyguards), babani (eunuchs), and other security personnel to mount his horse. While assisting the emir, these individuals, who were mostly slaves, said to the emir: “Have a good ride and alight safely, Lion!” and when the emir was comfortably mounted they proceeded with him to the palace gate where others had assembled. On sighting the emir, masu kakakai and masu kafo (trumpeters) among the crowd at the palace gate blew tunes in praise of the emir as well as to announce his arrival. At that point, horsemen would surround the emir on all sides so that his face could not be seen, especially by the bulk of the non-aristocrats in the emirate. Mahmudu Koki, a Kano scholar, recollected that an advance team of the emir’s crowd usually warned Kano residents to stay indoors, and not to look out when the emir’s train passed by.101 It would appear that the Kano emirs normally passed through Kofar Mazugal to Fanisau, and we know that the entire journey through this route only took several hours.102 Of course, those who accompanied the emir normally consisted of his sons, titleholders, and slaves. Some of them, especially the slaves, carried food of all sorts for the crowd. In the course of the journey, guns were fired at regular intervals, especially at corners or narrow places.103 This was without doubt partly for security reasons. At Fanisau, the emir spent as many days as he pleased, ranging from a day to several weeks. No wonder that, ultimately, the settlement has been referred to as the summer residence of the successive emirs of Kano.104 Mahmudu Koki briefly described a visit by the emir and other nobles that lasted only a day thus: “[A]nd when they got to Panisau, they would spend the morning relaxing, and bowls of food would be sent to each of the titleholders by the emir. Then after the azahar prayer, a signal would be given, and they would mount again and ride home by the same way.”105 However, one must quickly add that as a pleasure spot, the emirs and their entourage patronized Fanisau for several other reasons (beside “relaxing” and eating) not clearly spelt out in Koki’s brief description of the typical day visit. For instance, the presence of concubines in the

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emir’s entourage, and the fact that he and others recruited female slaves into this position at the settlement, suggests the possibility that such visits were also to sexually exploit female slaves, especially concubines.106 The nature of the relationship between Kano rulers and other estate owners, on the one hand, and concubines, on the other, is discussed in more detail later in this study. It suffices to note here, however, that the fact that Kano emirs used Fanisau as a pleasure spot became widely known. Consequently, it became popular, particularly during the reign of Emir Bello, to question the importance of the settlement as a military outpost for the protection of the entire Kano Emirate. At the turn of the twentieth century, Rudolf Prietze documented and translated some Hausa songs (which he obtained through his contacts at Cairo and Tunis107), and one of these clearly illustrates the linkage of Fanisau to Bello’s personal protection and needs. In particular, a relevant section of the translated song reads thus: 161. Only the town of Dabo’s weakly tribe, only Kano wishes no fight. 162. Their King is submerged in fear; children sing a song about him: 163. It is said that he is a lazy-bones, is lord of Fanisau. 164. Bello leads no wars, goes to Fanisau only. 165. Thus tell Haruna as well: Bello of Fanisau108

Nevertheless, the motive for the visit by the Kano emirs to Fanisau was often not solely for pleasure and personal protection. For instance, such visits to the settlement had been undertaken principally to gather troops from different parts of the emirates against external foes.109 In addition, the emirs often executed some administrative duties such as supervising “royal slaves working on the farm.”110 A number of the emir’s administrative duties were closely associated to the military imperatives of the day as well. When Suleiman, the ruler of Zinder, attacked Kano in 1885, for instance, the emir of Kano, Muhammad Bello, moved to Fanisau and from that location dispatched two armies northward to intercept him. The two Kano armies instructed to check the enemies were under Galadima Tukur and the Sarkin Dawaki.111 More importantly, from Fanisau, Bello also


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wrote the following official correspondence to Waziri Buhari at Sokoto regarding the then ongoing military engagement: When the Galadima had set out we received a messenger from sarkin Dambarta to let us know that sarkin Damagaram (Zinder) had camped outside the gate of Kazaure and launched two severe attacks against it. Next his cavalry fanned out throughout our country (Kano), about six hundred horsemen, seizing and killing our people from the environs of Kunci, past Maraki almost to Malikawa. We ourselves are at Panisau. Hearing this, we dispatched the Sarkin Dawaki and other cavalrymen (barade) to Kunci and Dambarta, and they are presently there outside Kazaure waiting; but according to reports we have had from our scouts, so far there has been no battle.112

Kano emirs also received foreign diplomats and merchants at Fanisau.113 Even though the settlement was not a significant caravan center, merchants occasionally brought goods into Fanisau from neighboring and distant communities for disposal.114 A significant part of these commodities were luxuries such as horses and shields hence aristocrats and wealthy individuals were the main buyers. It would appear that the transaction in luxury commodities was conducted at the residence of the aristocrats and wealthy individuals. Apparently, the emir of Kano was entitled to the first choice of relevant commodities whenever he was present at Fanisau. If he was not interested in the products, then any other aristocrat/wealthy individual in the settlement purchased them. In 1824, for instance, Clapperton found Arab merchants at the outer guardhouse of the emir’s residence with horses they had for sale. More interestingly, he was also accompanied by two merchants resident at Kano City, namely Hat Salah and El Wordee, who, after Clapperton’s departure from Fanisau, remained behind to sell two horses to the emir. Both were given to Hat Salah for disposal by Dr. Oudney, who in turn bought one at Kouka from Hadje Ali Boo-Khaloom and obtained the other as a gift from the Sheikh of Borno. Whether or not the emir of Kano or any other aristocrat at the settlement bought the two horses on the particular date Clapperton visited Fanisau is not clear. However, we know that the emir often bought horses and retained some in the settlement.115 Available evidence indicates that the merchants who brought horses and luxury items for disposal at Fanisau were associated with the desert-edge commerce in Africa, and were also slave dealers.116 Thus, it is not surprising that, as in other parts of the emirate, the luxury items they brought to Fanisau were exchanged for slaves by the emir and other buyers.117

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In terms of diplomats, we know that Emir Ibrahim Dabo received Clapperton and Richard Lander at Fanisau.118 The journal of the former offers evidence about what visiting the emir especially in the aforementioned “outsider” capacity must have entailed. Audience with the emir was not usually automatic. Guests had to first report to another titleholder, wambey, who seemed to have been partly responsible for screening them and for informing the emir of their arrival.119 At times, the encounter with the wambey was not brief.120 Once granted permission to see the emir, the guest was usually taken to the Fanisau Palace. The initial contact between the emir and his visitor(s) involved handshakes and an exchange of greetings. Thereafter, among other discussions, the reason for the visit by the guest was addressed. Clapperton’s account suggests that the emir sometimes could not hide his suspicion for European agents during discussions.121 Presentation of gifts, not only to the emir but also to the wambey, and perhaps other titleholders at Fanisau, was an integral part of the activities of the diplomats and merchants that visited the settlement.122 In his first visit of 1824, Clapperton took a set of presents for the emir,123 and another set consisting “of a French shawl, a large Egyptian shawl, a pound of cloves and cinnamon, a razor, a clasp knife, a pair of scissors, and two snuff boxes”124 for the wambey. A week later, in his second visit to the emir at Fanisau, Clapperton also presented the emir with a watch. Finally, in 1826 Clapperton took further gifts to the emir while he was in the settlement.125 However much the emirs performed administrative duties at Fanisau, it is clear that the settlement was not as significant a center of administration as Gidan Rumfa in Kano City. Although the highest placed freeborn state officials usually accompanied the emir to Fanisau, none of them seem to have had plantations there.126 Also, none of these freeborn officials were directly involved in the administration of the community, at least on a full-time basis. The point here is that the administration of Fanisau was not like that of most other ribats and districts in the Kano Emirate.127 The administrative system in the settlement was directly under the emir himself who appointed one of the titled slave officials to handle most aspects of Fanisau’s administration. The titled slave official was known as shamaki. He was apparently the most powerful royal slave in the emirate. During the entire post-jihad period the title of shamaki was not hereditary. The emir appointed whichever slave he perceived to be the most able


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and most loyal candidate to the position, and this generated an intense competition among all in the royal slave community.128 It seems that a total of ten royal slaves held the office of shamaki between 1819–1926. All of these officials had far-reaching responsibilities in the Kano Emirate, which have been outlined in detail elsewhere.129 It suffices to note here, however, that the shamaki was permanently resident at the royal palace in Kano City. Indeed, he was one of the emir’s kofa (gates) there. Thus, he was a significant channel of communication between the Kano emirs and all permanent residents of Fanisau, especially the slaves that worked the plantations.130 In addition, the shamaki was responsible for the collection of the gandun sarki’s agricultural proceeds and the collection of other appropriate taxes at Fanisau. He was under obligation to do whatever the emir requested, such as assembling the population of the town when needed and appointing the local leaders. It was the shamaki’s duty also to represent the emir at important local marriages, and to supervise the emir’s farm in the settlement. Concerning the latter responsibility, he was, among other things, instrumental (mainly through warfare and purchase) for the recruitment of slaves into the gandun sarki, and for mediating in disputes among the slaves there.131 For supervising the emir’s estates, however, the shamaki only received a portion of the produce from the gandun sarki while he was prohibited from having a farm of his own. Assisting the shamaki in the administration of Fanisau were subordinate slave officials. Some of them were known as jakadu. The duty of these particular officials was tax collection primarily from small holders and cattle herders in the settlement; however, they were, as other jakadu in the emirate, also accredited political agents.132 According to Ubah, in the latter capacity, jakadu generally carried to the districts all the administrative orders emanating from Kano, and they also reported the state of the outlying settlements to the relevant aristocrats, and of course, in this case, to the shamaki. Furthermore, in case of trouble at outlying settlements, jakadu were sent to investigate matters, and they could handle minor problems on the spot.133 As accredited political agents, therefore, jakadu were instrumental to the administration of Fanisau. However, as the emir and shamaki, the jakadu were not permanently based in the settlement under consideration, and hence were not on a daily basis involved in the operations of the gandun sarki, and indeed other estates in Fanisau. Some resident personnel mainly handled this responsibility as we hope to demonstrate in the next chapter.

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Private Holdings In the period following the conversion of Fanisau to a ribat and the foundation of royal estates in the community, which witnessed the closer association of Kano emirs with the region, several private estates emerged. Wealthy individuals, most of them merchants resident in Kano City, owned most of these holdings. State policies were especially favorable to the emergence of private estates in Fanisau. Having established the settlement as a defensive outpost, Dabo turned next to implementing other development policies sanctioned by the Sokoto Caliphate rulers, especially Muhammadu Bello. Accordingly, he embarked on a policy of sedentarization, settling immigrants in various parts of the Kano Emirate. As part of this relocation policy, people were encouraged to settle at Fanisau and other fortified towns.134 In spite of Dabo’s initiatives, free persons were seldom inclined to settle down in Fanisau and other ribats. Consequently, the difficulty in attracting new free settlers under the sedentarization scheme had positive implications for the emergence of large agricultural estates (both royal and non-royal).135 As John Philips correctly notes, it was such reluctance that made “the Sokoto Caliphate, like many other Islamic states, turn more and more to the use of slaves as soldiers and administrators (mamlu¯k) as well as field hands.”136 Although free persons were reluctant to move to Fanisau, Dabo provided some inducements for them to settle in the region. First, as the principal administrator of land, he or the state easily parceled out land to such individuals for large-scale agricultural production. Following the jihad, land tenure policy in the Sokoto Caliphate and the Kano Emirate, in particular, became based on Muslim laws. It also became tied to issues of exemption from taxation, chaffa (clientage through allegiance), and patronage for scholars and soldiers.137 Thus, free immigrants who would benefit the society and economy of Kano were not only promised gifts of land in Fanisau, but were also guaranteed exemptions from land, cattle, and occupational taxes. Indeed, such tax exemptions were the catalyst that attracted the rich merchants and professionals who ultimately moved into the settlement. By the 1830s several free immigrants, mainly rich merchants, had moved into Fanisau under the sedentarization scheme. However, the policy of settling this category of people was implemented throughout the nineteenth century. Thus, before 1870 more of such free persons migrated into Fanisau. For instance, available evidence indicates


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that one Ibrahim was among the Tokarawa merchants allocated plots, and that this individual fathered at least one child, Madugu Kosai, born in about 1870 in the settlement. Partly given this fact, it is logical to conclude that Ibrahim had settled in Fanisau by that date.138 Moreover, at about 1882 a succession crisis was experienced in Kano following the death of Emir Abdullahi Dabo, (reigned, 1856–82). Out of three major contenders to the throne, the Sultan of Sokoto installed Muhammad Bello as the emir. The outcome isolated the popular contender, Yusuf. Bello was left with the difficult choice of how to neutralize this same individual, who happened to be his nephew, at the risk of discontent in Kano. He therefore sought support from the wealthy merchant community of Kano, especially the wealthy kola traders and the influential Arab community. In general, Agalawa and other kola merchants provided Bello with sufficient revenue in the form of gaisuwa during his trying moments as emir of Kano. In return, the ruler granted them privileges and opportunities.139 The point here is that, following Bello’s assumption of office, more rich merchants, especially Agalawa, acquired land for slave-based agriculture in Fanisau and other parts of the central region of Kano. After the end of Bello’s rule, however, Yusuf and his loyalists seized many of these plots in the Basasa (Kano civil war of 1893–94) with the Agalawa and other kola traders losing heavily.140 Therefore, following the conversion of Fanisau into a ribat, both land grants and land seizures were characteristic of the experience of the settlement. However, the former seem to have been more common. In this regard, the state generally assigned strips of land either based on requests made by rich individuals or simply as gifts to favored free persons. The latter transaction is known as kyauta, and the land so acquired was considered the permanent property of the person to whom it was given. Kyauta was basically associated with several factors including the individual qualities of a person.141 Assisting the emir to administer the land at Fanisau during the nineteenth century were the liman and the galadiman shamaki. These officials allocated land to eligible individuals in the settlement. However, the liman was responsible for the collection of fees from those relevant free people granted the usufructary rights of occupation.142 For his own part, the galadiman shamaki was responsible for the internal distribution or allocation of land in the emir’s property particularly to the slaves therein. Unlike in private estates where masters personally assigned plots to slaves, gang

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leaders (gandu) often assisted the galadima in carrying out this responsibility at the royal estate. Often, private estate owners, as compared with the emir, provided less acres of land to each of their slaves for personal use143: The difference between the ruler and the ruled is apparent. The emir owns most of the land in Kano and was, therefore, able to assign relatively bigger plots to his slaves. Plots given to slaves in private holdings were generally smaller.144

Nevertheless, at both royal and private estates slaves were generally allocated plots of land at “gefen gandu” (the edges of the plantation). At the royal estates, however, gang leaders often allocated plots of land to slaves without prior consultation with the galadiman shamaki.145 However, such actions were usually reported to the galadiman shamaki for ultimate approval. Failure to do so could result in the revocation of such land allocation. As Rabi’u states: But the if gandu does not inform the galadima about any land allocation before the latter finds out, the galadima can seize the allotted land and give it to someone else even if the gandu will not be disciplined. The galadima may send a person to the gandu with this message, “I instruct you to withdraw the land you allotted and give it to this person.” He did not have to go himself. The gandu will say okay and show this new person the plot of land.146

Besides the direct acquisition of land from the state, there were also other means of obtaining land at Fanisau. Among the free community, saran daji (bush clearance) might have continued while household heads also gave out plots of land to sons and slaves as kyauta (gifts). This often involved the division of the extended family land holding or the acquisition of new plots from outside the family. Irrespective of the source of the relevant plot, witnesses were required to make gifts legally binding among the concerned parties.147 Another important means of land acquisition for freeholders and rich merchants was through gado (inheritance). Islamic principles demand that on the death of the maigida (household head), the family property including land be divided among those entitled to inherit it. This principle was increasingly applied at Fanisau during the nineteenth century. Hence children and other free members in the family were usually assigned land whenever a maigida passed away. However, the actual practice was


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somewhat problematic because of disagreements over the procedures associated with the disbursement of the deceased’s estate. The larger the inheritance and the greater the number of individuals involved, the more difficult it was to settle the estate. Women generally did not inherit land or the houses of their deceased parents, sons, or close relations, while in a few cases heirs might have agreed to own the plot jointly instead of dividing it.148 Freeholders and/or rich merchants through jingina (pledging) could also acquire land. This usually involved a household experiencing financial difficulties. In such circumstances a landholder pledges his property for a specified period in exchange for a certain amount, which had to be paid back before the right of ownership was restored. Basically, it was the commercial value of the land that determined the amount to be paid. This system of land acquisition at Fanisau might have been prone to the same type of complications noted elsewhere in the Kano Emirate.149 Aro (leasing) also facilitated land occupation at Fanisau.150 This practice often involved a stranger who had no family support or who was too weak or too poor to clear land for cultivation or settlement elsewhere. An established landholder, unable to work all his land, could lease portions of his plot to persons in the above-stated category for a specified duration of time. Due to legal complications associated with this system, the consent of the local ruler was always sought for proper certification. A person who acquired land through leasing could ultimately saye (purchase) the property. Purchase of such property was, however, based on several considerations including the willingness of the lender to dispose of his plot. In any case, households with the necessary means usually increased the size of their landholdings through purchase, hence such transaction was another important means of land acquisition at Fanisau. Although land purchase transactions were between the relevant parties, the approval of the relevant state official was usually sought while the knowledge of the general public was also highly valued in cementing agreements as in other parts of the emirate.151 Finally, at Fanisau, land could also be acquired under the system of riko (trust). Usually this transaction took place when a plot owner migrated (for instance, to partake in caravan trading) or for some other reason wished to avoid selling or pledging the plot, which he/she was finding difficult to cultivate. More importantly, riko involved the transfer of land to a relative or friend, hence plots were often acquired without any specified fee.152

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Private estate owners who were mainly merchants, just as the emir, acquired slaves through state-sponsored raids, inheritance, donation, and breeding at Fanisau. For instance, the emir sometimes provided favored individuals in the settlement with slaves as gifts,153 while a rich merchant “Kosai usually bought male and female slaves, and also ensured that such slaves in his estate married each other so that they would give birth to more slaves.”154 Beyond these means, however, private estate owners normally raised capital to buy slaves to invest in plantations. Thus, for instance, “Kosai usually bought slaves whenever he traveled on business to distant markets,” and in fact, according also to Sani Kanyan Amana, he “bought my parents from Maiduguri.”155 To be sure, even though Dabo and other emirs of Kano had their own objectives in implementing the sedentarization policy, free immigrants in Fanisau invested in the growth of the plantation sector primarily because they recognized that they needed to provide for their own sustenance, security, and enterprise.156 Prominent among the free settlers who influenced the growth of the plantation sector at Fanisau were Madugu Kosai, Madugu Ada, Maitabarya, and Dan Sudu. Most of them were free immigrants (or their descendants), Muslims, and long-distance traders. In addition, as the emir and also as masters in the Caribbean and elsewhere, most of them lived far from their estates, which were typically run by their representatives.157 Among the private estate owners at Fanisau and its immediate vicinity, we know about the life and commercial activities of Madugu Kosai. The following discussion will focus on the whole commercial operation of this individual since it will shed light on how rich merchants raised capital to buy slaves to invest in plantations at Fanisau. Born in Fanisau, Kosai was the son of the above-mentioned Tokarawa immigrant, Ibrahim, and like other Tokarawa was involved in long-distance trade.158 By the end of the nineteenth century, Kosai was one of the most famous kola nut traders in Kano.159 According to Miko Hamshaki, Kosai played an active role in the resistance to Rabih b. Abdullah during the 1890s, and it was his courageous acts then that enhanced his reputation as a fearless and able leader. Consequently, upon returning to Kano from Borno in 1893, Kosai organized his first caravan to Asante.160 Before the turn of the twentieth century, Kosai established his residence in Kano City close to those of other rich men resident there. For instance, his compound was situated near those of Adamu and Madugu Indo at the


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Adakawa ward of Kano City.161 According to Alhaji Ibrahim whose grandfather, Halidu, had 500 slaves and traded with the famous Madugu Indo, the compound of his father, Adamu, at Adakawa ward in Kano City was one of the earliest established in that particular community. Some time after its emergence, Madugu Kosai built his own compound nearby. In fact, the structures shared the same fence.162 Due partly to the proximity of the buildings, Alhaji Ibrahim usually saw Kosai and remembered that he (Kosai) had Tokarawa facial marks.163 As Adamu, and other rich men of Kano, who had extensive assets including many compounds in other parts of the Kano Emirate and elsewhere, Kosai also had possessions in Adakawa ward in the city.164 He owned at least fifty horses and had another compound at Rafin Malam.165 He operated from his residence in Kano in managing his plantations as well as in conducting his business in general.166 Before proceeding on any trading expedition, Kosai, as other caravan leaders in Kano, usually asked malams for advice on when to depart while he also asked them to pray for the successful conclusion of the trip.167 Thereafter, Kosai would publicly announce the date that his caravan intended to leave the emirate. In this regard, Hamshaki remembers that: “Madugu will inform his people that when you are through, take off on such and such date; for I will be leaving by this date. When he departs, everyone will try to catch up with him.” Around the departure date, he often camped in an open field168 known as Rimin Azbinawa in order to await those that wished to join his caravan for the expedition at hand.169 Kosai was not only joined by people from Kano City at this location, but also by individuals from near and distant districts. Thus, some people traveled for three days before they joined the assembly at the Zango.170 The attraction of numerous traders to this particular caravan was due to several factors including the potent charm Kosai was believed to have possessed coupled with his fearlessness in the face of danger. In recognition of his courage during expeditions, a praise song was made in honor of Kosai. The song went thus: “[B]eancake which is being fried but its inside is white,” and Hamshaki suggests that this praise song ultimately gave birth to his father’s nickname.171 In any case, after every interested party had assembled at the Zango, Kosai led them to trading destinations, especially to Borno, Lagos, and Asante.172 In total, the caravan normally consisted of about one thousand donkeys, two hundred to three hundred cows, five hundred sheep, and over fifty horses.173 Kosai personally owned a significant number of the

Figure 2.1 Kano in the mid-nineteenth century


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livestock. Indeed oral data claim that he owned about fifty donkeys and over thirty sheep that formed part of his caravan at any time. Hamshaki remembers, for instance, that in a particular trip to Asante with his father, “from our house, we went with fifty donkeys and seven mules that I know. On a conservative estimate, there were a thousand donkeys.”174 In terms of people, about one thousand individuals normally made up Kosai’s expedition. Of this number, about three hundred were usually slaves. Also, women were often about two hundred in number while the total sum of children was usually within this same estimate. As part of the caravan, slaves did the most difficult tasks. Thus: Selected, strong and trustworthy male slaves were often asked to remain in front of the caravan in order to determine/check any impending danger. While selected slaves were asked to remain in front of the caravan, Kosai usually followed at the tail of the caravan.175

Also slaves, among others, acted as porters and attended to the needs of the free persons as well as those of the livestock. On the extreme, there is strong evidence indicating that slaves were also sold during trading expeditions.176 Indeed, Hamshaki not only noted that slave owners sold slaves during such trips, but, “[O]f course he could sell them. I did this myself quite a number of times. Yes.”177 Kosai’s caravan was usually well stocked with grain derived from his estates and other sources, while it was also well armed with swords and mashi (shooting star). Apparently, as any Madugu, Kosai was responsible for taking decisions on when to use these weapons.178 He was also ultimately responsible for other military and administrative decisions during expeditions. Thus, he determined the amount of tax each trader in his caravan would pay. As other Madugai in the Sokoto Caliphate, Kosai was assisted by relatively few caravan officials. Prominent among them were the Jagaba and Uban Dawaki. The former was responsible for, among other things, leading the caravan179 and ensuring that the best routes were followed while the latter acted as the chief adviser to Kosai. The Uban Dawaki also arranged rest stops and executed other specified duties.180 At Gonja, local Hausa traders often went to the neighboring villages/ locations such as Agyara and Mampo to purchase kola and in turn sold these to members of Kosai’s caravan and to other long-distance traders.181 Hamshaki remembered that “we bought from the pagans. But most of the

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purchase was from the Hausa, because they were the ones who bought and stocked them and one would buy the whole stock. And to us buying the whole stock was preferable than buying in bits from the pagans.” The local rich Hausa people also provided accommodation for the various merchants from Kano. For their services, they regularly received certain rewards such as gifts of natron, rams, gowns, and other important items from the Madugai.182 At Gonja or any other location, a trader who commenced his business trip as part of Kosai’s caravan might decide to leave the group for another one. Thus, the forces that made up any long-distance trade expedition were dynamic. Although Kosai, as other prominent merchants in the Kano Emirate, dealt in numerous commodities including clothes like gwadduna da luru (a white cloth with stripes of blue), livestock, gwaugwawa (black cloth), shoes, natron, Arabian robes, Jabba, haula mai tuntu (Egyptian cap), horses, slaves, and kola,183 it was dealing in this last commodity that, as mentioned, made him famous in the Kano Emirate. It normally took Kano-based merchants about a year to make a return trip to Asante for kola.184 Once the Madugu returned to Kano with new consignment of kola he, as other big kola importers, sometimes sold some in waga (a hide pannier for a pack animal) to local traders at the city’s main market, Kasuwar Kurmi, for further disposal. It seems that sometimes state officials also came to his house to purchase large quantities of the commodity as the following testimony by Hamshaki suggests: There was no manner in which we did not sell. We brought Kolanuts when there was none. The “Shettima” during the reign of Alu would come to our house and the Kolanuts would be brought out and a sale of 100,000 or 50,000 or 200,000 made.185

Finally, Kosai normally sent his trusted slaves and dependants to sell kola at the Kano City market and elsewhere in the emirate.186 Available evidence indicates that individuals sometimes bought kola worth between 50 to 200,000 cowries at a time from Kosai or his agents. This often translated to enormous profit that particularly accrued to the lord of Kanyan Amana (Kosai’s estate at Fanisau),187 and it seems that such income along with other trading benefits in general helped to establish and sustain that holding at Fanisau. Indeed, as already noted, commerce and plantation developments were also intimately connected in the Sokoto Caliphate.188


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Kosai’s trading activities continued to blossom up to the turn of the twentieth century. While this was going on, he took his children, including Hamshaki, Sule, Inuwa, Ango, and Ali,189 along several expeditions. In this way, the children understudied him. Ultimately, they set up their own trading ventures, acquired their own slaves, and established their own estates.190 By the second decade of the twentieth century, however, British colonial administrators were already established in the Kano Emirate. These new forces had then introduced the railway and at the same time fostered new policies. It was these new innovations that increasingly undermined the viability of Kosai’s estate at Kanya Amanya and his business operations in general. Shortly after the collapse of his kola business during the early colonial years, the famous kola merchant died.191 Settlement Pattern Having established how land and slaves were acquired at Fanisau, the history of the most extensive and important plantations and the layout of the settlement in general can now bear a closer examination. The majority of the estates belonged to the state or were specifically attached to the office of the emir who, in turn, attached them to the office of one of the most significant royal slaves, the shamaki, for supervision. Although these institutions were numerous they broadly translated, at least in the perception of slaves and their descendants, into two plantations known as Waceni and Fanisau. The two plantations might have constantly changed in terms of size and extent, but by the turn of the twentieth century, the former was located to the north and occupied the entire region between the Juji and Tskiya streams while the latter occupied another vast territory to the West of Fanisau.192 The extent of these two plantations has not been established. However, it is clear that the estates were never completely cultivated due to their vastness. Another indicator of the vastness of the royal estates is the fact that necessary supervision was mainly conducted on horseback. We also know that the gandun sarki at Fanisau was among the three largest royal estates in the Kano Emirate (according to Yunusa the two others were those at Gogel and Giwaran).193 As one of these estates, gandun sarki at Fanisau must have had more than the five hundred slave labourers who are known to have worked at a relatively less elaborate royal estate known as gandun Nassarawa.194 The Waceni and Fanisau plantations were among the first of such institutions to be established in the study area. Mahadi seems to suggest that

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the first plantations or royal plantations emerged at Fanisau before the jihad.195 He based his assertion on traditions collected at a neighbouring settlement to Fanisau known as Ungogo. Despite the attempt to place the origin of the first plantations in the period before the jihad, there is no evidence to suggest that the post-jihad rulers of Kano inherited the Waceni and Fanisau estates from their predecessors.196 Rather, the overwhelming evidence indicates that the two estates in question were newly established in the post-jihad era specifically during the reign of Ibrahim Dabo. Once established, broader socioeconomic conditions must have influenced the size of the Waceni and Fanisau plantations as well as their internal activities. However, little is known about the relationship between these variables. Nevertheless, it is clear that successive emirs of Kano after Dabo inherited these estates while the properties were never subdivided among members of any relevant emir’s immediate family. Consequently, it is safe to conclude that the royal estates at Fanisau did not experience the sort of fragmentation experienced during the late nineteenth century by other large agricultural estates in the Kano Emirate. While the gandun sarki was making its beginning at Fanisau, similar estates soon developed in nearby subordinate communities. Wealthy individuals resident at the capital city of the Kano Emirate or elsewhere outside the settlement owned most of these estates. As mentioned, prominent among these private estate owners were Madugu Kosai, Madugu Ada, and Dan Sudu. Kosai’s estate at Fanisau was located at Kanyan Amana, immediately beyond the western frontier of gandun Waceni. The precise extent of this holding has not been established. However, it is clear that there were at least sixty slaves settled in the slave quarters there.197 In addition to working at his plantation, Kosai’s slaves also had their own gadanye. Madugu Ada and Dan Sudu had their estates at a neighbouring subordinate community to Fanisau known as Zabainawa. We know that the size of these wealthy individual’s holdings, as those of other rich men of the Kano Emirate, ranged from 350 to 1,053 acres or even more.198 The private and royal estates at Fanisau were situated outside a wall that enclosed the main settled space. The wall was constructed during the nineteenth century, and was primarily meant to enhance the settlement’s defence and to provide sanctuary to the defenceless residents of surrounding hamlets during a raid or siege.199 The wall at Fanisau is among other prominent walls (and more precisely walled towns) in the Kano Emirate listed by Barth in his historic account,200 but was definitely not as awesome as that of Kano City


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in terms of height, length, or any other parameter. However, as the latter it may have been constructed by what Moody describes as “standard, traditional methods.”201 Whether or not the wall of Fanisau was constructed in that way, the structure had three gates that facilitated movement between the settled space and the plantations. One of these gates was situated in the south, another to the west, and the third to the east. It was, therefore, only the northern part of Fanisau wall that did not have a gate. Traditions suggest that the reason for the absence of a gate at this location was due to the fear of assault from Dan Tunku, Damagaram, and other enemies of Kano situated toward the north.202 In view of the absence of a gate in the north, most movement to and from the Waceni plantation as well as other locations to the north was undertaken through the “west” gate. 203 Besides fostering movement between the plantations and the settled space, the gates at Fanisau had other functions. For instance, they generally permitted the passage of traders and other visitors in and out of the settlement without undermining the security provided partly by the wall that enclosed the settlement. Little wonder that accompanied by El Wordee and Hat Salah in 1824, Clapperton noted passing through one of these gates.204 Despite the significance of the gates at Fanisau and movement through the structure by different people, including European travelers, we know very little about their description. However, each was constructed in such a way that only a few people could pass through them at a time so as to prevent the possibility of a surprise attack on the settlement,205 and each probably consisted of several sub structures including guard rooms used by either the various gate keepers/sentries or for storage of supplies for those on duty at the gates. The kiore (door) could either have been made of, “flimsy structures of cow-hide,” as Lugard suggests, or by strips of beaten iron riveted irregularly on a wooden frame and studded with large nail heads.206 Situated within the walls of Fanisau were three major wards. Closely situated to the south and west gates was the emir’s slave quarter known as rinjin sarki. Another ward, consisting of the emir’s palace coupled with the houses of the various district heads of the emirate among other well-to-do residents, was situated in the centre of the settlement. Of these structures, the emir’s palace was the most elaborate. The structure is located in the centre of Fanisau, and a nineteenth-century account described it as been about five hundred or six hundred yards from one of the gates.207 Ibrahim Dabo was the emir responsible for building the palace, and the structure was identical to the main palace, Gidan Rumfa, at Kano City. Nevertheless,

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the palace at Fanisau, as all other “daughter” palaces located at Dorayi, Gogel, Wudil, Nassarawa, and Takai, was certainly smaller than Gidan Rumfa.208 Descriptions of the palace at Fanisau indicate that one had to pass through many soraye (rectangular structures, used as guard houses and other purposes) before getting to the inner structure occupied by the emir himself. Clapperton, for instance, passed through an outer guardhouse: “[W]e had to pass through three coozees or guard-houses, the walls of which were covered with shields,” and, “the governor was seated at the entrance of an inner coozee.”209 Rufa’i’s more recent study agrees with this description. More than this, her work indicates that a mosque was attached to the palace at Fanisau. It also shows that some of the terms used (and that are still in use) to refer to some of the units in the royal residence were also used to refer to similar sections in Gidan Rumfa.210 For example, in both palaces there were Soron Sarki, Soron Makaranta, Rumfar Kasa, shamaki, and Karamin Shamaki. The Soron Sarki was the most important section of the palace at Fanisau, since the emir usually privately occupied it, while the Rumfar Kasa refers to the soro (pl. soraye) used by the emir to receive visitors. It was probably in the latter section that the nineteenth-century European travelers had meetings with the relevant emir of Kano. Other sections of the palace had their own functions, as the case of the Gidan Rumfa suggests.211 Whatever their functions, however, situated close to the palace at Fanisau were houses owned by the various hakimai of the Kano Emirate. Evidently, the latter were less magnificent structures. The third ward in Fanisau is known as the Ungwan Mahauta (butchers’ quarters), and it was apparently the last to be established within the Fanisau walls. At the settlement, butchery was another important economic activity; but very little is known of its organization. Nonetheless, it is clear that duties of butchers included far more than slaughtering livestock and making meat available to visitors and residents. Rabi’u testified that butchers were also expected to go around the community, including neighbouring regions, to pick up and dispose of dead horses/livestock: “[Y]es, those ones. There was a distinct butchers’ quarter. In the past, they were responsible for throwing away the carcass of dead horses and any other animals. That was their duty.”212 This seems more than what a modern butcher does in the region of Kano. Traditions reveal that butchers who migrated into Fanisau, and who largely became clients of the Kano emirs, established Ungwan Mahauta


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following the constitution of the settlement as a ribat.213 There is, however, no mention of several important issues in available traditions including where the butchers migrated from and why. Nevertheless, we know that butchery is a distinctive trade with its own regulations under Islamic law, and since properly killed and treated meat is important in Islamic society, wards newly constituted by butchers were not unusual in ribats situated in the Sokoto Caliphate. Added to this, residents of such wards were ultimately not only butchers but also farmers and other professionals.214 Private estate owners established several communities outside the Fanisau walls, and in some cases, beyond the royal estates. There seems to be no clear official guidelines on how private estate owners should lay out their communities. However, sources suggest that at the heart of such communities were the local residences of the slave masters. Often situated near the slave master’s residence were the slave quarters, and beyond that was the collective field. Although private estate owners not only established their separate communities and assigned names to such units on their own, they, as well as the communities they founded, were usually subject to the rulers of Fanisau, and ultimately to the emir of Kano. For instance, although Madugu Kosai established a separate community, which he also named Kanyan Amana, a few kilometers north of the Fanisau walls, he and members of his community were still subject to the galadiman shamaki and the local imam of Fanisau throughout the nineteenth century.215 Conclusion This chapter has outlined the reasons for the lack of comprehensive studies on Fanisau. Next, it described the location and geography of the settlement. It also argued that even though Fanisau has a long history, it did not evolve to be a town until the nineteenth century. As far as is known, the settlement did not play any notable role during the jihad due largely to its insignificant status within Kasar Kano. In addition, this chapter has shown that Fanisau remained largely an agricultural community right from its emergence up to the jihad period. As an agricultural community, slavery was an identifiable feature in the settlement, but slave labor was not used extensively in production. Indeed, Fanisau was not a plantation society up to the first decade of the nineteenth century, nor by this date was there any historically significant group that was resident permanently at the settlement.

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Beyond the above assertions, the chapter demonstrated that the growth of the plantation sector in Fanisau was a product of Emir Dabo who followed the examples of Sultan Bello in implementing pro-plantation policies. The major pro-plantation policies implemented from the reign of this particular Kano ruler involved jihad, land grants, settling immigrants, and above all the conversion of Fanisau to a ribat. In addition to state policies, this chapter has shown that the growth of plantations in Fanisau was encouraged by the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade, private needs, and climatic conditions. In terms of the settlement’s layout, this chapter has demonstrated that Fanisau was a walled community with three basic wards. The emir’s slaves who were also his fieldworkers occupied one of these wards while they were also provided with gayauna (farm plots) within the emir’s holding, in general. Furthermore, it is shown that the emir had two main estates at Fanisau namely Waceni and Fanisau and these, as well as other private estates, were located outside the walls of the settlement. Finally, this chapter has argued that Fanisau was one of the important pillars upon which the power and prestige of the Kano emirs was based. Consequently, these aristocrats brought the administration of the settlement under their effective control by entrusting relevant responsibilities to slave officials, particularly the shamaki. The Kano emirs, among others, also visited Fanisau more frequently than other estates and ribats in the emirate. We demonstrate that such visits were occasions for pleasure, directing warfare, involvement in local administration, and receiving merchants and diplomats.

3

The Management of Plantations in the Fanisau Complex

Introduction What was the nature of labor organization on the estates of Fanisau? Who determined the labor needs and set the activities of fieldworkers on a daily basis, and what incentives motivated such individuals? What were the principal crops of the plantations? How were crops planted and harvested? How were plantation yields used? How were commodities transported out of Fanisau for necessary disposal? What impact did the pattern of using plantation yields have on the settlement’s economy in general? These are some of the questions that need to be answered if the management of plantations is to be understood, and this chapter addresses these questions. Management of Plantations In contrast to the western hemisphere, slaves held top plantation management positions in Fanisau and in many other Islamic societies in Africa.1 Thus, the management of royal estates at Fanisau was usually entrusted to loyal slaves. The emir and the shamaki, the official responsible for Fanisau, did not usually live there, except during crises. Hence absentee proprietors and supervisors characterized the management structure throughout the nineteenth century, and therefore the day-to-day operation and management of the estate devolved to an overseer of the shamaki who was

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permanently resident in the settlement. This general overseer was given the title galadiman shamaki.2 We do not know the names and biographies of the different slaves that held the position. But we do know that the appointment of a slave overseer was usually made by the shamaki. Stilwell suggests that most slaves held a number of junior untitled posts before being promoted to titled positions directly under the influence of the senior slave in whose household (or in whose sphere of influence) they were raised.3 Junior slaves were generally promoted on two main bases: the quality of their relationship with a patron (both senior slaves and the emir) and by merit. The senior officials would only appoint a person who could do the job. Before promotion, therefore, a slave had to demonstrate a significant level of achievement in his former positions and show that he possessed the required ability for the next office. Oral sources confirm that the appointment or the promotion of junior slaves to the post of galadiman shamaki followed the pattern described above.4 After assuming the office in question, slave officials usually did not relax their efforts, since there were rewards, including higher offices or responsibilities that could be assumed in the Kano Emirate with increasing levels of achievement, demonstrations of ability, and displays of loyalty. The galadiman shamaki regularly visited Fanisau on horseback. During such occasions, he was dressed more elegantly than the field workers,5 and would sit under a tree to watch the slaves working. Whenever he deemed the work of the slaves unsatisfactory, he could, according to one source, take off his gown and take part in the farming activities either to boost the morale of his subordinates or to show them how the specific activity should have been done.6 Although the evidence that a major official would take off his fine clothes and work like a slave should not be taken at face value, it also suggests that such officials often sought to lead by example. More important, however, “taking part in farming activities” was to guarantee that the slave official in question continued occupying the office of galadiman shamaki.7 The responsibility of extracting as much work from a slave as possible, through example and several other means, was executed by a subordinate overseer locally known as gandu. The gandu was responsible for directly supervising the operations at the gandun sarki. He assigned daily tasks to the slaves under his jurisdiction. Normally, he divided the slaves into gangs to execute any given day’s job. These gangs were usually under assistant

THE MANAGEMENT OF PLANTATIONS

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supervisors, whose duty it was to keep slaves working. These junior slave officials briefed the galadiman shamaki on the daily state of the gandun sarki at Fanisau. They were usually male slaves appointed by the estate manager often on the basis of loyalty, hard work, and seniority.8 As with other slave titles, the position of gandu was not hereditary; hence a lazy disobedient son of an overseer was not necessarily appointed after the death of his father. In general, there were two gandu involved in the management of the gandun sarki at Fanisau. One was responsible for gandun Waceni, while the other looked after gandun Fanisau. For their role, they occasionally received certain rewards including extra rams for their children’s naming ceremony, extra shrouds for their deceased children, extra clothing, and slave wives. If a gandu’s wife gave birth, it was the emir who gave the ram which would be slaughtered on the day of the naming ceremony. If his son died, it was the Emir who bought the shroud. These were the visible rewards. If a gandu himself died, the emir provided the shroud. His property was usually taken to the emir. If the emir liked it, he would hold the property. But he could decide to share the property with the children of the deceased gandu. Alternatively, the emir could leave the whole property to the children of the deceased.9

The gandu, as his slave superiors, however, could not own any slaves. Nevertheless, he had absolute control over the fieldworkers under his jurisdiction. The gandu ensured that sufficient water and other basic necessities for operations were available at the estate under his jurisdiction every day. Thus, every morning, for instance, he saw to it that some slaves carried water to the estate for the consumption of the fieldworkers.10 At the plantation, the gandu was also responsible for conducting the daily routine head count, and he took necessary actions against any slave that was absent for any unjustifiable reason. To conduct headcounts and other related duties, the gandu was expected to arrive very early at the plantation, at least before the estate manager, galadiman shamaki. Rabi’u testifies, however, that there were instances when the galadiman shamaki arrived at the estate before the gandu. On such occasions the estate manager often became very angry and would personally initiate (and take part in) the work at the estate. When the gandu arrived he would chastise him sometimes thus: “[Y]ou have

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discredited your authority. I am not above farming myself; you can see that I am also working.”11 The galadiman shamaki served as the intermediary between the slaves at Fanisau, especially those at the gandun sarki, and the highest emirate officials, especially the shamaki. Ideally, when something happened in the town or when the slaves had a request or message for the highest authorities the galadima shamaki informed his immediate superior, the shamaki, who, in turn, informed the emir. Ultimately, it was the emir who took important decisions. On the other hand, whenever the shamaki wanted to inform the people of anything, he briefed the galadiman shamaki who, in turn, passed the message to the subjects below him. The galadiman shamaki took care of the welfare of his subjects partly by maintaining the walls and security of the settlement. He was also responsible for allocating tools, plots of land, and plantation yields among such other basic necessities to fieldworkers. As part of taking care of his subject’s welfare, the galadiman shamaki also mediated in disputes in the gandun sarki, or in the settlement in general. In most cases, efforts to address such disputes at lower levels would have failed before they were presented to the galadiman shamaki. On top of settling local disputes, however, whenever a resident fieldworker or slave of Fanisau was involved in any form of misunderstanding outside the settlement, the galadiman shamaki intervened. In this regard, he often identified himself as the “brother” of the slave involved in the dispute outside his immediate jurisdiction in order to secure a favorable judgment.12 Furthermore, it was the duty of the galadiman shamaki to look after the local palace, which was located at Fanisau. In this capacity, he, among others, ensured that the emir’s horses and other livestock were provided with food, often from the gandun sarki’s produce. He also controlled whatever or whoever was in the palace, especially when the emir was not in town.13 In addition to the palace, the galadiman shamaki was also responsible for the bulk of the emir’s properties at Fanisau. Hence, among all other local residents, he had the final say in land allocation in the settlement. The daily operation at the gandun sarki, and indeed any other estate in Fanisau, could be disrupted during moments of warfare. On such occasions, the galadiman shamaki was the commander of the local militia constituted in the settlement. Able-bodied slaves, who in stable conditions were engaged in production, made up this army. The galadiman shamaki also led the army at the warfront, but sometimes this was under the


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watchful eyes of the emir himself.14 The slave who held the office of galadiman shamaki during the Kano civil war, Basasa (1893–95), for instance, showed substantial bravery and loyalty during the crisis, and consequently, Emir Aliyu awarded him a seat on the majalisan sarki (state executive council) as a reward.15 The use of slaves as soldiers in Fanisau is a clear testimony that slaves were a crucial part of the political system not only in Fanisau but also in the Kano Emirate. Although serving in the military allowed slaves to play a crucial role in the political system, it would be misleading to totally divorce their activities in the army from economics. Most slave soldiers, as mentioned, were instrumental to the recruitment of new slaves into society. It is necessary to mention at this point that the use of slaves in the army is not unique to Fanisau. Indeed, slaves have been used as soldiers in many places around the world including in parts of the western hemisphere and the Islamic world.16 Cooper, in his major study on the East African coast, has drawn specific attention to the use of slaves in the army by planters like Islam bin Ali Al-Kathiri and Mazrui.17 Whatever reasons behind the use of slaves in the armies on the East African coast and elsewhere, it is apparent that the use of slave soldiers in Kano was related to several factors including the intermittent internecine struggles between various clans in the emirate (which partly made the recruitment of followers a crucial element of politics), and the reluctance of the freeborn population to serve their community in the army. For the slaves at Fanisau, serving loyally in the army was, as for slave soldiers elsewhere, a means of securing their masters’ protection against further traumatic experiences as well as a means of securing a niche within the dominant society. However, from the slave’s point of view, serving loyally in the army was only one of the numerous means of achieving these same goals. Therefore, to help facilitate the achievement of their goals, most of them worked daily, particularly when not involved in warfare, on the various estates in the study area including at gandun sarki. The slave’s day at gandun sarki usually began shortly after sunrise.18 All slaves were expected to report for work, but, “if a slave could not work because he was not well, he could be excused. An old slave who had children who also worked at the royal estate could also be excused from gang labor. But a strong or able-bodied slave was never excused from plantation work.”19 Put differently, some slaves could be exempted from the day’s

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work at the royal estate due to serious ill health or old age. However, at the estate, there was usually no difference between the work of male and female slaves. Both sexes also worked the same length of time. Sometimes, a female slave could finish the specific task assigned to her for the day before her male counterpart. As a result, the latter would be reprimanded by the overseer or even taunted by the more efficient female slave and other fieldworkers in the vicinity.20 During the course of the day’s farming, slaves had time allotted for rest and were provided food, such as tuwo (food made from guinea corn) at noon. Needless to say, such meals were usually inadequate, of poor quality, and without variety.21 After lunch, the slaves resumed work until two o’clock, when the relevant officials dismissed them for prayers. After prayers, the slaves were usually “released” for the day.22 The slaves followed this regime every day, except on Fridays, Sundays, and during public holidays such as sallah and maulud, which were often work-free days.23 After concluding the day’s work, the slaves hardly had time for rest or leisure. They had to return to their gayauna plots to work until sunset. At the gayauna, the slaves grew whatever crops they liked, including sweet potatoes, cassava, maize, beans, and groundnuts.24 While slaves cultivated their gayauna individually, their collective agricultural activity at the gandun sarki was sometimes supplemented by freeborn labor. According to the traditions, the slaves themselves would call for the assistance of free persons in such instances. They would claim that outstanding work at the gandun sarki could only be completed with the assistance of the freeborn. According to Rabi’u, such requests for freeborn labor were made to the authorities at Fanisau who, in turn, imposed the corvee.25 In his words: Slaves engaged in private estates suffered more, because they worked indiscriminately. But emir’s slaves performed less tasks and had more time for themselves. The emir’s slaves can even force free men to do their task. If the farm work cannot be finished, the slaves could approach the authorities26 and say “of what value are you if you will allow the emir’s farm to fallow, give us such number of men to farm.” He would give such number as available and the work will be accomplished to the credit of the slaves.

These traditions must be treated with caution and appear to serve to place responsibility for corvee on the slaves rather than on the management of the plantation; but the image was that slaves could activate the labor of


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free people and therefore were actively setting the terms of their own labor conditions. It has been suggested that violence was often employed to control slave labor or to extract labor from slaves.27 The case of Fanisau proves this suggestion correct. On the royal estates and indeed at various other estates in the settlement, for instance, the gandu was responsible for slave discipline and punished anyone who was not working hard enough.28 Punishment could involve severe beating, in the presence of other fieldworkers, with either a dorina (a whip made from a hippopotamus skin) or with a tree branch that usually caused more pain than a blow from a small leather whip. Slaves were sometimes tied to trees for beating.29 Big shackles, called gigar or mulwa, were sometimes used to shackle recalcitrant slaves at the estates.30 Furthermore, a disobedient slave might be denied food (until he showed remorse), while administrators of the gandun sarki, and the masters, could take erring slaves who they could not control to Gidan Ma’ajin Watari for punishment or reform.31 Gidan Ma’ajin Watari was the slave prison situated less than a kilometer northeast of the emir’s palace at Kano City. It was owned by the state and managed by the state official titled Ma’ajin Watari. Masters sent defiant slaves whom they did not want to dispose of to this prison for reform. On arrival at the prison, the masters were expected to declare the offence the slave had committed and the type of punishment to be meted out. Thereafter, the erring slave was admitted into the facility through two doors, but in the process he or she was severely beaten. The conditions of Gidan Ma’ajin Watari were terrible, as an early colonial record indicates:32 A small doorway 2 ft. 6 in. by 18 in. gives access into it; the interior is divided by a thick mud wall (with a smaller hole in it) into two compartments, each 17 ft. by 7 ft. and 11 ft. high. This wall was pierced with holes at its base, through which the legs of those sentenced to death were thrust up to the thigh, and they were left to be trodden on by the mass of other prisoners till they died of thirst and starvation. The place is entirely air-tight and unventilated, except for one small doorway or rather hole in the wall through which you creep. The total space inside is 2618 cu. Ft., and at the time we took Kano [1903] 135 human beings were confined here each night, being let out during the day to cook their food, etc., in a small adjoining area. Recently as many as 200 have been interned at one time. As the superficial ground area was only 238 square feet, there was not, of course, even standing room. Victims were crushed to death every night—their corpses were hauled out each morning.33

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While in prison, the slave was usually subjected to torture by fellow inmates as well. Masters could occasionally pay visits to the prison to see whether or not their slaves should be released. During such visits, the masters often presented their slaves with cowries or food, while the slaves, in turn, would plead forgiveness. Ultimately, it was the master who decided how many days the slave would spend in the facility, and by implication decided whether or not to withdraw the slave from the prison.34 Finally, if a slave at the gandun sarki was consistently lazy or disobedient, and had been warned or punished by the gandu several times without any improvement, the overseer could notify the galadiman shamaki, who in turn might inflict further punishments or brief the shamaki. On receiving complaints, the shamaki could ensure that the persistently rebellious slave was sold and replaced by another one newly acquired. Alternatively, he might ensure that the disobedient slave was disposed of as part of the tribute forwarded to Sokoto.35 By applying diverse forms of punishment on rebellious slaves, the estate managers contributed to the consolidation of a social order that was based on the plantation. As part of sustaining the system, the gandu sometimes took note of hard-working slaves, and recommended eligible ones to the galadiman shamaki for reward, which could be in the form of extra cloth, plots of land, or such gifts.36 As compared to the gandun sarki, the operation of private estates at Fanisau had some important differences. First, the chain of command was not as complex as in the royal estates. The estate owner himself sometimes directly supervised his holding or slave gang. For instance, partly to supervise his plantation workers, during any planting season when he was not involved in long-distance trading, Kosai “usually spent two days in Fanisau, and then moved to the city for two days before returning back to Fanisau. In fact, whenever he was around during planting season, he sustained this pattern of visit to his estate.”37 Sometimes, a master might appoint a slave as sarkin gandu who would supervise the estate on a daily basis, but this was the only subordinate level supervision. In this case, the supervisor was usually the most trusted slave, and in most cases was also elderly.38 The benefits of the position of sarkin gandu in private estates as well as his responsibilities were not that different from those enjoyed by the gandu at the royal estates. However, the sarkin gandu on private estates was not expected to punish the fieldworkers as this might result in revenge. Hence, flogging and more serious punishment were usually carried out by


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the estate owner himself, or by another appropriate freeborn individual.39 Available evidence suggests that private owners were compelled by several factors, including the persistent drive to increase productivity and the inability of private estates to supplement slave labor with corvee labor mobilized from freeborn commoners, to extract more work from their slaves as compared to the workload at the gandun sarki. Therefore, beating, whipping, sale, and other forms of abuse were more common at the private estates.40 The plantations at Fanisau produced one principal crop, grain,41 namely dawa (guinea corn), gero (bulrush millet), and maiwa (millet). Each of these types of grain also had different varieties. The varieties of guinea corn common at Fanisau included farfara, which was used in feeding livestock, and kaura, which was consumed by most people in the Kano Emirate.42 Less millet, maiwa, was produced at Fanisau than in other parts of the emirate. The maiwa was of two varieties. One, known simply as maiwa, has a long head like bulrush millet; the other, dauro, is thick and has a short head.43 Regardless of the variety, plots were usually prepared for the planting of grain during the dry season. During this period, “slaves cut shrubs down, cleared the farm and burnt down the rubbish.”44 After the grain had been harvested, the crop was threshed, winnowed, and put into bags before being stored in rumbuna (bins).45 Overall, the relatively scanty available sources, suggest that although slaves at Fanisau did not face as hard or as continuous a work schedule as slaves in the cotton fields of the south, let alone on sugar plantations in the Caribbean, their work was based on gang labor similar to those of slaves employed in the production of the above listed goods elsewhere.46 The various sources also generally agree that estates at Fanisau produced more than what was needed to feed the slave laborers, and of course, the output was sold or otherwise distributed in the interest of the slave owners.47 Disposal of Plantation Crops Unlike in the western hemisphere, plantation yield from Fanisau-based plantations was not exported to Europe. Rather, harvests were used locally within the Kano Emirate or distributed through the regional trade systems that linked Kano to North Africa and the forest region of West Africa. Specifically, part of the yield from the plantations was used

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to feed the slaves and the owner’s family. The plantation owners, at least non-aristocrats, were expected to pay a tenth of the grain harvest as a religious tithe, zakka. In the first decade of colonial rule, in 1908, the British colonial administrators, however, noted that “this has never been honestly levied or paid, and is the biggest channel for extortion and robbery of the whole taxation system”48 in the Kano region and elsewhere. According to the colonial administrators, the payment of zakka was, among other problems, also characterized by under-declaration of yields by farmers in order to minimize returns. Although the colonial administrators were specifically referring to developments during their then nascent rule, the situation is not likely to have been different in the nineteenth century. However it might have been, estate owners paid zakka in the post-jihad era, and except for this religious tithe other agricultural, craft, and commercial taxes were not imposed at Fanisau. Although agricultural taxes such as kurdin kasa (land tax) and kurdin shuka (tax on special dry-season crops) are known to have existed in the Kano Emirate,49 the plantation owners at Fanisau, whether aristocratic or not, were not paying such dues. Of course, this was in accordance with what obtained in other parts of the Kano Emirate (and other regions of the Sokoto Caliphate in general).50 That these estate owners were exempted from paying agricultural taxes is not surprising since the land was declared as waqf (state/conquered land) under the specific control of the emir who, among other political office holders, allowed the native non-Muslim people, known as the Maguzawa, a special category of land tenure involving the recognition of communal rights over land51 and who was entitled to plots without paying any form of land tax, kharaj. The agricultural tax exemption the aristocracy enjoyed was based on Muslim laws and known as hurumi. Although aristocrats were exempted from paying land tax, under the waqf system, land was also theoretically generally subject to land tax, kurdin kasa. Rulers of various emirates were usually expected to collect land tax from citizens and were expected to also effectively administer vacant lands. Vacant lands in Kano and elsewhere may include areas designated as cattle trails (protected from the encroachment of farmers) or common pasture, but largely consisted of lands assigned to free settlers upon application to local authorities. Overall, the declaration of land as waqf, as noted elsewhere,52 partly served to ensure that slaves could not easily find vacant land that they could occupy. However, since aristocrats could assign lands to free settlers upon receipt of applications, what emerged was that


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in addition to the hurumi benefit for aristocrats, private estate owners were also exempted from paying agricultural tax to the state. Eligibility for exemption was related to the arrangement, caffa, whereby they had acquired land, which entailed declaring allegiance to the masu sarauta as well as paying a “little, or a large sum, to some influential ‘protector’ in Kano.”53 To be sure, private estate holders consistently paid homage to the masu sarauta. It is probable that some of agricultural related income derived by the aristocrats as homage were received at Fanisau. In addition to local consumption and its use in paying homage and the religious tithe, plantation yields were sold in the market.54 In cases where the planter was engaged in long-distance trade, caravan members drew on the yields during the course of business trips. Although some of the harvest from the royal estates was retained to feed the slaves and livestock at Fanisau, most of the produce was channeled to the Kano palace partly to feed concubines and their wards. Yes. After harvesting the crops, Galadima could give some to anybody, he could also take some in order to eat. But Shamaki had to be notified before. From Fanisau, slaves would pound and thrash the grain. The grain would then be taken to the palace and be given to concubines. Slaves, male and female, would carry the crops to the city. Concubines were given grains which would last for one week. The concubines were given enough grains from Friday to Friday which she could feed the number of people under her care. That’s how grains produced in each gandu were used.55

We know that a slave official known as sarkin hatsi (slave official in charge of the palace granary) ultimately received delivery of harvests supplied from Fanisau to Gidan Rumfa. This royal slave and a second, MaiKudanda, who were responsible for distributing food to all the unguwanni (quarters) in the Kano palace took orders regarding that specific duty from Uwar Soro (the leading titleholding concubine).56 By the end of the nineteenth century there were more than twelve quarters in Gidan Rumfa, and one of them, Sararin Garke, was “the section where livestock was kept. Their feed was also the responsibility of the Sarkin Hatsi.”57 Fanisau, as other royal estates, fed the emir’s dependants and livestock (especially horses), thus showing the importance of royal estates, including the one at Fanisau, and the close association with the palace in Kano City. The amount of food required in the Gidan Rumfa was substantial. No wonder that another quarter in the Kano palace derived its name from Fanisau.58

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Free persons were not involved in supplying the Kano palace from Fanisau. Also yan alaro (professional porters) or individuals that hired out pack animals and their own services as yan sifiri da bisashe (drivers) were not involved either.59 Rather, after doing the greater part of assembling goods and all the work of preparation and packing of the grain harvest, it was the slaves at Fanisau that conveyed the goods to the palace. These slaves mainly carried the agricultural harvest on their heads, even though some livestock, especially donkeys, were also used.60 A porter could carry 60–120 lbs.61 The conveyance of goods was done under the supervision of the galadiman shamaki or a trusted slave representative. Whoever supervised the grain delivery had responsibilities typical of those of the caravan leader, madugu. In this regard, he was responsible for ensuring that the grain arrived at the Kano palace safely and expeditiously. This was no mean task; hence, the galadiman shamaki or any other slave entrusted with the duty necessarily had to have sufficient knowledge and leadership qualities. It took one day to transfer the harvest for the delivery team. Usually the old and the infirm were not involved, though young, healthy female slaves were used.62 There is no evidence indicating that slaves were shackled in the course of transporting relevant commodities from Fanisau to Kano or that bandits ever attacked the grain delivery team.63 Once the porters arrived at the Kano palace, the shamaki ensured that the grain was forwarded to the sarkin hatsi for storage. Thereafter, the slaves returned to Fanisau. Although the fieldworkers probably took part in the grain delivery to the palace after considering the strategic significance or experiencing coercion, none of them did so under arrangements related to murgu and fansar kai,64 as was the case for slaves involved in longdistance trade or in delivery activities for private estate owners at Fanisau. The conveyance of goods from Fanisau was seasonal, and the slaves involved required little or no skill. There were no “specialized grades or categories of labor emerged,”65 as was the case with the organization of labor for long-distance trade.66 Slaves generally had low levels of purchasing power and, therefore, could spend very little on manufactures. A significant proportion of agricultural production was consumed locally within family units at Fanisau, and because of the relative poverty of most of the inhabitants who were slaves, there was little opportunity for market development. Fanisau had weak links with other parts of the emirate.67 The weak market links of


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Fanisau to the rest of the Kano Emirate, and the Sokoto Caliphate in general, which was undoubtedly partly related to the low productivity of hoe agriculture,68 promoted the relative economic isolation of the settlement. But weak market links, and more importantly, the low productivity of hoe agriculture, also limited the coercive potential of the masters as in other savanna areas of West Africa. For the slave system to work, slaves were, therefore, allowed to engage in non-agricultural activities during the dry season.69 In the next chapter we will examine the different nonagricultural activities that slaves in Fanisau engaged in. Conclusion The operation of plantations at Fanisau involved the use of overseers, gang labor, and various forms of incentives plus punishments. The major agricultural commodities produced at the estates were grains. Both male and female slaves were involved in the production of these crops, and they labored for long hours, six days a week, in this regard. Added to these facts, this chapter has demonstrated that the transportation of plantation harvest to Kano City, and other locations, was by slave labor. Slaves played dominant roles in production and transportation (and faced serious hardship in the process) to the benefit of their masters. Thus, the harvest from the gandun sarki was transferred to the Kano palace and was used to feed the king’s dependants and livestock. This disposal pattern of plantation yields, it is argued, was at the expense of the per capita income of all slaves in Fanisau, and among other factors, this in turn ultimately promoted the relative economic isolation of the settlement.


4

Sociocultural Life at Fanisau

Introduction The previous chapter emphasized the role of slaves in production, and the use of violence to extract surplus agricultural slave labor. In Fanisau, as elsewhere, violence was implicitly part of the slave system. Regardless of this fact, however, there were mechanisms of reward and incentive. Such nonviolent mechanisms are important if the system is to be productive. In recognition of this fact, estate owners employed noncoercive policies in order to reduce the overt opposition of slaves.1 Despite the slave holders’ effort to completely control and regulate their slaves’ lives, the plantation system at Fanisau, again as in other slave systems, was not simply a means of organizing labor. Clearly, there were sociocultural aspects inherent in the system, and both masters and slaves at Fanisau contributed, however unevenly, in this regard. This chapter outlines the family life, religion, and other sociocultural factors in the context of the relationship between masters and slaves. It will also discuss the work of slaves outside the gandu, and how they negotiated their conditions of servitude. Beyond the intricacies of the master-slave relationship as it pertains to Fanisau, the chapter focuses on how the slave system in the settlement was characterized by what Martin Klein refers to as “flow-through,” that is, movement to either ameliorated status or manumission.2 Slave Life and Culture The argument of Claude Meillasoux and other scholars that slaves comprised a social class oppressed and exploited by the slave-owning class has been challenged in various contexts.3 That argument is also difficult

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to apply to Fanisau. Slaveholders in this settlement, unlike those in areas such as the antebellum South and northeastern Brazil, did not reside permanently at their estates and were not in constant contact with their slaves. As a consequence, they were unable to impinge on the daily lives of their slaves to the same degree as planters in the antebellum South and northeastern Brazil.4 In spite of their resident character, however, slaveholders in Fanisau like those elsewhere used religion, local custom and other tools to control their slave population and to generally promote conditions that, among other factors, militated against the establishment of a slave class with a distinct slave consciousness. With specific reference to the use of religion and local custom for the control of the slave population in Fanisau, the sources suggest that most masters sought to fulfill obligations of local custom and Islamic law in order for the plantations to function efficiently. For instance, they strove to fulfill the requirements of the Maliki school of Islamic law, which enjoined a slave owner to provide his slaves with food, to clothe them properly, to not overwork them, to not punish them excessively for mistakes they had committed, and to generally treat them fairly. To that end, estate owners in Fanisau specifically provided their slaves with food at midday during the rainy season (while the cultivation of estates was in progress) and also supplied unmarried slaves with evening meals prepared by female slaves employed for the task. But the food allowance was often miserable,5 and this accords with Chafe’s findings on the metropolitan Sokoto Caliphate. Slaves, too, were subjected to intensive manual labour and often forced to work under sub-human conditions. Most gandu or runji slaves were not well fed. They were also not clothed well, a situation which left them vulnerable to harsh climatic conditions during the wet and especially the dry but cold harmattan seasons.6

Most of the slaves’ food was also actually from their own gayauna, which they cultivated on their own time. Thus, for instance, although the emir sometimes assisted slaves with food (for instance, when slaves gave birth, the emir provided food for the festivities), “every royal slave had a gayauna to work on his own account. He fed himself mainly from it.”7 Indeed, all slaves provided their own food in the morning, while married slaves were responsible for their evening meals. The gayauna also provided the bulk of the food consumed by the slaves during the dry season.

SOCIOCULTURAL LIFE AT FANISAU

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Since the slave owners did not effectively supply food to their slaves as enjoined by Islamic law, and since the estate owners also denied the slaves the actual free time they were supposed to enjoy to cultivate their plots (by involving them in warfare, for instance), slaves consequently suffered from food scarcity and were forced to find food wherever they could. They did not spare even the emir’s granaries in this regard. Rabi’u reveals that slaves who were engaged in fieldwork at the gandun sarki sometimes connived with the sarkin gida at the emir’s residence to “steal” food.8 The inadequate food at the disposal of the emir’s slaves may have also contributed to their frequent gaisuwa (visits) to the rich men resident in and around Fanisau basically looking for handouts. Similarly, the emir’s slaves committed petty theft and occasionally confiscated property from other people whose residences were situated in the vicinity. The following statements by Rabi’u are amply sufficient to establish this point: (1) They (slaves) do steal. For instance, in the past they will connive with Sarkin Gida, and steal the produce for food. When the Galadima finds out he may scold them or punish them depending on his mood at that moment. (2) Slaves sometimes visited rich freemen at home and say, “We are here to visit you.” Consequently richmen usually gave them gifts because of their (richmen’s) respect for the emir. But gifts were not offered due to compulsion. Slaves only compelled a person along the road (to part with their property), and in that case they will arrest him and make him give something under duress.9

Slave owners provided slaves with the tools they used in agricultural production at the estates as well as at their gayauna. These tools consisted of the galma (large-bladed curved hoe with a short handle used in making ridges) and fartanya (regular hoe) and were usually distributed by the overseer.10 As mentioned, such tools undoubtedly contributed to the low agricultural productivity in Fanisau. Nevertheless, once a slave was given a tool, he stored it after each day’s work at his residence. The only time slaves returned these implements to the overseer was when they required repair. The overseer ensured that implements were in good working condition, and otherwise sent them to free blacksmiths, returning them to the slaves as soon as possible. The sarkin Makera (chief of blacksmiths) who resided at the Galadanchi ward of Kano city, was responsible for making and repairing the tools used by the slaves at the gandun sarki. It would

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seem that this official frequently went to Fanisau for the purpose of making tools and repairing spoiled ones, as he also did in the case of gandun Nassarawa.11 Besides providing tools, masters were supposed to give their slaves livestock, particularly a ram or sheep, for slaughter during naming ceremonies of newborn slaves at the estates. They were also supposed to provide clothing, and they were responsible for likafanni (cloth shroud) for the burial of dead slaves. According to oral sources, the customary allotment of clothing at the gandun sarki was a gown for each slave after every harvest.12 If this was so, then slaves at private estates might not receive any clothing from their masters (since the level of maltreatment seemed higher at private holdings). This implies that they must have been forced to purchase clothes with their meager incomes. It seems that estate owners in Fanisau did not argue among themselves, as their counterparts in Georgia and a few other parts of the New World, on whether or not to convert slaves to their religion. Influenced by the theory that a slave owner was expected to convert his slaves to Islam, by chastisement if necessary,13 masters in Fanisau encouraged slaves to embrace Islam and, as part of the process, to learn the five daily prayers, memorize parts of the Quran, and study Arabic. They also encouraged slaves to learn the traditions of the Prophet and other Islamic texts.14 But the majority of the slaves at the settlement, as elsewhere in the Sokoto Caliphate, could not have proceeded far with this curriculum since they faced linguistic and cultural difficulties as recruits drawn from alien communities.15 Nonetheless, the emir appointed an imam (leader of congregational prayer, sometimes also a state official) who played a significant role in the conversion of slaves and in giving religious instruction to the residents of Fanisau.16 Specifically, he was responsible for naming rituals, at which slaves were given new names, the owners providing sheep for sacrifice and meeting various other expenses of the ceremony. Once the imam concluded the ritual of converting a slave, the slave enjoyed certain benefits and his or her status was enhanced at least beyond that of non-Muslim slaves. Islam also facilitated the enhancement of the status of children born into slavery. Soon after delivery, children were given Muslim names in ceremonies sponsored by slave masters. Thereafter, they were designated as cucanawa and, compared to purchased or captive slaves, enjoyed greater freedom of movement and other benefits.17 While cucanawa enjoyed more independence and benefits than purchased or captives slaves, we must stress that


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both were part of a social category of unfree labor that in Fanisau also included manumitted slaves and slaves liberated from labor on the collective field to work on their own account. Clearly, this unfree category was distinct from the free in the settlement. In line with Maliki rules, most masters allowed slaves to work on their own on Fridays. Slaves could attend the sallar juma’a (Friday congregational prayer) as well as the karamar salla and babar salla (the two Eids).18 During these and other daily prayers, the slaves, as part of the congregation, listened to admonitions by the imam. Such admonitions were supposed to instill fear in them. However, they also influenced the nature of the slave’s interaction with their masters.19 In the manipulation of Islam for social control, slave owners sought to brainwash their slaves with religious propaganda. For instance, they tried to convince the slaves that a dreadful outcome would be their lot, if they questioned the legality of their enslavement.20 At a broader level, Emir Ibrahim Dabo quoted verses of the Quran and Hadith to stress the importance of loyalty.21 While the private slave owners in Fanisau used such religious propaganda to control their slaves, they also relied extensively on charms, and amulets made by Muslim scholars, to deter resistance: Scholars preached that once a person is a slave and failed to serve as a slave in this world, he is going to work as a slave in the here-after . . . they (slaves) even accepted this view . . . Some of the enslaved were sold after they had been captured while others were charmed in such a way that they would not run away again. Such charm would be put in their food. It will make it difficult for them to think and know the direction of their home.22

It is instructive to note, however, that the use of such charms and amulets was basically part of the indoctrination.23 In fulfilling customary and religious obligations, masters frequently did all they could to acculturate their slaves or at least alter the slave’s original cultural identity. Thus, fieldworkers at the gandun sarki, as soon as they were acquired, were given specific facial marks known as yan uku uku (three marks on each cheek) for identification purposes to distinguish them from free citizens.24 In addition to facial marks, most slaves, irrespective of whether they were the emir’s property or not, were given new names as soon as they were acquired. As elsewhere, the new names served to distinguish them from the free population. However, in Fanisau, a significant number of such names were derived from the Hausa language

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and commonly had meanings associated with slavery. Masters thus gave their slaves such names, known in Hausa as habaici, as Albarka (blessing), Alheri (goodwill), Alakyuata (may God do us good), and Aladadi (God is sweet or kind), just to mention a few.25 Sometimes masters called part of the name of a slave, expecting a response from the slave, using the rest of his or her name when answering.26 Hence a master could call his slave Naroka (I beseech), and the slave would in this case cap it with the reply Allah-ya-bani (God has given me). In other cases, masters preferred calling their slaves by the names of their original ethnic group or names associated with such groups, especially when this was known. Thus, a slave could be called ethnic names like Marwa, Warji, Chubok, Birom, Kaje, and Angas.27 Customarily, there was no formal naming ceremony associated with the renaming of the new slaves introduced to the estates at Fanisau. However, masters invited a few elders to witness the exercise, if they wished. Although individual slaves were sometimes called by the names of their original ethnic group, masters commonly referred to all slaves in the settlement as Warjawa or Gwarawa (s. Bagwari). As Hamza notes, such terms were used to identify anyone who could not speak Hausa correctly and who was ignorant of various Hausa customs, and hence someone who was an alien and whose status was that of slave or the descendant of slaves. The term did not refer only to the ethnic group known in Hausa as “Gwari” (Gbari), who lived south of Zaria, but the term included people from Adamawa, Ningi and Damagaram, and probably elsewhere. Most were considered to be non-Muslim in origin, although it is unlikely that all were.28

Apart from renaming slaves, masters also saw to it that slaves became increasingly accustomed to the local dress code, food, geography, customs, and institutions, and hence slaves increasing adopted Hausa and Muslim cultural practices.29 They established families partly to ease the discomfort and pain connected with their separation from their homes; but the masters were central to the constitution of such units. At Fanisau, slave owners provided their slaves with wives or at least took care of marriage expenses, although the level of each master’s commitment to these obligations varied. As mentioned, hardworking and loyal slaves often had wives given to them by their masters. Private owners like Kosai, however, probably partly to discourage desertion and to maintain control,


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strongly discouraged their slaves from marrying the royal slaves in the settlement.30 In this regard, Kosai, for instance, ordered that his slaves should never visit the emir’s estates/residence on their own.31 Beside this, however, any fieldworker who intended to get married usually notified the master, or at least the galadiman shamaki in the case of the royal slaves, and in the process requested assistance in meeting the marriage expenses. Ultimately, the slave owner was required to sanction the marriage before it was held. He was also expected to offer gifts to facilitate the marriage ceremony.32 In line with customary practice, masters and their freeborn relatives often addressed a slave as kane (younger brother) and kanwa (younger sister) thereby promoting a sense of belonging. The image was one of kinship, in which slaves were theoretically being treated like the children of the master. Treated or addressed as such, mainly confirms their status as perpetual minors. Although the slave households at Fanisau varied in size and complexity, all members of each unit collectively worked at each family’s gayauna when they were free from fieldwork at the gandu. Indeed, children were usually taught how to farm at the gayauna and asked to help with gandurelated activities “like tending of horses by getting food for the horses, cutting grasses, watering plants and other relatively simple duties like that”33 before they were allowed to take part in cultivation at the gandu. Although sources generally agree that slaves could count on the labor of their children in their early age, they also suggest that, as in other slave systems,34 masters ultimately claimed the services of slave children in Fanisau. Unfortunately, it is not clear whether slaves lost command of their children’s labor before or after the latter’s adult teeth came in. However, it is possible that the taking over of child slaves by masters might have reduced slave natality in Fanisau, as in other slave systems.35 In general, slaves lost the command of their children’s labor to either external forces or to their masters. For example, children who wandered out of safe zones in the community were sometimes kidnapped. Often kidnappers sold their victims, and were not residents of Fanisau. Also, they rarely targeted adults.36 Although sources are silent on when slaves precisely lost command of their children’s labor to their masters, they indicate that even after learning how to farm, child slaves remained with their parents until they married and formed their own homes.37 It was partly through family activities, therefore, that slaves learned how things were done at Fanisau, and hence

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slave families played a role in perpetuating the social and economic structures of the settlement. In the slave households at Fanisau, women were generally treated as dependants or minors, in addition to being slaves. For instance, a female slave was entitled to only one husband at a time, and custom denied women the right to “inherit” dukiya (capital goods) such as gayauna, or compounds, except when widows acted as trustees for their sons. A male slave, by contrast, could have up to four wives, according to the Maliki law, but this only applied to trusted slaves involved in management at Fanisau royal estates.38 For instance, according to one source, one galadiman shamaki known as Zakari had more than one wife during the nineteenth century. Unfortunately, we do not know the precise number of wives he married.39 Sometimes marriages took place between baiwa (female slaves) and bawa (male slaves) owned by different masters. A male slave could save enough money in cowries to marry, and if a slave proved trustworthy, the master could procure a wife for him, either through purchase or through negotiations with another master who owned a female slave.40 As elsewhere in the Kano Emirate, the children born to the slave “wife” belonged to her master not to her “husband” or his master. Similarly, however, children born out of wedlock by a union of a male and a female slave in Fanisau belonged to the owner of the female slave: At that time if someone bought a female slave and another person bought a male slave, these two slaves may have sexual intercourse outside marriage, which could result in pregnancy. When this happened and the female slave delivered, the child belonged to the master of the female slave because the female slave in turn was his. Generally, slaves were likened to animals. For example, when a she-goat is impregnated by a he-goat belonging to a different owner and eventually has an off springs, that new born baby goat belongs to the owner of the she-goat not to that of the he-goat.41

Beyond tilting the ownership of her child in favor of her master, a slave “wife” was not regarded as the property of her slave “husband’s” master, nor could she be required to work for him because of her responsibilities to her actual master.42 On the other hand, if the male and female slaves had the same owner, the children were the owner’s slaves. The children from slave unions, known as cucanawa, “one born in slavery of slave parents,” were better treated by the slave owners than first-generation slaves.


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In theory they were not to be sold. But as a sign of their inferior status, the master’s freeborn children, regardless of their actual ages, always called cucanawa younger brother (kane) or younger sister (kanwa). Slave girls were never emancipated and continued to work in their owner’s field, even while living in their husband’s compounds. The husbands of such girls (even if freeborn) received only sexual rights to their wives when they paid the bride price for them. Indeed, even in marriage the slave girl’s economic service was still retained by her master.43 Although marriages between slaves were more common, slaves also married the freeborn at Fanisau. For instance, a male slave could marry a freeborn woman, although this was probably rare.44 Offspring of such union were ‘ya ‘ya (free) because their mothers were free, and they enjoyed several privileges compared to slaves children who had both parents as slaves. For instance, for those directly associated with the royal estates, they would not go to the gandu and work because their mothers were free-borns. Some slaves had some money of their own; that was why they were able to marry free-born women. Children of such marriage were cucanawa, but were technically not considered slaves of the emir. It is out of respect for royal power that such children sometimes helped their slave fathers in the gandu. Nevertheless, such slave children cannot be sold. Nor, should their daughters be made concubines by the emir.45

More often, free males were involved with female slaves at Fanisau. Indeed, some free males either married female slaves or took them as concubines simply to avoid customary obligations imposed by society and/or to boost their prestige. Available evidence suggests that the marriage of free males and female slaves was relatively rare, and that more often the relationship was one of concubinage.46 The sexual dimension of the subordination of slaves to their masters, as Cooper rightly suggests, was evident in all slave systems.47 In Fanisau, like in other Islamic areas of Africa but unlike in the slave systems of the western hemisphere, sexual union between masters and female slaves was fully accepted within the norms of upright conduct, and it was regulated by law. As a matter of fact, under the Maliki law that governed the administration of the settlement, a Muslim was prohibited from taking his own slave as a wife. In addition to this stipulation, the law allowed a free man to marry a maximum of four wives simultaneously; but a man also could

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posses as many concubines as his means allowed. Largely under the influence of this injunction, concubinage became the lot of a sizeable number of female slaves at Fanisau. As in other parts of the Sokoto Caliphate,48 masters sometimes got attracted to female slaves, mainly due to their beauty, and ultimately made them kwarkwarori (concubines).49 In every case, the female slaves had no say in whether or not they wanted to be concubines. The decision was solely that of the master, and he decided whether to keep the female slave as a concubine for himself or to assign her in the same position to a family member or other dependants or business associates. For instance, although concubines based in his palace at Kano City sometimes accompanied the emir of Kano to Fanisau, he still engaged some female slaves in the same capacity at the settlement.50 Beyond that, he allowed his sons, fiefholders, and rich immigrants to take concubines from his estates at Fanisau. With special regard to immigrants, gifts of concubines were frequently part of the incentives to entice them into settling at Fanisau and other regions of the Kano Emirate.51 It would appear that virtually all concubines at Fanisau played the same roles. First and foremost, they provided sexual pleasure to their masters. Slave owners slept regularly with their concubines, but this was often in the daytime.52 The allotment of these particular hours of the day to concubines was in accordance to Islamic law, which encouraged discrimination between free wives and concubines. Second, concubines were usually responsible for the daily chores at the master’s compound. In this regard, they ensured that the compound was clean by sweeping it regularly, washed dishes, tended the room of the master, fetched water, nurtured the children, and, as compared to the master’s wives, played the most difficult roles (especially grinding and pounding of foodstuff) in the preparation of meals.53 Third, concubines, as other women slaves in the Sokoto Caliphate, were involved in the carding of cotton and spinning of thread. It is not clear whether or not they played other roles outside the ones mentioned above at Fanisau, but we know that they normally did whatever their masters asked them to do. We also know that concubines were not engaged in agricultural production at the master’s estate nor were they engaged in specified economic activities, such as fetching wood from the bush.54 The non-involvement of concubines especially in agricultural production at the various estates in Fanisau is due to the practice of seclusion by the masters. Slave owners secluded concubines partly because they had the


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means to foster the practice. The question of paternity of offspring was also an important reason in the seclusion of concubines. As Lovejoy rightly notes, “[I]n the Sokoto Caliphate, sleeping with a slave girl was sufficient to establish paternity. As a consequence, men were careful to seclude their concubines, like their wives, and pregnant concubines usually acquired the full rights accorded under law.”55 On top of the paternity factor, however, the adoption of the concubine seclusion practice by various masters was ultimately based on its approval by Islamic law. No wonder, in accordance with the requirements of shari’a, especially purdah marriage, slave owners, by and large, provided the concubines with their requirements of food, clothing, shelter, money, and other goods. Concubinage was therefore common, accounting for more children in the society. Unlike in the western hemisphere, the children of such unions between masters and slaves were legally free, and normally did not inherit the status of their mothers. They had more opportunities than other children of slave descent, and were supposed to be treated as equals of the children of free women. In any event, the children of unions between masters and slaves could become successors to the offices of their fathers.56 A significant number of benefits accrued to the concubine as a result of childbirth. At Fanisau, any concubine who gave birth to either a female or male was said to have ta karya mari (broken the shackles), and by implication, this meant that she had “freed herself ” or assumed the status of a free woman. Hence, specifically in the event of a quarrel with her master, the concubine could leave her master’s compound. According to Rabi’u, once a concubine who had given birth left her master under such circumstances, no one had the right to return her to his household.57 Nevertheless, if the freed concubine in question met someone she decided to marry, she was expected to seek the approval of her master before proceeding to do so. In this connection, she was required to pass whatever money she received from her suitor to her master.58 Once a concubine gave birth she, as a rule, could no longer be sold, given away as a gift to dependants or other people, inherited, or otherwise disposed of. Needless to say, only concubines and other female slaves who had not given birth could be sold or offered as gifts. Even at the emir’s palace, a concubine who remains “without giving birth to a child was also shared along with other estates when her master died.”59 Beyond such

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instances or customarily, however, even if her master died, his heir could also not sell the concubine, especially one who had given birth. Although concubines normally assumed more rights at the master’s compound, their greatest challenge there might have been the wives of their owners. For example, for private estate owners like Madugu Kosai who usually had one of his free wives and one of his concubines based in his Fanisau residence at any given point in time,60 it is probable that, as elsewhere in the Sokoto Caliphate, the wives charmed and used other supernatural means to keep the concubines subdued or out of competition for the attention of the master of the household.61 In varying degrees, slaves in virtually all slave systems were economically self supporting: they often raised their own food on plots of land allotted to them and sometimes engaged in occupations other than farming.62 In the context of Fanisau, slave life was similarly not exclusively based on working in the gandu and the gayauna. Indeed, there were a few slaves who served outside the fields, and it is evident that the aristocrats and prominent individuals employed such slaves for domestic service in their homes. For instance, the emir and the district heads, hakimai, retained some slaves permanently at their dwellings at Fanisau and other places in order to secure the sites, and to provide other necessary services such as cleaning and cooking, especially when they were visiting.63 Of course, the emir’s residence retained a higher number of slaves including female slaves who were engaged in “washing of dishes, pounding of food items, grinding of corn and other grain crops, sweeping and many other domestic activities.”64 At this palace, there were slave officials beneath the galadiman shamaki who supervised specific categories of domestic slave activity. One of these officials was the sarkin gida whose role in the local palace of the emir was mentioned above.65 In addition to domestic service, whenever necessary, slaves at Fanisau, primarily drawn from royal estates, were engaged in wars against the enemies of the Kano Emirate.66 These engagements took between a day and several weeks to conclude. During such campaigns, the galadiman shamaki usually led troops made up of the able bodied male slaves who were permanently resident in Fanisau. Indeed, “it is compulsory for the galadiman shamaki to go to war with his men. In the war front, there was usually no room for hypocrisy (on the part of this slave official and his men) since the emir was also sometimes at the warfront.”67


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To support the Fanisau army, female slaves usually carried essentials such as food and mats to the war front where they also cooked the meals for the troops. By engaging in warfare, slaves from Fanisau generally helped to advance the cause of the Kano Emirate. For instance, they usually captured more slaves for use at their settlement and elsewhere. It must be emphasized, however, that slaves who formed part of the Fanisau troop did not own the prisoners they enslaved during the course of warfare. If a slave engaged in the gandun sarki caught ten slaves, for instance, all the newly captured slaves belonged to the emir. As a reward, the emir would sometimes merely commend his subject. Sometimes he would reward the brave slave with a horse68 or other luxuries or even make the slave one of his bodyguards, thereby relocating him to the Kano City palace under the supervision of the shamaki.69 In addition to warfare, slaves in Fanisau, as in other plantation centers in the Sokoto Caliphate and elsewhere, were involved in weaving.70 Both male and female slaves were involved in the weaving business, although the involvement of male slave warriors employed in the royal estates in this activity was very rare.71 However, a larger number of female slaves were specifically engaged in carding and spinning cotton into thread as opposed to actual weaving. Usually, female slaves carded and spun cotton into thread at home. Older female slaves often taught younger girls or their daughters how to card and spin also at home. Weaving skills were generally passed on from one slave generation to another probably because weaving was a major revenue producing activity. With respect to Fanisau, we know that slaves wove not only for themselves, but also for free persons/buyers, resident or nonresident in the settlement.72 Unfortunately, we do not know precisely how much income slaves earned from weaving. It is likely, however, that slaves involved in weaving were, as Collin Kriger in her study on textile production in the Sokoto Caliphate suggests, generally paid low prices for their products, and hence only earned high enough to offer work incentives.73 In general, slaves in Fanisau were involved in weaving and other activities such as mat making, firewood trade, and collecting grass and sticks for house repair mainly during the dry season. It was at such moments, for instance, that the sarkin gandu commonly sent individuals out to collect appropriate head-loads of roofing stick. These and other materials were normally used to repair the compound of the ubangiji (slave master) by a team of slaves led by the overseer. Slaves could

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also use some of the materials they collected to build or repair their own huts in their free time.74 Slaves involved in the dry season occupations mentioned above might have had the opportunity to do so due to the limited coercive power and the low potential surplus in the Fanisau slave system. However, such slaves also seem to have been those who entered into an economic contract known locally as murgu with their masters. Murgu is a Hausa term that has more than one meaning.75 In the present context, however, it refers to payment made by slaves to their masters for the right to work on their own account.76 The practice whereby some slaves were liberated from labor on the collective field, but still had obligations to their masters, was not unique to Fanisau. Outside the Sokoto Caliphate, it was evident even in the Old South where masters, unlike those in the study area, were afraid of what Cooper refers to as “the masterless slave.”77 A similar practice also existed in the Western Sudan, although it is not known there as murgu.78 Where such a practice existed, however, it demonstrates that movement to an autonomous status was normal in most slave systems, though, as Klein suggests, it usually took at least a generation.79 In the case of Fanisau, murgu payment was preceded by relevant negotiation and agreement between the two parties concerned. Slaves could initiate murgu negotiations. For instance, according to Rabi’u, a slave could start the discussion in question by informing his master, “I am not going to the farm, I can only work on my business and instead of working in the farm, I will pay a certain amount of money.”80 Masters, too, could initiate murgu negotiations, as the account of Imam Imoru suggests.81 In spite of the involvement of slaves in murgu negotiations, the slave owners often imposed the contract amount on the former. Indeed, it was the master who ultimately decided whether or not the murgu arrangement was approved. Although, the murgu amount reached as a result of discussions between masters and slaves may have been influenced by several factors, it is clear that the nature of the slaves’ occupation was an important consideration. Hence, “if the slave’s occupation brings him money, a high tax is imposed on him; if it doesn’t bring him much money, he does not pay much tax.”82 The murgu amount a slave paid was usually advanced to the master in installments. Depending on agreements, a slave could pay “daily, weekly, monthly or annually.”83 For instance, a master could tell his slave to pay him “seven hundred or eight hundred cowries every


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Friday. That is his murgu.”84 While murgu could be paid in cash, it could also be paid in kind. The latter form of payment usually took place when a slave involved in the murgu arrangement was primarily engaged in farming, and as a consequence logically advanced payments in kind to his master. The slave who entered into a murgu agreement with his master was obviously not put to work on the latter’s estate. Rather, as elsewhere in the Sokoto Caliphate, the type of work that slaves did under murgu included a wide range of tasks, some of which involved the payment of wages, but others were related to the sale of goods or services in order to earn money. In almost all cases, murgu brought slaves into the cash economy and made available a reservoir of skilled and unskilled labor for the non-agricultural economy. In order to obtain money needed for murgu, slaves engaged not only in the aforementioned occupations, but also in petty trading, craft production, fetching water, retailing processed foods, porterage, droving, prostitution, and indeed anything that was remunerative. Murgu, therefore, gave slaves a significant degree of autonomy that they must have valued. It also afforded them the opportunity to earn the amount of money they required to secure their freedom as well as to marry and maintain separate households. In spite of the advantages that slaves who entered into murgu arrangements might have availed, they paid their masters amounts that were very high, as the example of the weekly payment of seven hundred or eight hundred cowries stated by Rabi’u suggests. In view of this trend, slaves had to earn twice the cost of subsistence or more in order to maintain themselves at Fanisau and probably became freed or fully assimilated at the end of a lifetime, as Klein suggests. Added to this disadvantage, slaves faced the risk of losing all they had personally acquired and saved through the murgu arrangement with their masters. As property, slaves and their assets belonged to their masters at Fanisau. Therefore, the latter could at any time confiscate whatever he wanted, including murgu benefits, from the former. Murgu, therefore, offered advantages to the slave owners, too, and in comparative terms the masters benefited more than the slaves in every such arrangement. Under the murgu arrangement, masters were not responsible for providing the slaves with food, clothing, and lodging. Rather, it was the latter who used the amount that they earned to provide themselves with all of these basic necessities, and to pay the murgu sum that was due to the masters. The point here is that murgu helped the

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masters to reduce their financial commitments, and based on this advantage it was normal for the slave owners to especially enter this arrangement with slaves during the dry season when the latter’s labor became relatively less critical for estate agricultural activities. Another advantage of murgu to the masters is that it provided them with extra income that was not related to the yield of their estates. Since such extra income was not taxed, masters could eventually save more, and in turn, buy new slaves.85 Above all, murgu was simply a tool used for social control by the masters. Slaves valued the arrangement at Fanisau largely because it offered them greater freedom. But the independence of the slaves, in turn, diverted their attention from the estate owners. Ironically, however, many slaves were not eligible for the murgu contract. For instance, available evidence indicates that none of the fieldworkers at the emir’s estates were eligible to enter into this arrangement.86 Although murgu offered slaves greater freedom, their ultimate desire was to be completely freed. But obtaining freedom was feasible at Fanisau largely under other forms of master/slave arrangements, as this study will show. The possibility of emancipation at Fanisau did not only derive from concubinage. To be sure, slaves could secure their freedom through another means known as fansar kai. Put simply, it refers to self-purchase. Not all slaves were eligible for freedom through fansar kai at Fanisau, however,87 and those who wanted to buy their freedom through this arrangement usually appreciated the risk involved in displaying their possessions before cementing necessary agreements with their masters. Indeed, before reaching fansar kai agreements, masters often assembled people, including the slave seeking to redeem himself, and seized everything that the slave had with him.88 Over time, slaves became increasingly aware of this deception; hence when they wanted to enter into fansar kai agreements with their masters, they normally hid their possessions (no matter how meager) somewhere.89 The master and the group of people he assembled usually assessed the value of a slave who wanted to redeem himself. In arriving at the slave’s value, the assessors considered several factors including kindness, obedience, wealth, attitude to work, and other personal qualities of the slave in question. Thereafter, the assessors announced the amount of ransom the slave was expected to pay for his freedom. At the end of the nineteenth century, a slave might have been asked to pay two hundred thousand cowries or even more.90 Once the ransom amount had been set, the slave could pay the amount at once, if he could afford the sum. But this


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was rarely the case. Under the best agreement reached, it still took a slave a very long time to earn enough money to redeem himself. Hence a slave usually paid “bit by bit until he had paid the full amount and then a receipt is issued for his freedom.”91 Whenever a slave finished paying the ransom amount, he would have his head shaved by a Muslim cleric, give out alms, and buy a ram to make sacrifice in celebration of his freedom and the new Muslim name he was going to take. In addition to a slave buying his or her freedom, slaves who were newly acquired through warfare could also secure their freedom through ransoming under another arrangement known locally as fansa. However, in this case, ransom was usually paid by third parties especially the parent(s) or relative(s) of the newly enslaved. As mentioned, Fanisau was a significant military base in the Kano Emirate, hence it was involved in the major engagements against the enemies of the state throughout the nineteenth century. It has also been noted that the major wars directly involving Fanisau included those against other Muslim forces such as the armies of Dan Tunku and Damagaram. Thus, a considerable number of Muslims, of both sexes and of different ages, were enslaved by the Kano troops based at Fanisau.92 According to Islamic law, this was illegal, and the Kano war captains knew it.93 To correct this abuse, therefore, the war captains at Fanisau allowed the identified Muslim slaves to be kept for a brief period in the anticipation that their parents and relatives would show up to redeem them. Parents or relatives sometimes ventured into Fanisau in order to trace, and possibly redeem, their newly enslaved relatives. Consequently, it was common that ransom agreements were reached while payments (mainly in installments) by the third parties, were also made, before the newly enslaved was granted his or her freedom.94 Without doubt, it was largely through fansa that people who were enslaved in Fanisau returned to the place of their capture. Except for these redeemed individuals, slaves who were emancipated, usually did not leave Fanisau. Other avenues to emancipation at Fanisau were not in any way associated with the payment of ransom. Rather, in these instances it was the masters who voluntarily freed their slaves, usually without receiving any fee in return, at least at the point of emancipation. Voluntary manumission by masters was partly associated with public image, quest for piety, or a vision of humanitarianism. After all, the Islamic religion encourages such acts even though it does not make them mandatory.95 Masters were convinced that God would reward them when they freed any of their

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slaves.96 Ironically, however, masters were very selective about whom they freed at Fanisau. They often had preference for freeing slaves they considered to have “good behaviour.” Or those they characterized as “honest,” “hardworking,” “too sick,” and “too old” (to engage in rigorous plantation activities).97 The careful selection of slaves voluntarily freed by masters not only perpetuated the social order but also reduced the master’s expenditure. For instance, the slave owner did not have to concern himself with handing out money for the welfare of the aged, and normally sick, freed slave. Voluntary manumission was effected occasionally. Masters sometimes freed slaves during religious festivals including the two Eids as an act of piety. Sometimes, a master who had broken an oath, committed homicide unintentionally, or committed such other wrong acts could free one or more slaves under an arrangement known as kaffara (legal expiation) in Muslim law. A master could set a slave free on his deathbed. The attraction of paradise was certainly related to this, and in some cases slave owners did not wait for the last moments of their lives to free slaves or make other related arrangements in order to enhance their chances of experiencing heavenly bliss. In this instance, masters could, for instance, at any point, give their slaves assurance that when they died the latter automatically would become free. Such assurance was usually written on a sheet of paper and is known as mudabbar. Once a mudabbar arrangement had been effected, the master was customarily not expected to sell the slave. The latter was also expected to continue performing the roles of a slave, and if a master found his or her performance unsatisfactory or simply if the slave owner wished, the mudabbar could be annulled.98 Although the occasion when slaves were voluntarily freed varied, the procedure involved in this type of emancipation at Fanisau was the same with what obtained in other parts of the Sokoto Caliphate, as described by Imoru and other writers.99 In spite of achieving freedom through the proper channels identified above, ex-slaves continued to depend on their former masters for access to land.100 Consequently, they were expected to provide labor for their former masters even though the obligation was mainly undertaken to symbolize dependence or though it was related to reciprocal exchange rather than force.101 But, as elsewhere in the Sokoto Caliphate,102 even these exchanges were necessarily unequal; ex-slaves gave portions of their crops as rent on the land, in addition to their labor. On occasions such as marriages and naming ceremonies, the ex-master gave


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gifts, as did the ex-slave in turn. However, the ex-master unquestionably remained the guardian of the ex-slave and his children as he (the ex-master) was supposed to assist the latter whenever they were in any form of serious difficulties such as sickness or extreme poverty. Indeed, “the slave who has been given his freedom still has his ex-owner as his wakili (representative) and the children of the ex-owner as the ‘representatives’ of his children as long as they stay in the same place together.”103 Although relatively few slaves secured their freedom or attained high offices through the avenues of mobility primarily offered by Islam, the practice of manumission, as concubinage and other avenues of social mobility discussed above, retarded the development of the slave class at Fanisau, as they did in other Muslim slave societies.104 Nevertheless, the sight of the few freed slaves, and those that experienced improvement in their status, provided even the lowliest slave in the settlement with hope that his own fortunes might, one day, turn in his favor and allow him to acquire higher status upon conversion to Islam. Such visions must have contributed to the accommodating attitude of most slaves toward Islam, and by extension contributed to undermining the spirit of resistance among slaves.105 Ironically, however, even a slave who had attained the position of gandu or galadiman shamaki or acquired relatively better socioeconomic advantages through murgu and other related arrangements continued to experience the stigma of slavery. In most cases they could not speak Hausa fluently, at least in the perception of the freeborn. Also, their facial marks and humble clothes, among other related features, usually identified them. On top of these, part of a proverb that was current at Fanisau and other parts of the Sokoto Caliphate during the nineteenth century states that “[a] slave is a slave for all that he is rich.” There were other songs, poems, and other cultural practices that continuously dishonored the slaves. In addition to social stigma, slaves at Fanisau experienced various forms of harsh treatment already identified in several parts of this study. Under such circumstances, it is not surprising that slaves did not passively accept their condition in the course of the nineteenth century. To save themselves the intolerable experiences, slaves resorted to protest and several methods of resistance.106 Conclusion From the preceding narrative, it is evident that the Fanisau system was characterized by “flow-through.” Masters recognized the accomplishments of some slaves and set them free, while other slaves obtained their freedom

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through self-purchase and several other means. However, masters also instituted some contradictory measures that mitigated the development of a slave class and made the transition from slavery to serfdom very difficult for most slaves. In this regard, they, for instance, visibly ignored some traditions and laws that encouraged equality or rather the incorporation of slaves as serfs. Thus, they freed only a handful of slaves. Masters, it is argued, were successful in freeing only relatively few slaves partly by selective practices and partly by ensuring that most slaves did not earn enough to secure their freedom. The preceding narrative also demonstrates that outside working at the gandu, slaves in Fanisau also engaged in other occupations. Relatively few were used for domestic tasks, but slaves took to weaving, mat making, and other occupations, particularly during the dry season. To engage in such activities at any time, however, the slaves (with the exception of those in the gandun sarki) often entered into the murgu arrangement with their masters. This arrangement provided slaves with several benefits including a high degree of independence. From the master’s point of view, murgu was a blessing, too. For instance, it was one of the noncoercive policies that facilitated the smooth running of the society. Other subtle policies masters used to reduce the probability of overt opposition included providing slaves some basic necessities such as food, clothes, and wives; indoctrinating and acculturating the slaves through the use of religion and local customs; as well as advancing their social mobility and even their emancipation. This chapter argues that in spite of such noncoercive policies, the social status and standard of living of most slaves remained very low, while they also continuously suffered abuse. As a result of their generally deplorable situation, slaves in Fanisau, therefore, tried to manipulate religion and local custom to their advantage, and sometimes they resisted through overt and covert means in order to either renegotiate the conditions of their servitude or to attain complete freedom.

5

Slave Resistance, Control of Slave Labor, and Groundnut Production

F

anisau and several other Kano Emirate societies produced mainly grain crops during the nineteenth century in part for consumption within Kano and in part for regional distribution either across the Sahara or southward toward the forest region of West Africa. By the turn of the twentieth century, however, Britain annexed Northern Nigeria and increasingly encouraged the broad region, including the Kano Emirate, to produce cotton and groundnuts for the European market.1 Under this new context, groundnuts became the single most important crop produced in Northern Nigeria. With specific reference to Fanisau, the 1913–14 growing season marked a period of great transition to groundnut production mainly because it was the season that the emir took his first specific action(s) to encourage the cultivation of the crop in the settlement. This chapter is not intended to provide a comprehensive treatment of the development of groundnut production in Fanisau. Instead, it will first, after examining the issue of slave resistance in Fanisau, explore slave labor control strategies employed in the settlement. In this regard, the chapter will focus largely on the colonial era in part because previous chapters have already noted slave labor control strategies employed by slave owners during the precolonial period2 and in part because slave labor figured in the leading position during the period of the changeover to groundnut production in Fanisau mainly as a result of specific slave-control strategies used during the colonial era. After addressing the question of control of slave labor, this chapter will highlight the 1913 strategies the emir of Kano employed to promote

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groundnut production in Fanisau and other regions under his jurisdiction before finally underlining the role of merchants in the expansion of production. With particular reference to the strategies employed by the emir, I will mainly attempt to highlight and more carefully analyze a colonial document: a 1913 Annual Report on Kano that Hogendorn and Lovejoy also used in preparing their various related works on Northern Nigeria.3 I will also draw attention to a few details from this specific document that Hogendorn missed or omitted in his work on the transition to groundnut production in Northern Nigeria. By so doing, I hope to offer proof that slaves and plantations played major roles in groundnut production, at least in the context of Fanisau, during the colonial era. Slave Resistance It has been widely noted that rebellion was one of the methods used by slaves in various parts of the world to resist their oppressors, including in parts of the Old South, the West Indies, and South America.4 However, whereas slave uprisings of varying scale were experienced in identifiable parts of the western hemisphere and elsewhere, there was no general slave uprising experienced in the Sokoto Caliphate / Northern Nigeria, including in Fanisau, throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As in other Islamic areas of Africa, various factors including frequent slave flight and the slaves need for incorporation into a collectivity as well as the strategies used by masters to ensure that slaves had a vital stake in society, while they did not develop class consciousness, were responsible for the absence of slave rebellions in Fanisau, and in the Sokoto Caliphate in general.5 In addition to the absence of slave rebellion in Fanisau, there is also no acknowledged case where slaves attacked or killed slave owners in protest in the settlement. The absence of such forms of slave protest, as Eugene Genovese and other scholars in their analysis on the Old South rightly suggest, does not indicate that slaves were docile.6 Indeed, at Fanisau, slaves used other methods to resist enslavement, and as elsewhere, their protest and resistance was either aimed at complete freedom or at relieving the suffering associated with slavery. Slave protest in Fanisau could be violent even though it never involved organized uprising or the murder of slave masters. For instance, we know that slaves engaged in private estates did attack the gandu and other slaves

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who inflicted punishments such as severe flogging on them. It was partly to check this sort of occurrence that masters or their freeborn relatives meted out punishment on their fieldworkers themselves, rather than letting their slave overseers do the job.7 Although slave protest and resistance were sometimes violent, they were generally subtle in character at Fanisau. Among the most common forms of protest was the refusal to work as expected by the masters and overseers. In some instances, even the gandu participated in, or facilitated, such rebellious acts in the fields. At the gandun sarki, for instance, the gandu sometimes, to the chagrin of the galadiman shamaki, reported late to the estate under his jurisdiction, thereby undermining the daily activities.8 Another form of resistance was to “steal” agricultural produce from the master’s storage. At times, even top slave officials were involved. As mentioned, slaves at the gandun sarki connived with the sarkin gida to “steal” from the emir’s reserve. The fact that slaves sometimes “stole” from this royal storage not for the purpose of feeding themselves, but for disposal, testifies to the intense level of sabotage and by implication resistance that was possible among the slaves.9 To prevent these thefts, the galadiman shamaki either inflicted severe punishment on any slave caught or reported the thief to higher authorities for necessary action. To the extent that it was possible, slaves in the Old South, on the East African coast, and elsewhere have been reported to have maintained their own culture and community that, in addition to providing them with alternative cultural values and forms of association, helped them to resist the oppression of the slaveholders.10 At Fanisau, slaves also maintained a subculture and employed it as another form of subtle resistance in the settlement. In particular, a considerable number of them practiced bori, as did other residents of smaller towns and villages in the Sokoto Caliphate.11 Bori is a spirit possession cult that was open to both male and female slaves even though it was more popular among the latter.12 The spirits involved in this cult were held to be infinite in number, though some of them were known by name, and had definite personalities and powers ascribed to them. Oral data indicate the presence of several bori spirits at Fanisau, the most revered ones residing on the most prominent hill of the settlement.13 The most important spirits included Malam Alhaji, Dan Galadima, and Inna. The residence of the bori spirits varied; some resided in trees and rivers. Beside this, it was generally known that spirits could reside in the sky, forest, and hills. The attachment of the most revered spirits at Fanisau

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to the aforementioned hill is, therefore, not out of place, and the location was probably the venue where slaves performed the most important rites for their community as a whole. Although anyone could approach the spirits, priests who were considered the most skilled at the relevant religious rite handled the important rituals. Bori rituals often involved offering sacrifice to the spirits. Except on a few occasions, such as before the first rain and at harvest time, sacrifices did not occur at any fixed time, but whenever it was deemed necessary. Sacrifices were usually made to solve some unexpected problems or resolve difficult issues, as for instance, to treat any serious sickness or for marriage ceremonies. Generally, a man who practices bori is called dan bori (bori’s son) while the woman is called yar bori (bori’s daughter). A slave could have been a bori cult member even before his or her enslavement at Fanisau or could become a member at the settlement through initiation. Once initiated, slaves used the bori cult to resist assimilation into the master’s culture. Such defiance was not limited to Fanisau but applied in other parts of the Sokoto Caliphate as well. Among the more extreme forms of protest or resistance practiced at Fanisau was to change, or at least attempt to change, masters so as to renegotiate conditions of servitude. A slave who was fed up with the intolerable conditions at his masters holding could, on his own, proceed to the slave-dealing section, known as “yan bayi,” of the famous Kano city market, Kasuwar Kurmi, and offer himself to any other prospective master who could treat him better. According to Rabi’u, If a slave has any misunderstanding with his master he will then rub his body with ashes and tell his master to go to the market and get back his money. He says: “you people, tell my master to go to the market and get back his money as I am tired of serving him; I am through with his services. Let him go and get back his money. He does not want his master. The slave will be the one to say that he does not want his master. The master will say that he does not agree with the slave’s stance and that he will not sell him, to pacify him. But the slave will say no, I am not staying, go and get back your money. The slave will say that he is not running away but he is tired of serving his master since things have been made too difficult for him. As such, he should be sold out. The slave would say I have gone back to my mother’s house in the market, since that was where you bought me.14

The form of slave protest described above was locally known as mike kafa. Apparently, it enabled third parties to intervene in the negotiations between masters and slaves. More importantly, the public usually became


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aware of such disputes and attempts at renegotiation. As at Dorayi, the slave master “faced public ridicule and hence this was considered an act of intimidation, in which the usual power relationship was reversed.”15 Ultimately, negotiations between the master and the slave at the yan bayi market determined whether or not the latter went back to the estate he had left. However, the return of a slave to his master’s holding did not guarantee that resistance in the form of mike kafa by the same subject would not take place in future. At yan bayi, the prospective buyer of a slave offering himself for sale could be a male or a female and could buy the slave to use in whatever activity he or she desired. Sometimes, the prospective buyer wanted a slave with specific skills, and would only purchase someone on sale who possessed them. In any case, before a slave who wanted to change his master was sold, he usually entered into personal discussions and agreements with the buyer, which in effect amounted to murgu arrangements, so that the new owner could expect a return on his risky investment. As part of the discussions, it was common for slaves to disclose the motive that influenced their decision to engage in mike kafa. Slaves knew that they had to advance convincing reasons for taking this action, and they also knew that most prospective buyers at yan bayi had deep sympathy for devout Muslims who were slaves. Consequently, many of them declared that they engaged in mike kafa because their masters “did not allow them to pray in time.”16 They also negotiated for better treatment from the prospective buyer by subtly demanding that “they should be allowed to pray whenever it was time to do so.”17 In some acknowledged cases, “such slaves normally attracted the sympathy of their new buyers or owners and hence given less work. And may be set free eventually.”18 Whatever happened to a slave after he changed his master, the fact that many of them claimed to leave their previous owners on similar religious grounds further indicates that slaves, at Fanisau or associated with the settlement as those elsewhere, could exploit religion to their advantage, especially to legitimize their acts of resistance.19 At Fanisau, most slaves who engaged in mike kafa did not work at the gandun sarki. Indeed, we have no acknowledged cases of this act among the emir’s slaves, whether as a result of maltreatment or other complaints against overseers/authorities. Probably, as at Dorayi, this was due to the fact that royal slaves were not normally bought or sold.20 As at Dorayi and other parts of the Kano Emirate, a slave at Fanisau could also protest

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by instituting a legal case before the emir. Usually such legal action, mainly instituted by slaves who were not owned by the emir, was taken if a master broke the hand of his slave, or gauged out his eye, or shaved the head of a female slave.21 The emir would carefully look into the case and eventually set the slave free if he was satisfied that the allegations were genuine.22 Another common form of resistance at Fanisau was to escape from the slave master. This was a recurrent phenomenon involving many individuals. Escape was, however, sometimes not undertaken to end enslavement. For instance, slaves who were engaged in productive activities at private estates were, as mentioned, the most humiliated and wretched, hence they often went to extremes to escape the miserable working conditions at the private gandanye. In fact, an increasing number of these slaves fled from their masters to the gandun sarki, where, in the slaves’ point of view, conditions were more favorable.23 By escaping from the private estates to the gandun sarki, slaves undoubtedly undermined the economic strength of the relevant masters while at the same time enhancing the wealth and influence of the emirs of Kano. At the gandun sarki, slaves who escaped from private estates were always accommodated without any effort to consult the masters. It was the responsibility of the private estate owners to track down their missing slaves, and normally, they got to know that their missing subjects were at the gandun sarki. In spite of this, private holders could not recover their slaves from the royal estates.24 It was locally known that slaves who escaped from private estates to the gandun sarki were “just like money which was sent to the treasury, no one could go and demand to have it for his own use.”25 Partly in view of this perception, private holders often made no attempt to recover their slaves, and another reason that prevented private holders from demanding their slaves from the emir was their fear of losing his protection, or fear of his power in general. On top of these reasons, slave officials often frustrated the private holders’ attempt to recover their slaves from the gandun sarki.26 Close physical proximity to the emir, both in public and private, gave royal slaves the opportunity to offer advice at times no others could, to gather personal and household secrets, and to prevent others from gaining access to their patron.27 Therefore, private holders who attempted to have audience with the emir for the purpose of reclaiming their runaway slaves from his estates were commonly not allowed to see the emir to table their complaints. The emir’s bodyguards


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and his slaves would bar them from the palace by asking them, “Did the emir steal your slaves?”28 The action of slave officials ultimately guaranteed that the runaway slave was granted permanent resident status at the gandun sarki. However, this action was also aimed at ameliorating the conditions of slavery for individuals, and was not targeted at completely eradicating the institution nor at achieving freedom. In addition to the recurrent escapes of slaves from private estates to the gandun sarki, there were instances of flight to locations outside Fanisau. Masters generally viewed flight, especially to regions outside the settlement, very seriously and took several measures, discussed later in this chapter, to prevent it from happening. However, the strategies adopted by the various slave owners could not effectively stop slave flight to regions outside Fanisau. Indeed, it is clear that many slaves successfully escaped from the settlement during the nineteenth century, and especially at the time of the imposition of colonial rule.29 Although, the extent of flight by slaves as well as the age and gender characteristics of those slaves who escaped within the period of study is impossible to determine, available evidence suggests that slave flight did not reach the point of threatening the existence of plantations in the settlement. It seems that the desertion of slaves from Fanisau intensified after the late 1840s. What influenced this trend was the rebellion against the Kano Emirate directed from the Ningi region.30 To better appreciate how and why the rebellion influenced slave flight from Fanisau and the Kano Emirate in general, it is necessary to briefly explain the nature of the insurgency itself. In 1847 the Kano Emirate experienced its first major drought since the jihad, and this subsequently led to a sharp increase in taxation. Beyond this, the drought had a serious impact on the use of labor especially slave labor, and ultimately affected the nature of slave treatment in the emirate. In these circumstances, a group of Hausa malams initiated a rebellion against the state.31 These malams, led by Malam Hamza, emigrated to a settlement in Ningi where non-Muslims lived in northwestern Bauchi. From that base, they carried out attacks against the Kano Emirate. Available evidence indicates that Malam Hamza and other leaders of the rebellion that began in the late 1840s were Muslim scholars of high repute who had significant magical powers.32 They also based their resistance and criticism of the Kano Emirate leadership on Islamic doctrines, which forbade enslavement of Muslims or forbade the treatment of conquered Muslims as pagans liable to jizya (forced labor), arbitrary justice,

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and similar abuses.33 The resistance was also millennial in character. In this regard, it was based on the belief that the second coming of Isa (Jesus), in order to reform the world, was at hand. No wonder Hamza and his successors were known as the Isawa (followers of Isa).34 Although the Isawa movement was not aimed at ending slavery in the Kano Emirate, it often conferred freedom to slaves as soon as they confessed to adhering to Islam. Thus, the ideology of the movement, coupled with the political situation it partly fostered, appealed to many slaves in the region. Consequently, while some slaves sided with the Kano Emirate leadership (and thus embraced the idea that the Isawa were not a legitimate group), an increasing number of them, including slaves at Fanisau, also deserted their masters and joined Hamza’s movement as it developed.35 Although the example of slave flight from Fanisau during Hamza’s revolt alone confirms Lovejoy’s idea that slave flight in the Sokoto Caliphate was sometimes encouraged by political turmoil,36 it is important to stress that more slaves fled from the settlement during other periods of political crisis. For instance, more slave resistance/slave flight was experienced in the Minjibir region of Kano in the 1890s, especially during the Kano civil war or Basasa campaigns of 1893–94. As mentioned, Fanisau was situated next to Minjibir while estate holders in the settlement consisted of kola traders who were more inconvenienced during the Basasa. Therefore, some slaves might have taken advantage of the Basasa and escaped from the settlement.37 Beyond that, however, further relatively pronounced flight of slaves from the settlement were known to have occurred during the process of the British conquest of the Kano Emirate. In the emirate, the British occupation disrupted the political balance, thereby intensifying insecurity among the slaves and other members of the local population. This unstable condition was led to another period of intensified slave flight. Many escaped from Fanisau. However, the slave escape experienced was not only related to this insecurity. It was also closely associated with the abolitionist ideology propagated by the Europeans.38 Not only did slaves realize that the British were not committed to enslaving or re-enslaving individuals, they were also informed that there was no more slavery. “Let everybody go where he wanted to go, we have captured this town, no more slavery. And anybody who remains in slavery, he should blame himself. He also works for nothing.”39 According to Rabi’u, this announcement was made after the British conquest of Kano in 1903, and as a result of it, slaves immediately started


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deserting Fanisau. For instance, once slaves at the gandun sarki learned that “there is no more slavery and royal labor, bautar sarki,”40 some of the then newly acquired slaves in that estate fled. According to oral sources, most of the slaves who fled Fanisau during the period of the British conquest went back to their original homes.41 Colonial records also testify to this fact. For instance, it indicates that many “Kano people” moved to the Ningi and Katagum regions following colonial conquest.42 It would therefore seem that slaves who escaped from Fanisau reestablished ethnic ties, which may have helped prevent a slave revolt in the Sokoto Caliphate from taking place. Although an increasing number of slaves obtained their freedom because of the proclamations issued by the British, the slave population of Fanisau had not declined sharply, at least by 1914. This was partly due to the fact that many slaves chose to remain in bondage for several reasons. For instance, many slaves remained in bondage because of the fear of losing a patron or defender, because they could not remember their home town, because they had deeply accepted the religious pronouncement against flight, and because of the fear of capture or re-enslavement on the roads after escape.43 Similarly, many slaves decided to remain at the emir’s holding or in some cases fled from private estates to the royal estates because of the “prestige” of being a royal slave. In addition, for many royal slaves, taking their master to the court to request for freedom must also have been a relatively risky venture in view of the former’s standing in the evolving colonial order. Many royal slaves, therefore, did not request their freedom from the emir in court probably in order to avoid a worse experience. Control of Slave Labor Before detailing the slave-control strategies employed by the colonial regime and slave owners to promote groundnut production in Fanisau and elsewhere in Northern Nigeria, it is permissible to stress here that several scholars who study African societies outside the Sokoto Caliphate have, in their various interpretations, highlighted the role of slave labor in groundnut production during the “cash crop revolution” in West Africa during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Bernard Moitt, in a journal article, discusses the crucial role played by slave labor in the expansion of groundnut production in Senegal, particularly in the period between 1850 and 1905. According to him, although Senegal did not

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experience any radical technological changes following increasing demand for its groundnuts by European industries (which needed more fats and oils for their operations) after the 1840s, it relied heavily on the extension of its transportation network and on the use of slave labor to expand production for export. Moitt explains that Senegal acquired slaves mainly from the French Sudan (or what is now known as Mali), and by the first years of the twentieth century, slave labor was extensively used in the major production centers of Kajoor and Bawol partly because the French had serious reservations about dismantling slavery. Although slave labor was central to expansion in groundnut production up to 1905, in the period after this date this was not the case as members of the Murid Islamic brotherhood and navetanes (migrant workers)44 became primarily responsible for further expansion in production. Moitt claims that the decline in the importance of slave labor in production after 1905 was especially tied to the 1905 law passed by French colonial administrators, which outlawed the alienation of a person’s labor. In his opinion, this specific law encouraged slaves to either leave their households or to work out new relations of production.45 In Slavery and Colonial Rule in French West Africa, Klein affirms Moitt’s ideas that slavery and slave trading persisted in Senegal up to 1905 and that slaves produced a considerable amount of groundnuts for export largely because of the predominance of the slave population in the Wolof regions. In addition to confirming these ideas, he demonstrates that slave labor was used extensively for groundnut production in both Gambia and Guinea. Although groundnut production started in Gambia in the 1830s, Klein’s analysis indicates that slave labor only became crucial in production after the Soninke-Marabout wars, which began in the 1860s. It also suggests, among other things, that slave labor was important past the 1880s in the Gambia.46 Detailed analyses by James F. Searing who studied Wolof and Kajoor contradicts the claims of Moitt and Klein that slave labor was central to production in these regions up to 1905. In this regard, his analysis questioned Klein’s upward revision of the 1903–5 census figures on slavery for the Wolof districts, and argues that although slave labor was central to groundnut production before the twentieth century (specifically from the 1860s to 1882 in Kajoor), the chaos of conflict and war experienced around 1883 to 1895, rather than the 1905 colonial anti-slavery policy, encouraged flight by disaffected slaves as well as negotiated settlements.


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Thus, in Searing’s opinion, by 1903 slave labor was no longer crucial in groundnut production.47 While Searing questions both conclusions that slave labor was significant in production after 1883 and that the 1905 colonial anti-slavery policy was responsible for slave flight, Kenneth Swindell and Alieu Jeng, in a relatively recent study on groundnuts in the Gambia, demonstrate that colonial policy introduced in 1894 was what led to the decline in the importance of slave labor in groundnut production there.48 According to them, in the nineteenth century groundnut production relied on a diverse labor force, but from about 1857 the Soninke-Marabout wars fostered slave trading and the extensive use of slaves in production. Thus, by the 1890s slaves, in their own words, “outnumbered freemen by two to one” in the North Bank, which was the major center of groundnut cultivation in the Gambia.49 As mentioned, however, for Swindell and Jeng the decline in slavery and the use of slaves only occurred after the 1894 slave trade abolition ordinance. They suggest that, following the introduction of this ordinance, slave flight and emancipation increased while the general erosion of slavery encouraged rapid and more efficient forms of labor as well as increasing use of migrant labor.50 The case of Fanisau, therefore, not only reinforces the interpretation of Hogendorn and Lovejoy, but also the interpretations of several other scholars who have highlighted the role of slave labor in groundnut production during the “cash crop revolution” in West Africa during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the context of Fanisau, slave-control strategies employed by the colonial regime and slave owners, as hinted, helped to maintain a high pool of slave labor for production during the turn of the twentieth century. Although many slaves elected to remain with their masters, some of the slave-control strategies employed by slave masters in the settlement were aimed at checking slave flight. Evidently, masters generally viewed flight, especially to regions outside the settlement, very seriously and took several measures right from the precolonial era to prevent it from happening. In fact, the slave-control measures adopted by masters during the colonial era were largely similar to those they used during the precolonial era. Thus, among other slave-control strategies already mentioned in previous chapters, they made an example of any slave caught while attempting to escape. Specifically, masters sometimes tied such slaves and beat them severely. Sometimes, slaves were sold after they had been recaptured.

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It was also common to charm them in order to prevent them from escaping.51 The efficacy of such charms is debatable; but Rabi’u suggests that masters gave slaves “charms in their food, [and] if the slaves ate, they could not see their way whenever they tried to escape; they would become blind.”52 The use of charms to check escape was widely associated with the attempts of private slave owners to prevent slaves from absconding. Indeed, the emir is not acknowledged to have used this tool to check slave flight from his estates. What distinguished the slave-control strategies that masters adopted during the precolonial era from those they used during the colonial periods, however, was the blatant disregard for state laws by both the emir and private estate owners in the latter period. For instance, in spite of the colonial policy that required masters to grant freedom to slaves based on self-purchase, the emir of Kano, according to oral sources, never released any slave on this consideration.53 While many slaves decided to remain in Fanisau based on the measures put in place by their masters or on their own consideration of certain factors, other colonial policies forced many others to continue to embrace bondage in the settlement. On why anti-slave flight policies were introduced by colonial administrators, we know that increasing slave flight from Fanisau and elsewhere gave these officials great concerns about social stability. They, therefore, decided to make desertion very difficult by promulgating a colonial vagrancy law and by encouraging the emir and his subordinates to not grant land to runaway slaves. To make the attainment of freedom difficult for slaves in Fanisau and in Kano in general, the British took other measures, including refusing to establish a Freed Slaves Home in the region.54 As a result of the ambivalent actions of the colonial administrators and other related factors, therefore, the slave population of Fanisau did not decline sharply as a result of the relatively intense slave flight experienced during the early colonial era and/or as a result of colonial laws that favored self-redemption. Indeed, slavery was still a functioning institution in Fanisau between 1913 and 1914, and plantations remained an important part of this institution. Under the context of the demographic characteristics of Fanisau in which slaves constituted a majority of the population and most of them were plantation laborers, emir Abbas had no other option but to rely mainly on slave labor to encourage groundnut production when he visited the settlement in 1913.


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Groundnut Production in Fanisau: The Emir’s Initiatives The emir of Kano, Abbas, took major actions to encourage groundnut production in July 1913. The reasons for his actions may be complex, but according to a colonial record, early in that month a rumor circulated that a special tax was to be levied on groundnuts, and further, that “if the supply (of groundnut) increased, the price would fall heavily.”55 Partly based on this rumor, the colonial record further reports, many farmers started to uproot their young groundnut plants. Downplaying the emir’s initiatives, Hogendorn suggests that words on this development reached a colonial administrator, J. Withers Gill, who in turn instructed the emir to help stop the rumor from causing further harm. He further refers in passing to the two specific actions taken by the emir.56 According to the same colonial record mentioned above, however, at least one of the two specific actions taken by the emir was based on his own initiative. It is this established initiative of the emir that provides us part of the evidence of the use of Fanisau-based slaves and plantations in the expansion of groundnut production. It is therefore that particular aspect of his action that will form part of our analysis in what follows. But first, a comment on what I term his less relevant action is in order. Upon hearing about the rumor resulting in the uprooting of young groundnut plants, one of the strategies the emir used to encourage production was counter-propaganda. Colonial record simply states that he “instructed all headmen to proclaim the falsity of the rumour.”57 Such instruction would have been given to the galadiman shamaki or other relevant state officials at Fanisau. Although the manner in which these messages were delivered to the headmen or communal leaders was not indicated, we know that the emir usually sent his officials on such errands. Such officials, at least during the early colonial period up to 1914, usually toured either on foot or on horseback informing village heads and others of the emir’s message.58 Such officials usually included slaves.59 It would, therefore, seem that slaves were also used in disseminating messages that fostered expansion in groundnut production in Fanisau and elsewhere in Kano. Apart from using propaganda to revive groundnut production, however, the emir, according to a colonial record “on his own initiative went out to Fanisau where he is not in the habit of planting groundnuts and held a large ‘gayya’ for the sole purpose of planting groundnuts.”60 The

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colonial record is certainly right that groundnut was never grown on the emir’s plantations during the nineteenth century. Rather, as this book demonstrates above, grain crops were mainly produced at the royal estates during this precolonial period. The colonial record, however, did not define the word gayya and this may relate to the fact that the use of slave labor on plantations contradicts the British anti-slavery ideology. Although the colonial record is silent on the meaning of gayya, Hogendorn61 and others, state that the term refers to collective farm-work.62 While this definition is correct, we also know that gayya or collective farm-work was common and at times compulsory in the past.63 Therefore, gayya was often meant to include slaves. Historically, it is difficult to establish the first moment when gayya was employed in production in Fanisau. However, as has been noted in Chapter 4, by the nineteenth century the practice was common and slave labor, which was often used alongside a portion of the free population in the settlement, was dominant in such collective farm-work.64 Available evidence suggests that the tradition of having slaves as the dominant population in collective farm-work was passed on to the early twentieth century or at least to the period between 1913 and 1914, when the emir took specific actions to promote groundnut production in his royal estates and elsewhere, mainly because Fanisau was still largely populated by slaves.65 Ultimately, therefore, freed slaves and free people were less represented in the 1913 exercise, and even then not all the freed slaves and free people in the settlement could have been involved as Rabi’u’s testimony cited above suggests. The emir’s intent seems to be to encourage, through direct order in his Fanisau holdings and through propaganda, production of groundnuts in his estates and in private holdings elsewhere in Kano. In the gayya he held in Fanisau, therefore, the involvement of relatively few freed slaves and free people from both within and outside the settlement would have served this purpose. While the emir most likely used relatively few freed slaves and free people, available sources suggest that the gayya held on the royal estate in Fanisau after British conquest was not typical of earlier practices in the sense that it also often included prisoners. With British conquest, it was no longer possible to sell convicted criminals to slave traders. Many of such convicted criminals were, therefore, sometimes brought from Kano into Fanisau and other parts of the emirate with royal estates for participation in collective farm-work.66 The use of convicted criminals in agricultural


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production following colonial rule indicates a subtle change in the meaning of gayya, and it partly reflects the “modernist” dimension of the actions taken by the emir to stimulate groundnut production during the early colonial era. Groundnut Production: Role of Merchants As Hogendorn suggests, most of the measures Hausa traders employed during the 1913–14 growing season to ensure that they would secure large proportions of groundnuts had been used in the 1912 growing season and they survived beyond 1914.67 To reiterate, these methods include the use of propaganda, the recruitment of the services of community leaders to popularize a particular clientage network at harvest time, and the dispatch of agent buyers directly to identified hardworking and honest free farmers with gifts of merchandise to encourage such farmers to grow more groundnuts.68 Although Hausa traders had used these strategies before 1913, the emir’s initiatives in groundnut cultivation in Fanisau and his support for groundnut production through propaganda would have further inspired many of them to use the same strategies during the 1913–14 growing season. Much more important, however, is the fact that Hausa traders who had slave estates in Fanisau and elsewhere in Kano also engaged in direct groundnut production by the 1913–14 growing season. Available evidence suggests that some of the merchants who went into direct groundnut cultivation had estates that date back to the nineteenth century, and it also indicates that such traders took measures to maintain the number of plantation slaves they had even under the early colonial context. For instance, Miko Hamshaki, the son of Madugu Kosai who established one of the private estates in Fanisau during the nineteenth century, defied colonial anti-slave trading laws in order to maintain the estate and business that he inherited from his late father. Prior to the early colonial era, Hamshaki was a kolanut merchant and an established slave trader. As a young boy he sometimes followed his father on business trips to areas like Gwanja, Borno, and Bargami, and they would buy and dispose of slaves along caravan routes that led to such areas. It was in the course of such trips, therefore, that Hamshaki acquired his skills as a slave trader. During the early colonial era, he refused to give up his estate in Fanisau. He also continued to import slaves into his holding

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and other parts of Kano until British colonial administrators arrested him while he was attempting to import ten slaves. In his own words: “I was caught together with him (Madugu Shaho) by the Europeans when I bought ten slaves; I was given fifty strokes and the slaves were seized.”69 We do not know the precise date Hamshaki was arrested. However, available sources indicate that illegal slave trading involving Kano persisted up to the 1930s. According to C. N. Ubah, between 1909 and 1919, Kano traders illegally brought a considerable number of slaves for use in Kano. In this regard, he writes: Dealers also managed to smuggle slaves into other emirates such as Kano during the war. When commander J. H. Carrow, an Assistant District Officer, toured Karaye district of Kano in June 1920 he discovered a large number of slaves (mostly children but including five female adults) who had been brought there at different times between 1914 and 1919. Some of the slave owners fled but he took judicial actions against the rest.70

Hausa traders like Hamshaki, dominated slave trading up to the 1930s. Within this period, they formed more settlements among non-Muslims and used them to camouflage their slave-trading activities. We know for instance, that Hausa traders sometimes pretended to be selling groundnuts or other products in their houses based in non-Muslim communities whereas they were actually acquiring child slaves in such locations.71 After the British conquest, slave traders generally concentrated on enslaving children partly because they were not in a position to offer resistance.72 However, such children, as Martin Klein rightly observes in his study of the western Sudan, grow fast.73 It is also clear that many of these enslaved children as well as enslaved adults were subsequently disposed off or used in various capacities including plantation work in Kano and elsewhere in Northern Nigeria as the example of Hamshaki demonstrates. Implicit in this is that the actions taken by Hausa traders to promote groundnut production were more varied than earlier assumed. While merchants like Hamshaki imported slaves to maintain production on estates established prior to 1913, available evidence suggests that other rich merchants acquired new plots during the 1913–14 growing season and established them as plantations on which they produced groundnuts. It is apparent that some of these rich merchants acquired the new plots that they converted to plantations during this period from the emir,


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and we know that the land grants made by the emir to such merchants were primarily tied to political considerations, largely to appease rival political factions.74 However, as Allen Christelow has suggested, the timing of the decision to distribute property coincided with “a time when office holders were being converted into salaried bureaucrats, when the cash economy was rapidly spreading in rural Kano emirate, and when the intrusion of the Nigerian Supreme Court into Northern Nigerian legal affairs was beginning to loom as a possibility.”75 Whether or not the motivation on the part of Abbas for embarking on a policy of property distribution was also tied to enhancing groundnut production, we know that the land grants he made did help foster the cultivation of the crop.76 One of the beneficiaries of the emir’s land grant was Alhassan Dantata.77 Prior to the late 1890s, Dantata’s father had a lot of land in Bebeji and neighboring villages, where the Agalawa were strong and had vast interests including small farms and plantations. As Agalawa and members of the Tijaniyya brotherhood,78 his family also sided with Tukur during the basasa or specifically during the struggle for the throne of Kano between Yusuf and Tukur, which was triggered by the death of Emir Muhammed Bello of Kano in 1893.79 Unsurprisingly, with the defeat of Tukur during the basasa, the family lost out and relocated to Accra, where Alhassan Dantata’s mother set herself up as a wealthy landlord. After residing briefly at Accra, the Dantata family finally relocated back to Kano around 1914. It has been established that it was in this period that the emir of Kano, mainly in a land settlement, made land grants to Dantata at Koki and elsewhere. We also know that upon returning to Kano and acquiring more plots, the Dantata family immediately went into groundnut production and marketing.80 Overall, it seems evident that strategies that do not involve direct groundnut cultivation, such as the use of propaganda and the offer of gifts and other inducements to various individuals, were employed by Hausa traders to encourage groundnut production in Fanisau, as elsewhere in Kano, during the 1913–14 growing season. For sure, such strategies must have contributed to the production of significant quantity of groundnuts in that growing season. However, as the above analysis suggests, what underpinned the successful emergence of large-scale groundnut production in Kano, especially in Fanisau in 1913–14, was the combination of the emir’s initiatives in groundnut cultivation in Fanisau and his support for groundnut production through propaganda as well as the important role that Hausa traders like Hamshaki and Dantata played as planters.

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Conclusion This chapter demonstrates that the enslaved resisted their bondage in numerous ways including adherence to bori religious practices (which involved spirit possession and were considered incompatible with Islam) and by running away, either to change masters or to escape permanently, which was possible at the time of the Kano civil war of 1893–94 and at the time of the British colonial conquest in 1903. To check slave resistance, the chapter further reveals, masters embraced various strategies including punishing recaptured slaves and indoctrinating the enslaved population. A large number of the slave labor control strategies adopted by masters during the colonial era were similar to those used in the precolonial era. The chapter, however, suggests that it was only during the colonial era that both the emir and private estates owners blatantly disregarded state policies in order to guard against the decline of their state population. In this connection, it is shown that many private estate owners disregarded colonial anti-slave trading laws while in spite of the colonial laws that favored self-redemption, the emir refused to grant freedom to his slaves based on this state-sanctioned method. Having argued that the slave population in Fanisau did not significantly decline during the early colonial era as a result of the state-sanctioned self-redemption policy and due to slave flight, this chapter analyzed a colonial record primarily to offer further proof that slave labor and plantations in Fanisau and elsewhere in the Kano Emirate played a large role in the changeover to groundnut production during the early colonial era.

6

General Conclusion

Plantations in Kasar Kano Although the shari’a and Islamic documents produced in the Sokoto Caliphate are silent on plantations, these structures have had an important place in the history of that state. This study has examined general developments in Kasar Kano to illustrate this point. The growth of the plantation sector in this region passed through two main phases. The first phase began during the reign of Burja in the medieval era, and lasted to the reign of Emir Suleiman, the first post-jihad ruler. The influence of Islamic principles in the establishment and growth of plantations at this initial stage was relatively weak. Nevertheless the state was the leading force in the expansion of this sector. By the fifteenth century, aristocrats had realized that wealth was important for the acquisition and consolidation of power; hence they pursued policies aimed at enhancing their affluence. One such policy involved the establishment of plantations. Once these structures were established, they became important institutions in the history of Kano. For instance, in the fifteenth century, Galadima Dawuda used his control of plantations to influence the overthrow of two sarakuna, who were his superiors, within the span of eight days! There may have been a decline in slave supply channeled toward the plantation sector after the initial constitution of royal estates by Dawuda, but at any rate there does not appear to have been dramatic expansion in this sector. The slave population initially introduced by Dawuda appears to have reproduced itself, but periodic political instability in Kano involving wars with neighboring states may have supplied more slaves for agriculture, and also may have prevented the maintenance of estates. A series

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of relatively severe droughts affected the pre-jihad era. While droughts limited the growth of plantations, such natural calamities experienced elsewhere ironically also encouraged the formation of several estates in Kano during the eighteenth century. In this regard, severe drought localized to the southern desert edge often resulted in the Tuareg (and other peoples settled in such regions primarily faced with the natural calamity) establishing estates in Kasar Kano. Thus, both aristocrats and wealthy commoners laid the foundation of the plantation sector. The second and more significant phase in the growth of the plantation sector in Kasar Kano began shortly after the jihad, when a group of local Fulani clan leaders ousted Alwali in 1806 and lasts all the way up until the early twentieth century. Upon their seizure of power, these clan leaders were integrated into the Sokoto Caliphate, and the political system they eventually developed conformed, more than ever before, to Islamic principles. The jihad leaders were responsible for the consolidation of the plantation sector. This led to the establishment of many new estates during the nineteenth century, and plantation slavery emerged as the most productive sector of the economy. Three major categories of large holdings have been identified. First, there were estates attached to political office, which could not be sold or otherwise disposed of since they belonged to the political title. Second, wealthy commoners and merchants owned estates that remained in their families and could be sold or rented. Third, members of the aristocracy also owned estates that remained in their families and could be sold or rented. Most plantations in the post-jihad era varied in size; some at hundreds of acres and even more. Several social and economic changes that occurred in Kano led to the acceleration in the growth of plantations during the post-jihad era. These included the absence of severe multi-year droughts comparable to those of the preceding century and the growth in industrialization and trade, which stimulated demands for food and raw materials, on one hand, and generated massive wealth for a group of individuals, on the other. Above all, however, it was the pursuit of policies aimed at political and economic consolidation as well as the expansion of the Islamic community by Kano post-jihad rulers that facilitated the rapid expansion of the plantation sector. Important specific policies in this regard include, among others, those on ribat and sedentarization. While the plantation sector reached the pinnacle of its growth as a result

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of all of the above factors, estates continued to influence political and economic developments long after the jihad. Fanisau and Kano Although the area of Fanisau was settled early, its importance as a plantation center dates to the second decade of the nineteenth century, when Emir Ibrahim Dabo established a ribat there. The legendary first person to have resided in the community was Gambarjado, who was closely associated with Barbushe and the group who established themselves at Dalla in ancient times. It is known that al-Maghili initially camped in the area, but otherwise Fanisau had a relatively insignificant place in the history of Kano until after the jihad. This book has demonstrated that the growth of the plantation sector in Fanisau was a product of the policies of Emir Dabo, who followed the example of Sultan Bello in implementing policies that encouraged the founding of plantations. The major policies included land grants, settling immigrants, and above all the conversion of Fanisau into a ribat. Once Emir Dabo established Fanisau as a ribat and launched the plantation complex, the settlement became critical to the provisioning of the palace and the businesses of the merchant community in Kano City.1 As a military outpost, the settlement fostered the sedentarization policy of the state, because it was a safe place to settle, and more importantly it became the gathering place for troops from various districts during moments of warfare, especially against enemies situated to the north of Kano City. In addition to the troops that occasionally camped at Fanisau, the settlement also had a local army permanently stationed there, comprised mostly of slaves. During engagements, the galadiman shamaki led this local army. In general, the army at Fanisau consisted of cavalry and infantry. These units were normally armed with bows, arrows, and shields. Sometimes the emir personally commanded the combined troops from the various districts of the emirate present in the settlement. Sometimes, he appointed specific officials to lead particular campaigns. The most significant campaigns involving Fanisau were those against Dan Tunku (1819–26) and Damagaram (1898–1900).2 However, Fanisau’s inhabitants were involved in several other wars, especially during the reigns of the emirs Usman I (1846–55), Abdullahi (1855–82), and Aliyu (1894–1903), against the Ningi. Indeed, these engagements partly ensured that the settlement remained a slave society throughout the nineteenth century.

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Character of Slavery in Fanisau With respect to the nature of master-slave relations, this study has specifically shown that in accordance to Islamic laws and customary practices and partly to enhance social control, masters generally provided rewards or incentives to slaves. They also encouraged the latter to embrace their culture. In spite of all these, most slaves received inadequate supplies of food, clothes and other necessities from their masters. Slave owners also punished disobedient slaves with the whip and shackles. Beyond that, disobedient slaves were sometimes denied food, sent to prison, sold, or disposed through other means. The inadequate supplies received by slaves, coupled with other forms of abuse their masters exposed them to, it is argued, contributed to the overt and covert slave resistance experienced. In general, this study has shown that slaves were not passive actors as has been assumed by other scholars, and that slave protest and resistance at Fanisau was either aimed at relieving the suffering associated with slavery or at complete freedom. Slave protest and resistance were also generally subtle in character at the settlement. Among the most common forms of protest was to refuse to work as expected by the masters and overseers, to “steal” agricultural produce from the master’s storage, to run away (either to change masters or to escape permanently, which was possible at the time of the Kano civil war of 1893–94 and at the time of the British colonial conquest in 1903), and to maintain non-Muslim religious practices. A case study of Fanisau has further demonstrated that masters instituted some contradictory measures that made real assimilation impossible for most slaves. As part of these measures most slave owners limited the mixing of free and slave populations through several means, commemorated the slaves’ outsider status, and emancipated slaves within the context of continuous warfare, which usually furnished new slaves to, among other functions, replace those granted freedom in the society. In addition to adopting these strategies, slave owners (due mainly to their basic concern for estate outputs and military activities) visibly ignored other traditions and laws that encouraged the incorporation of slaves and their gradual assimilation. Thus, they freed only a few of them. Masters, it is argued, were successful in freeing only a relatively few slaves partly by selective practices and partly by ensuring that most slaves did not earn enough to secure their freedom. Evidently, therefore, emancipation was not as

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widespread in Fanisau as has been assumed to be the case in the entire Sokoto Caliphate. And then again, it has also been demonstrated that even where manumission occurred, it was not intended to result in the assimilation of ex-slaves who had, presumably, become Hausa. Rather, manumission largely positioned ex-slaves to continue to depend on their former masters in more subtle ways. While masters adopted different strategies to prevent the full assimilation of most slaves, this study finally demonstrated that slaves also maintained a non-Muslim religious tradition known as bori that made their absorption difficult. Taken together, therefore, although Smith’s theory on slavery in Hausaland is simply another version of Phillips interpretation of slavery in the antebellum American South, the former did not explicitly argue that plantation slavery was largely unprofitable. Regardless of this and other differences in analysis, both Smith and Phillips’ interpretations, as earlier highlighted, have been widely accepted as the traditional wisdom on slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate and in the antebellum American South, respectively. Both of these interpretations have also been scrutinized and challenged by an increasing number of scholars who argue that slavery was not mild and progressive at the two relevant locations. In the context of the Sokoto Caliphate, a case study of Fanisau further confirms the conclusion that Smith’s claims stood reality on its head. Fanisau and Groundnut Production In Nigerian Groundnut Exports, Hogendorn reveals that the introduction of a colonial market for groundnuts and the construction of a railway line from Baro to Kano galvanized factors of production for groundnut cultivation in Northern Nigeria. He also points to the high level of entrepreneurial skills of the traders that entered into the groundnut field, which led to the first groundnut boom in Kano between 1913 and 1914. More important, however, although Hogendorn suggests further that labor was reallocated from other areas to groundnut cultivation, that slave labor was probably instrumental, and that the transition to groundnut was not completely costless, he was unable to provide substantiating evidence. Similarly, although in a subsequent coauthored work Hogendorn and Lovejoy argued that the dominant source of labor for groundnut/agricultural production in the early colonial era was slave labor and that in fact slavery and plantations were still widespread in Northern Nigeria during

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this period, they offer no real proof that slaves and freed slaves were growing groundnuts on plantations or elsewhere. This book provides evidence on the key role of the emir of Kano (Abbas) and important merchants in the transition to groundnut cultivation and the significant use of slave labor by these large estate holders. In particular, the book provides evidence that slave labor was used to stimulate groundnut production in Fanisau between 1913 and 1914. During this growing season, groundnut production was threatened partly by a rumor that a special tax would be imposed on the crop. Following this rumor, Emir Abbas used propaganda and might have made land grants to enhance production. Another measure he took, however, was to call for collective farm-work at Fanisau. This book argues that collective farm-work at Fanisau involved the use of prisoners, and that although the collective farm-work undertaken at the royal estates in Fanisau included free people and freed slaves, it was mainly slave based. Most of the slaves used by the emir were introduced into the community by the nineteenth century after Fanisau was established as a ribat. However, slave merchants like Hamshaki brought many other slaves into the settlement after British conquest. It is argued that not only did merchants continue to imports slaves into Kano, traders like Dantata used slave labor in groundnut production during the early colonial era. In a nutshell, while this book reinforces the interpretation of numerous scholars who have highlighted the role of slave labor in groundnut production during the “cash crop revolution” in West Africa during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it also expands Hogendorn’s argument on the African initiatives involved in the expansion of groundnut production in colonial Northern Nigeria. But, when all is said and done, a case study of a plantation complex such as Fanisau raises more questions than answers. On the one hand, some may feel that by concentrating primarily on the growth of estates in this settlement, our attention has been diverted from many of the other important problems that should be considered in a study of the society and economy of the Kano Emirate and the Sokoto Caliphate in general. On the other hand, most historians who have written on Kano have neglected Fanisau, which has resulted in an imbalance in our knowledge of the emirate’s history. Even more, most of the scholars who have studied plantations within the context of this same emirate, and the Sokoto Caliphate in general, have not been particularly interested in the internal movements of any given plantation complex. Given these facts, our knowledge of the development

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of the plantation sector in Fanisau, when combined with information about many other historical events/plantations in the Kano Emirate, and the Sokoto Caliphate in general, provides us with a good base for understanding not only the general pattern of plantation development in the Sokoto Caliphate, but also provides interesting material for comparison with plantations and agriculture elsewhere in the region, in Islamic lands, and worldwide. More importantly, a study of the growth of plantations in Fanisau brings into sharp focus the value of oral data in the reconstruction of the social and economic history of the Sokoto Caliphate. Indeed, it is this source that enabled this writer to understand the development of the complex of plantations at Fanisau. For instance, they provided details on daily life, resistance, and accommodation that are not found in colonial sources. Without doubt a problem of chronology arose in reference to the establishment/growth of the ribat since the oral data mostly applies to the late nineteenth century when the complex was fully developed. This problem of chronology and understanding change over time has, however, been addressed in this book through periodization related to the accession of Ibrahim Dabo in 1819, Clapperton’s visits in the 1820s, Barth’s visit in the 1850s, and the Basasa, ending with the colonial conquest and the escape of many slaves.


Notes

Introduction 1. For definitions of plantations, see P. P. Courtenay, Plantation Agriculture (London, Bell and Hyman, 1980), 7–19; Paul E. Lovejoy, “Plantations in the Economy of the Sokoto Caliphate,” Journal of African History 19, 3 (1978): 341–68; Frederick Cooper, Plantation Slavery on the East Coast of Africa (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1977), 2–20; Jay R. Mandle, “The Plantation Economy: An Essay in Definition,” in Eugene D. Genovese, ed., The Slave Economies: Volume 1 Historical and Theoretical Perspectives (New York, John Wiley and Sons, 1973), 223–24. 2. Paul E. Lovejoy, “The Characteristics of Plantations in the Nineteenth-Century Sokoto Caliphate (Islamic West Africa),” American Historical Review 84 (1979): 1271. 3. Kenneth M. Stampp, The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1956), 31. 4. Ibid., 36. 5. Such as Jay Mandle, The Root of Black Poverty: The Southern Economy After the Civil War (Durham, NC, Duke University Press, 1978), 3–15; M. G. Smith, “Slavery and Emancipation in Two Societies,” Social and Economic Studies 3, 3–4 (1954): 239–90; and M. G. Smith, “Slavery and Emancipation in Two Societies,” M. G. Smith, ed., The Plural Society in the British West Indies (Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1965), 116–61. 6. See the works of Paul E. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery. A History of Slavery in Africa (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000); and “Characteristics of Plantations,” 1270–85 for more on this viewpoint. 7. Lovejoy, “Characteristics of Plantations,” 1270–85. 8. Ibid., 1267–92. However scholars may differ in their definition of “plantation,” most would agree that the features highlighted in this last definition are among essential characteristics. 9. Some of the important works on plantations in the American and Caribbean societies include, Richard S. Dunn, Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624–1713 (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1972); Richard Sheridan, Sugar and Slavery: An Economic History of the British West Indies, 1623–1775 (Aylesbury, Ginn, 1974); Vera Rubin, ed., Plantation Systems of the New World (Washington, Pan American Union, 1959); and Vera

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10. 11.

12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17. 18.

19.

20. 21.

22.

NOTES

Rubin and Arthur Tuden, eds., Comparative Perspectives on Slavery in New World Plantation Societies (New York, New York Academy of Sciences, 1977). Neil Skinner, “The Origin of the Name Hausa,” Africa 38 (1968): 253–57; and Lovejoy, “Characteristics of Plantations,” 1279. Polly Hill, Rural Hausa: A Village and a Setting (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1972), 38–56; and her Population, Prosperity and Poverty: Rural Kano, 1900–1970 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 205–7. It should be noted here that in Farmers and the State in Colonial Kano: Land Tenure and the Legal Imagination (Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 2005), Steven Pierce suggests that the term gandu does not refer to a “thing” (namely plantations or households) as most other writers have argued. Rather it refers (right from the start) to a set of interacting obligations, which both constituted the basic relations between commoners and the government and provided families with access to land. In my opinion, however, his failure to reinterpret references to the term in question in, among other historical materials, the Kano Chronicles undermines his conclusion that gandu refers to a set of interacting obligations right from the start. Lovejoy, “Plantations in the Economy,” 344. The ambiguity of the concept rinji is also discussed in ibid., 343–44, and in his “Characteristics of Plantations,” 1279–80. H. Brunschvig, “Abd,” The Encyclopedia of Islam, Vol. 1 (Leiden, Brill, 1960), 24–40. Nehemia Levtzion, “The Western Maghrib and Sudan,” in the Cambridge History of Africa, vol. 3, ed. Roland Oliver (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1977), 447. E. R. Toledano, Slavery and Abolition in the Ottoman Middle East (Washington, University of Washington Press, 1998), 81. Cooper, East Coast of Africa. For further details on the agricultural economy of Songhay, see, for instance, Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery, 33; and John O. Hunwick, “Notes on Slavery in the Songhay Empire,” in John Ralph Willis, Slaves and Slavery in Muslim Africa, Volume 2, The servile estate (London, Frank Cass, 1985), 25. Allan G. B. Fisher and Humphrey J. Fisher, Slavery and Muslim Society in Africa: The Institution in Saharan and Sudanic Africa and the Trans-Saharan Trade (London, C. Hurst, 1970), 111. Lovejoy, “Characteristics of Plantations,” 1278–79. Good example of studies rooted in this perspective include Bala Achi, “The Gandu System in the Economy of Hausaland,” in Nigeria Magazine 57, 3–4 (1989): 49–59, which obviously focuses on Hausaland, while Adamu Mohammed Fika, The Kano Civil War and British Overrule 1882–1940 (Ibadan, Oxford University Press, 1978) focuses on Kano in particular. Mahmud Modibbo Tukur, “The Imposition of British Colonial Domination on the Sokoto Caliphate, Borno and Neighbouring States, 1897–1914,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Ahmadu Bello University, 1979), 821–34.

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23. See Yusufu Bala Usman, The Transformation of Katsina 1400–1883 (Zaria, Ahmadu Bello University Press, 1981); and Ibrahim Jumare, “Land Tenure in the Sokoto Sultanate of Nigeria,” (Ph.D. dissertation, York University, 1995). 24. Joseph E. Inikori, “Slavery in Africa and the Transatlantic Slave Trade,” in Alusine Jalloh and Stephen E. Maizlish, eds., The African Diaspora (Arlington, University of Texas at Arlington, 1996), 39–72. 25. See Richard L. Roberts, Warriors, Merchants and Slaves: The State and the Economy in the Middle Niger Valley, 1700–1914 (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1987); and John O. Hunwick, “Notes on Slavery in the Songhay Empire,” in Willis, Slaves and Slavery in Muslim Africa, 16–32. 26. See, for example, Smith, “Slavery and Emancipation”; Jan S. Hogendorn, “The Economics of Slave Use on Two ‘Plantations’ in the Zaria Emirate of the Sokoto Caliphate,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 10 (1977): 369–83; Ibrahim Hamza, “Slavery and Plantation Society at Dorayi in Kano Emirate,” in P. E. Lovejoy P. E., Slavery on the Frontiers of Islam (Princeton, NJ, Markus Wiener, 2004), 125–48; Ann O’Hear, Power Relations in Nigeria: Ilorin Slaves and Their Successors (Rochester, University of Rochester Press, 1997); Sean Arnold Stilwell, Paradoxes of Power: The Kano “Mamluks” and Male Royal Slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate, 1804–1903 (Portsmouth, Heinemann, 2004) and Lovejoy, “Characteristics of Plantations.” 27. See, for instance, Hogendorn, “Economics of Slave Use”; and Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery. 28. Hamza, “Slavery and Plantation Society at Dorayi.” 29. Hogendorn, “Economics of Slave Use”; and Smith, “Slavery and Emancipation.” 30. See, for instance, John Edward Philips, “Slavery on Two Ribat in Kano and Sokoto,” in Paul E. Lovejoy ed., Slavery on the Frontiers of Islam (Princeton, Markus Weiner, 2004), 111–24; and Nasiru Ibrahim Dantiye, “Taxation and Hakimai’s Envoys: The Status of the Ribats of Rano, Karaye, Babura, Gwarzo and their Resident Rulers within the Administrative System of Kano Emirate,” in B. M. Barkindo, ed., Kano and Some of her Neighbours (Zaria, Ahmadu Bello University Press, 1985). 31. Smith, “Slavery and Emancipation.” 32. For the views of Phillips and his supporters, see, for instance, Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, American Negro Slavery (New York, D. Appleton, 1918); Ralph Betts Flanders, Plantation Slavery in Georgia (Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 1933); Rosser Howard Taylor, Slaveholding in North Carolina, an Economic View (Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 1926); Charles Sackett Sydnor, Slavery in Mississippi (New York, Peter Smith Publishing, 1933); and Charles S. Davies, The Cotton Kingdom in Alabama (Montgomery, Alabama State Department of Archives and History, 1939). For critics of Phillips’ interpretation, see, for instance, Kenneth M. Stammp, The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1956). 33. See, for instance, Michael Watts, Silent Violence: Food, Famine and Peasantry in Northern Nigeria (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1983), 77–78;

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34. 35.

36.

37. 38.

39.

40. 41.

42.

43. 44.

45. 46.

47.

NOTES

Polly Hill, “From Slavery to Freedom: The Case of Farm-Slavery in Nigerian Hausaland,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 18, 3 (1976): 397; and Inikori, “Slavery in Africa.” See, for instance, Hogendorn, “Economics of Slave Use”; and Lovejoy, “Characteristics of Plantations” and “Plantations in the Economy.” Inikori, “Slavery in Africa”; and Igor Kopytoff and Suzzane Miers, “Introduction: African ‘Slavery’ as an Institution of Marginality,” in Igor Kopytoff and Suzzane Miers, eds., Slavery in Africa: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1977) are good examples of works that argue that slave manumission/intergenerational slave mobility was continuous in Africa. Jan S. Hogendorn, “The Origins of the Groundnut Trade in Northern Nigeria,” in Carl K. Either and Carl Liedholm, eds., Growth and Development of the Nigerian Economy (East Lansing, Michigan State University Press, 1970), 30–66. Also see his Nigerian Groundnut Exports: Origins and Early Development (Zaria, Ahmadu Bello University Press, Michigan State University Press, 1978). Hogendorn, Nigerian Groundnut Exports, 104. For further discussion on this position, see, for instance, Robert Shenton, The Development of Capitalism in Northern Nigeria (London and Toronto, James Currey and University of Toronto, 1986); Michael Watts, Silent Violence; and Louise Lennihan, “Rights in Men and Rights in land: Slavery, Wage Labor, and Smallholder Agriculture in Northern Nigeria,” Slavery and Abolition 3, 2 (1982); 111–39. Paul E. Lovejoy and Jan S. Hogendorn, Slow Death for Slavery. The Course of Abolition in Northern Nigeria, 1897–1936 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993). Steven Pierce, Farmers and the State in Colonial Kano: Land Tenure and the Legal Imagination (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2005). Gareth Austin, “Cash Crops and Freedom: Export Agriculture and the Decline of Slavery in Colonial West Africa,” International Review of Social History 54 (2009): 1–37. See, for instance, Michael Craton and James Walvin, A Jamaican Plantation: The History of Worthy Park 1670–1970 (Toronto, Univeristy of Toronto Press, 1970). Frederick Cooper, “The Problem of Slavery in African Studies,” Journal of African History XX (1979): 103–26. Frederick Cooper, “Islam and Cultural Hegemony: The Ideology of Slaveowners on the East African Coast,” in Paul E. Lovejoy, ed., The Ideology of Slavery in Africa (Beverly Hill, London, Sage, 1981), 271–307. For instance, Murray Gordon, Slavery in the Arab World (New York, New Amsterdam Books, 1989), 54 advances this view. Good examples of works that question the widespread existence of plantation slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate, for instance, include Watts, Silent Violence; and Hill, “From Slavery to Freedom.” For instance, see Lovejoy, “Characteristics of Plantations”; Hogendorn, “Economics of Slave Use”; and Abdullahi Mahadi, “The State and the

NOTES

48.

49.

50. 51.

52. 53.

54.

55.

56. 57.

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Economy: The Sarauta System and It’s Roles in Shaping the Society and Economy of Kano with Particular Reference to the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, 1982). Jonathan P. Berkey, “Circumcision Circumscribed: Female Excision and Cultural Accommodation in the Medieval near East,” in International Journal of Middle East Studies 28, 1 (Feb. 1996): 21. Also, for further insight on this approach, see Richard Antoun, “On the Modesty of Women in Arab Muslim Villages: A Study in the Accommodation of Traditions,” American Anthropologist 70, 4 (1968): 671–97. C. H. Robinson, Hausaland, or Fifteen Hundred Miles Through the Central Sudan (London, Sampson Low, Marston, 1897); P. L. Monteil, De Saint-Louis a Tripoli par le lac Tchad (Paris, Felix Alcan, 1908); H. Barth, Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa, (London, Frank Cass, 1965); and H. Clapperton, Journal of a Second Expedition into the Interior of Africa from the Bight of Benin to Socaccatoo (London, Frank Cass, 1966). Neil Skinner, Alhaji Mahmudu Koki: Kano Malam (Zaria, Ahmadu Bello University Press, 1977). The dictionary in question is G. P. Bargery, A Hausa-English Dictionary and English-Hausa Vocabulary (Zaria, Ahmadu Bello University Press, 1993). The text was written during the reign of Emir Abdullahi Dabo, 1855–1882. “Taqyid akhbar jama’at al-Shaykh alladhina bi kanu wa ma jara baynahum wa bayna al-taghut al-Wali min al-hurub,” by Muhammad b. Salih; “Infaq al-Maisur” and “Diya al Siyasa” by Mohammad Bello; “Al-I’lan” by Adam b. Muhammad al-Arabi b. Adam al-Funduki al-Kanawi,” and “Wasiyyat al-maghili ila Abi Abdullah Muhammad b. Ya’ub,” by Al-Maghili are good examples of Arabic sources used in this work. For details on the techniques Lovejoy used, see Caravans of Kola. A History of the Hausa Kola Trade (1700–1900) (Zaria and Ibadan, Ahmadu Bello University Press and Ibadan University Press, 1980), 5–9. For details on the techniques used in this project, see P. E. Lovejoy and J. S. Hogendorn, “Oral Data Collection and the Economic History of the Central Savanna,” in Savanna 7, 1 (1978): 71–74. For instance, the collection of Lovejoy’s students, such as Jumare, are also deposited in the center. I was in Kano primarily in relation to a document preservation project funded by the British Library, through the Endangered Archives Programme. I, however, was fortunate to meet Yunusa, and, therefore, used that opportunity to, among other things, jointly interview the above two informants with him. At Fanisau, we first visited the house of the village head for permission to interview residents of the settlement. During the visit, we were informed that AbulAzizi is the best person to contact on the history of Fanisau. Later, AbdulAzizi also referred us to Kanyan Amana for details on private estates in nineteenth-century Fanisau.

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NOTES

58. For more details on Madugu Kosai, see Chapter 2 in this study. 59. Murray Last, The Sokoto Caliphate (London, Longman, 1967); R. A. Adeleye, Power and Diplomacy in Northern Nigeria, 1804–1906: The Sokoto Caliphate and its Enemies (New York, Humanities Press, 1971); Abubakar, Sa’ad, The Lamibe of Fombina. A Political History of Adamawa 1809–1901 (Zaria, Ahmadu Bello University Press, 1977); Michael Mason, Foundations of the Bida Kingdom (Zaria, Ahmadu Bello University Press, 1981); Fika, Kano Civil War; and M. G. Smith, Government in Kano 1350–1950 (Boulder, CO, Westview Press, 1977). Of these works, we have found Smith’s the most useful for our discussions on the political movements in the Kano Emirate in this study. 60. For instance, Lovejoy, “Characteristics of Plantations”; Hogendorn, “Economy of Slave Use”; and Smith, “Slavery and Emancipation.” 61. A good example of works based on misleading perspective is Smith, “Slavery and Emancipation.” 62. Yusuf Yunusa, “Slavery in Ninteenth Century Kano” (B. A. Essay, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, 1976); Abdulrazak Giginyu Sa’idu, “History of a Slave Village in Kano: Gandun Nassarawa” (B. A. Essay, Bayero University Kano, 1981); P. J. Shea, “ Development of an Export Oriented Dyed Cloth Industry in Kano Emirate in the 19th Century” (Ph.D. dissertation, Wisconsin, 1975); and Nasiru Ibrahim Dantiye, “A Study of the Origins, Status and Defensive Role of Four Kano Frontier Strongholds (Ribats) in the Emirate Period (1809–1903)” (Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1985). 63. See Chapter 4 for a detailed discussion on ribats.

Chapter 1 1. The following account of the history of Kano is largely based on R. A. Adeleye, “Hausaland and Borno, 1600–1800,” in J. F. A. Ajayi and M. Crowder, eds., History of West Africa, Vol. 1 (New York, Columbia University Press, 1971), 577–624; Abdullahi Mahadi, “State and the Economy,” : The Sarauta System and It’s Roles in Shaping the Society and Economy of Kano with Particular Reference to the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, 1982); and M. G. Smith, Government in Kano 1350–1950 (Boulder, CO, Westview Press, 1977). 2. For more detailed accounts on Kano’s early history, including on state formation in the area during the pre-jihad era, see, for instance, Mahadi, “State and the Economy”; and Smith, Government in Kano. 3. Mahadi, “State and the Economy,” 99–192. 4. Ibid., 158–74. 5. Ibid., 222–24. 6. Ibid., 199–221. 7. For a discussion of Islam, see John Weir Chamberlin, “The Development of Islamic Education in Kano City, Nigeria, with Emphasis on Legal Education in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries” (Ph.D. dissertation Columbia

NOTES

8.

9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14.

15. 16.

17.

18.

19.

20. 21. 22.

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University, 1975), 82–86; Smith, Government in Kano, 185–202; and H. R. Palmer, “Kano Chronicle,” in Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 38, (1908): 58–98. For relevant details on the spread of Islam in West Africa, see, for instance, Nehemia Levtzion and Rabdall Pouwels, eds., The History of Islam in Africa (Athens, OH, Ohio University Press; Oxford, James Currey; Cape Town, David Philip, 2000), 63–226. Smith, Government in Kano. 116. For further details on the increasing importance of Islam in Kano and the Sokoto Caliphate, see Mahadi, “State and the Economy”; and Ibrahim Sulaiman, The Islamic State and the Challenge of History. Ideals, Policies and Operation of the Sokoto Caliphate (London and New York, Mansell, 1987). Mahadi, “State and the Economy,” 172–74. T. H. Baldwin, trans., The Obligation of Princes (Beirut, Imprimerie Catholique, 1932). Mahadi, “State and the Economy,” 177–82. For detailed discussion on the continuing use of slave officials in Kano after Rumfa’s reign, see, for instance, Sean Arnold Stilwell, Paradoxes of Power: The Kano “Mamluks” and Male Royal Slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate, 1804–1903 (Portsmouth, Heinemann, 2004). Smith, Government in Kano, 136–72. For more details on the background of estate owners in the New World and on the East African coast, see, for instance, James Walvin, Slavery and the Slave Trade: A Short Illustrated History (Jackson, University of Mississippi Press, 1983); Michael Craton, Sinews of Empire: A Short History of British Slavery (London and New York, Anchor Books, 1974); and Frederick Cooper, Plantation Slavery on the East African Coast (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1977). For further details on the influence of expanding international trade on plantation development in Africa, see, for instance, Richard L. Roberts, Warriors, Merchants and Slaves: The State and the Economy in the Middle Niger Valley, 1700–1914 (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1987); and Paul E. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery. A History of Slavery in Africa (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000). See Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery, 24–36; and Martin Klein and Paul E. Lovejoy, “Slavery in West Africa,” in H. A. Gemery and J. S. Hogendorn, eds., The Uncommon Market. Essays in the Economic History of the Atlantic Slave Trade (New York, Academic Press, 1979), 200–201. Mervyn Hiskett, “The Image of Slaves in Hausa Literature,” in John Ralph Willis, ed., Slaves and Slavery in Muslim Africa Volume 2, The Servile Estate (London, Frank Cass, 1985), 106–25. It is significant to note here that Tsamia was the ninth sarkin Kano. Hiskett, “Image of Slaves in Hausa Literature,” 106. Palmer, “Kano Chronicle,” 76. Smith, Government in Kano, 124–25.

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NOTES

23. Mahadi, “State and the Economy,” 193; and Bala Achi, “The Gandu System in the Economy of Hausaland,” in Nigeria Magazine 57, 3–4 (1989): 50. 24. Palmer, “Kano Chronicle,” 84. However, as gandu, it seems that ibdabu also subsequently assumed the status of place name. The discussion of plantation development under the reign of sarkin Kano Kutumbi below illustrates this fact. 25. See, for instance, Ibrahim Hamza, “Slavery and Plantation Society at Dorayi in Kano Emirate,” in P. E. Lovejoy, Slavery on the Frontiers of Islam (Princeton, NJ, Markus Wiener, 2004), 125–48. 26. Mahadi, “State and the Economy,” 189. 27. Although this figure must not be taken at face value, it does suggest that Dawuda was instrumental in the foundation of many plantations in early Kano. 28. Smith, Government in Kano, 127. 29. Ibid., 126; and Mahadi, “State and the Economy,” 476. 30. Mahadi, “State and the Economy,” 193; and Achi, “Gandu System,” 50. 31. Discussion of the wars between Kano and its external enemies before the nineteenth century is provided in Smith, Government in Kano, 107–72. 32. A state/confederacy centered along the Benue valley in what is now North Eastern Nigeria. 33. Mahadi, “State and the Economy,” 220–23; and John E. Philips, “Ribats in the Sokoto Caliphate: Selected Studies, 1804–1903” (Ph.D. dissertation University of California, 1992), 143–45. 34. Smith, Government in Kano, 32 footnote. 35. Paul E. Lovejoy and Stephen Baier, “The Desert-Side Economy of the Central Sudan,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 8, 4 (1975): 551–81. 36. Ibid., 568, 569, and 577. It should be noted, however, that apart from Tuareg, other peoples, for instance from Borno, also settled in Kano before the nineteenth century, due to similar factors, and such migrations are discussed in detail by Mahadi, “State and the Economy,” 103–26, among other works. 37. This fact is highlighted in Smith, Government in Kano, 33; and it establishes, as other works have done, that non-state officials also owned plantations in the period before the jihad in Kano. 38. Smith, Government in Kano, 33. 39. Suzanne Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade (New York, Africana, 1975), 118–20; and Suzanne Miers and Kopytoff Igor, eds., Slavery in Africa: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1977), 4–5, 17. 40. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery, 2–5; and Gwyn Campbell, “Introduction: Slavery and other forms of Unfree Labor in the Indian Ocean World,” Slavery and Abolition 24, 2 (2003): xxiii–xxiv. 41. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery,71–72; and Campbell, “Introduction,” xv. 42. For more details on barori in Kano and their relationship, see, for instance, Mahadi, “State and the Economy,” 472–89.

NOTES

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43. Ibid., 433, 472–489. 44. See, for instance, Smith, Government in Kano, 261; Mahdi, “State and the Economy,” 461; and Lovejoy, “Plantations in the Economy;” 349–51. 45. Smith, Government in Kano, 190. 46. Ibid., 216. 47. See, for instance, Murray Last, The Sokoto Caliphate (London, Longman, 1967). 48. The works of Muhammad Bello include Infaq al-maysur fi ta’arikh bilad al-takrur, Shams al-zahira fi minhaj ahl al-ilm wa al-basira, Al-ghayth al-wabl fi sirat al-imam al-adl, and Tanbih al-sahib ala ahkami al-makasib. 49. NAK, SNP 6/4 C.111/1908 W. P. Hewby, Report on Kano Emirate, July 10, 1908, Festing report; and Mahadi, “State and the Economy,” 461, indicates that virtually all masu sarauta owned estates in nineteenth-century Kano. 50. Chamberlin, “Islamic Education in Kano city,” 83–84. 51. H. Barth, Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa, Vol. 1(London, Frank Cass, 1965), 510. 52. Hamza, “Slavery and Plantation Society,” 126 and 130, and other secondary sources confirm this fact. 53. E. W. Bovill, ed., Missions to the Niger. Volume IV. The Bornu Mission 1822–25, Part III (London, Cambridge University Press, 1966), 638–39. 54. Ibid., 639. 55. Ibid., 641. 56. For instance, see Polly Hill, Population, Prosperity and Poverty: Rural Kano, 1900–1970 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 58–59. 57. NAK, SNP 6/4 C.111/1908 W. P. Hewby, Report on Kano Emirate, July 10, 1908, Festing report; and Mahadi, “State and the Economy,” 461, indicate the ownership of estates by virtually all masu sarauta in nineteenth-century Kano, while Jan S. Hogendorn and Paul E. Lovejoy, Slow Death for Slavery. The Course of Abolition in Northern Nigeria, 1897–1936 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993), 131, provide the estimate cited above. 58. Mahadi, “State and the Economy,” 463. 59. Ibid.; and Hogendorn and Lovejoy, Slow Death for Slavery, 132–33. 60. The shamaki was the slave official who managed other plantations for the emir as well, including those in the Dawaki ta Kudu area. 61. Kumbotso District Notebook as cited in Mahadi, “State and the Economy,” 461; Hamza, “Slavery and Plantation Society,” 129; and Hogendorn and Lovejoy, Slow Death for Slavery, 133. 62. Hamza, “Slavery and Plantation Society,” 132; Hogendorn and Lovejoy, Slow Death for Slavery, 133; and Chinedu N. Ubah, Government and Administration of Kano Emirate, 1900–1930 (Nsukka, University of Nsukka Press, 1985), 57. 63. Michael Watts, Silent Violence: Food, Famine and Peasantry in Northern Nigeria (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1983), 101–3. 64. Nevertheless, this is not to suggest that the nineteenth-century droughts did not cause a lot of hardship for residents of affected regions while they lasted. See Watts, Silent Violence, 101; as Gowers learned, “[T]he 1855 drought is

146

65.

66. 67.

68. 69. 70. 71. 72.

73.

74.

75.

NOTES

particularly noted, for instance, to have resulted in the disappearance of gero, dawa, wheat and rice in the Kano city market for thirty days thereby forcing residents to eat vultures.” NAK SNP 17 K2151, Principal famines of Hausaland, 1926. E. W. Bovill, Missions to the Niger. 650; Barth, Travels and Discoveries, Vol. 1, 510; and C. H. Robinson, Hausaland, or Fifteen Hundred Miles Through the Central Sudan (London, Sampson Low, Marston, 1897), 113. Willis Pritchett, “Slavery and the Economy of Kano Emirate 1810–1903” (M. A. Thesis, Southern Connecticut State University, 1990), 39. Abdullahi Mahadi, “The Military and Economic Nerve of the Sokoto Caliphate: An Examination of the Position of Kano within the Caliphate,” in B. M. Barkindo, ed., Kano and Some of her Neighbours (Zaria, Ahmadu Bello University Press, 1985),” 201–2. Barth, Travels and Discoveries, Vol. 1, 511. Robinson, Hausaland, 113. P. J. Shea, “Development of an Export Oriented Dyed Cloth Industry in Kano Emirate in the 19th Century” (Ph.D. dissertation, Wisconsin, 1975), 74–75. Mahadi, “State and the Economy,” 502 and 574; and Shea, “Development of an Export Dyed Cloth Industry,” 109 and 162–63. Agalawa and Tokarawa refer to two corporate groups in Hausaland. Members of these groups were originally lowly placed slaves in Tuareg or Berber society of the Saharan region of Africa. Although the Agalawa (who initially primarily lived at the southern end of the Tuareg commercial network) had belonged in the Tuareg society as farmers while the Tokarawa belonged in the same society as herders, once they were both introduced to Kano and other parts of Hausaland, they assimilated the Hausa culture, emancipated themselves, established notable trading ventures, and constituted communities. While in Hausaland, they also continued to share a common sense of identity. For family traditions on migrations to Kano Emirate, see Lovejoy Collection: Testimonies of Malam Muhammad Kasari (67 years when interviewed; his testimony was recorded at Madigawa ward, Kano, on December 24, 1969), Malam Salihu (60 years when interviewed; his testimony was recorded at Kumurya, Kano Emirate, on January 28, 1970), Malam Ibrahim (50 years when interviewed; his testimony was recorded at Dunkura, Kano Emirate, on January 27, 1970), and Malam Iliyasu (72 years when interviewed; his testimony was recorded at Dunkura, Kano Emirate, on January 27, 1970). See also Lovejoy, Caravans of Kola. A History of the Hausa Kola Trade (1700–1900) (Zaria and Ibadan, Ahmadu Bello University Press and Ibadan University Press, 1980), 86, among other works, for a discussion of the reasons for the movement of these merchant groups into Kano. Testimonies of Malam Iliyasu, Malam Ibrahim, and Malam Musa Husaini (35 years when interviewed; his testimony was recorded at Kano on December 26, 1969). For further details on the corporate structure of these groups, see Lovejoy Collection: Testimonies of Alhaji Inuwa Yahya (69 years when

NOTES

76.

77.

78.

79.

80.

81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88.

147

interviewed; his testimony was recorded at Kano on October 25, 1969), Alhaji Abdullahi Nagudu (72 years when interviewed; his testimony was recorded at Kano on October 25 and December 28, 1969, and June 14, 1970), Alhaji Adamu Bagwanje, (83 years when interviewed; his testimony was recorded at Kano on August 18 and 22, September 10, and November 8, 1969, and June 13, 1970). See also Lovejoy, Caravans of Kola, 75–93. It should be noted that the Kano merchant groups also traded in slaves, ivory, ostrich feathers, hides, skins, and cattle. Of all these, however, they were more renowned for kola trade. The organization and operations of the trading activities of the Agalawa and other powerful merchant groups in the Kano Emirate are epitomized by Madugu Kosai, who will be discussed below. See Lovejoy Collection: Testimonies of Alhaji Inuwa Yahya, Alhaji Abdullahi Nagudu, Alhaji Adamu Bagwanje; Barth, Travels and Discoveries, Vol. 1, 514; and Lovejoy, Caravans of Kola, 91. See Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u (Fanisau, July 13, 1975), Malam Isyaku (Dorayi, Kano, September 17, 1975), and Yusuf Yunusa, “Slavery in Nineteenth Century Kano,” (B. A. Essay, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, 1976), 39–40. Also see Lovejoy Collection: Testimonies of Miko Hamshaki (Kano, September 8, 1969), Alhaji Muhammadu Isa Indole (December 27, 1969, and January 18, 1970), and Lovejoy, Caravans of Kola, 86–93. See Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u, Malam Isyaku, and Yunusa, “Slavery in Nineteenth Century Kano,” 39. Also see Lovejoy Collection: Testimonies of Miko Hamshaki, Alhaji Muhammadu Isa Indole, and Lovejoy, Caravans of Kola, 86–93. Lovejoy Collection: Testimonies of Alhaji Inuwa Yahya, Alhaji Abdullahi Nagudu, Alhaji Adamu Bagwanje, and Lovejoy, Caravans of Kola, 92, largely provide the details on the Kano long distance traders used herein. Mahadi, “State and the Economy,” 489. For discussion on the growth of the administrative machinery in nineteenth century Kano, see Ubah, Government and Administration, 5–30. M. G. Smith, The Economy of Hausa Communities of Zaria (London, H. M. Stationery Office, 1965), 81. The literature on the jihad in Kano includes Ibrahim Ado-Kurawa, The Jihad in Kano (Kano, Kurawa Holdings, 1989) among others already cited. For further details on the Sokoto Caliphate policy, see Last, Sokoto Caliphate, 63–89, and Sulaiman, Challenge of History. See Chapter 4 for a comprehensive definition of ribat. Note that ribat is also referred to as sansani in this study. Smith, Government in Kano, 26–28, among other pages discusses the shifting political boundary of Kasar Kano. David Carl Tambo, “The Sokoto Caliphate Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 9, 2 (1976): 187–217.

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NOTES

89. Ibid., 200–201. 90. Located around the Gobir region of the Sokoto Caliphate. 91. Dantiye, “A Study of the Origins, Status and Defensive Role of Four Kano Frontier Strongholds (Ribats) in the Emirate Period (1809–1903)” (Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1985), 25–26. 92. Ibid., 27. 93. Hamza, “Slavery and Plantation Society,” 137; and Mahadi, “State and the Economy,” 653. 94. Mahadi, “State and the Economy,” 444–547. 95. For further details on this trend, see, for instance, Daniel Pipes, Slave Soldiers and Islam: The Genesis of a Military System (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1981), 62–86. 96. That Kano was politically more stable than in earlier periods and than other emirates in the metropolitan region of the caliphate has been adequately documented elsewhere (see, for instance, R. A. Adeleye, Power and Diplomacy in Northern Nigeria, 1804–1906: The Sokoto Caliphate and its Enemies (New York, Humanities Press, 1971), 37 and 62–69; and Mahadi, “Military and Economic Nerve,” 193–94. Nevertheless, it suffices to note here that as other emirates of the Sokoto Caliphate, Kano was characterized by periodic political instability throughout the nineteenth century. Unlike other emirates like Sokoto, Ilorin, and Katsina, however, Kano, in most cases, better contained the continuous conflicts or even wars that it experienced. Given this fact, it became more secure and this partly fostered the movement of people and capital into the emirate. Of course, this in turn fostered the foundation of estates in Kano. 97. Hamza, “Slavery and Plantation Society,” 130.

Chapter 2 1. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u (Fanisau, July 13, 1975). 2. E. W. Bovill, ed., Missions to the Niger. Volume IV. The Bornu Mission 1822–25, Part III (London, Cambridge University Press, 1966), 646. 3. In essence sansan is another name for ribat. 4. See Abdullahi Mahadi, “State and the Economy: The Sarauta System and It’s Roles in Shaping the Society and Economy of Kano with Particular Reference to the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, 1982), 140–41; and Palmer, “Kano Chronicle,” in Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 38, (1908): 63. It is interesting to note that a colonial administrative record, SNP KAN PRO 1/11/1, 1961–62: Ungogo History, also indicates that Fanisau was already in existence before the nineteenth century. 5. Mohammed Bashir Salau and Yusufu Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Uthman AbdulAzizi (aged 73, when he was interviewed at Fanisau, January 10, 2008).

NOTES

149

6. Palmer, “Kano Chronicle,” 63. Unfortunately, outside this reference to Gambarjado’s residence at Fanisau, we do not know anything more about his biography or activities in the settlement. 7. For such reference, see Yusuf Yunusa, “Slavery in Nineteenth Century Kano,” (B. A. Essay, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, 1976), 55. 8. Bovill, Missions to the Niger, 644. 9. Ruqayyatu Ahmed Rufa’i, Gidan Rumfa: The Kano Palace (Kano, Triumph Publishing, 1995), 4. 10. Dahiru Yahaya, “Crisis and Continuity: Emirship of Kano in an Ideological Society,” paper presented at the Conference on the Role of Traditional Rulers in the Governance of Nigeria, organized by the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, September 11–14, 1984. 11. Thurstan Shaw, Nigeria: Its Archaeology and Early History (London, Thames and Hudson, 1978), 163; Bassey W. Es Andah, “An Archaeological View of the Urbanization Process in the Earliest West African States,” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 8 (1976): 11; and Nasiru Ibrahim Dantiye, “Study of the Origins, Status and Defensive Role of Four Kano Frontier Strongholds (Ribats) in the Emirate Period (1809–1903),” (Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1985), 40. 12. Important works by Al-Maghili on Kano include The Obligation of Princes, trans. T. H. Baldwin (Beirut, Imprimerie Catholique, 1932). 13. Both Fanisau and Panisau are used in Palmer, “Kano Chronicle,” 63 and 77, as well as in other secondary sources, while European travelers who visited Kano during the nineteenth century used variants of these terms in their journals. 14. See B.A.W. Trevallion, Metropolitan Kano Report on Twenty Year Development Plan 1963–1983 (London, Neame,1967). 15. See M. J. Mortimore and J. Wilson, Land and People in the Kano Closed-Settled Zone: A Survey of Some Aspects of Rural Economy in the Ungogo District, Kano Province (Zaria, Ahmadu Bello University Press, 1965); and M. J. Mortimore, “Land and Population Pressure in the Kano Closed Settled Zone, Northern Nigeria,” Advancement of Science (1968): 677–86. 16. Ruqayyatu Ahmed Rufa’i, Gidan Rumfa: The Kano Palace (Kano, Triumph Publishing, 1995), 28. 17. This subecological zone has a radius of about twenty five miles and receives an adequate supply of rainfall for the cultivation of crops and other economic activities. 18. Mahadi, “State and the Economy,” 56–93, not only identifies these ecological zones but also provides a more comprehensive picture of their nature. 19. Adamu Mohammed Fika, The Kano Civil War and British Overrule 1882–1940 (Ibadan, Oxford University Press, 1978), 1. 20. For more details on Fanisau rivers, see Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u and Salau and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Uthman AbdulAzizi. 21. Mortimore and Wilson, Land and People, 23.

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22. Ibid., 1. 23. For further information on the wet season and other geographical conditions in other regions of Nigeria, see R. K. Udo, Geographical Regions of Nigeria (Ibadan, Heinemann, 1971); and K. M. Buchanan and J. C. Pugh, Land and People in Nigeria: The Human Geography of Nigeria and its Environmental Background (London: University of London Press, 1966). 24. Mortimore and Wilson, Land and People, 2–3; and Fika, Kano Civil War, 2. 25. For further details on the soil type, see M. J. Mortimore, “Population Distribution, Settlement and soils in Kano Province, Northern Nigeria, 1931–62,” in John C. Caldwell and Chuka Okonjo, eds., The Population of Tropical Africa (New York, Columbia University Press, 1968), 298–306; Mahadi, “State and the Economy,” 68–77; and Mortimore and Wilson, Land and People, 4. 26. Mortimore and Wilson, Land and People, 4–6. 27. John E. Philips, “Ribats in the Sokoto Caliphate: Selected Studies, 1804–1903,” (Ph.D. dissertation University of California, 1992); and Dantiye, “Kano Frontier Strongholds,” are the two most significant works in this regard. 28. The following account on Dan Tunku derives largely from SNP 7/3834/1912 Kano Province: Kazaure Emirate Assessment Report and KAN N.A 1/11/1, 1961–62: Ungogo History. 29. SNP 7/3834/1912. 30. A major battle of the jihad in Kano fought about 40 kilometers north of Kano city. 31. Located about 84 miles northwest of Kano. 32. Located in present-day Katsina state of Northern Nigeria, Daura is also currently a city, an emirate, and a Local Government Area in the state in question. 33. Ibrahim Ado-Kurawa, The Jihad in Kano (Kano, Kurawa Holdings, 1989), 51. It is important to note that Kazaure is a town in present-day Jigawa State. 34. M. G. Smith, Government in Kano 1350–1950 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1977), 232. 35. Administrative headquarters of Ungogo Local Government Area. 36. Administrative headquarters of Dawakin Kudu Local Government Area. 37. Smith, Government in Kano, 232; Ibrahim Ado-Kurawa, Sullubawan Dabo (Kano, Kurawa Holdings, 1990), 6; and Dantiye, “Kano Frontier Strongholds,” 90–93. 38. Bovill, ed., Missions to the Niger. Vol. IV, 644. 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid., 649–50. This does not, however, mean that the figures provided by Clapperton should be taken at face value. 41. Jamie Bruce Lockhart and Paul E. Lovejoy, eds., Hugh Clapperton into the Interior of Africa Records of Second Expedition 1825–1827 (Leiden, Brill, 2005), 265. 42. Ibid., 274. 43. Damagaram refers to the Zinder region of present-day Niger Republic 44. A major town in present-day Niger Republic. 45. Located in north eastern Nigeria, specifically in the region of present-day Borno State.

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151

46. Located about 20 kilometers south of present day Nigeria’s northern border with Niger. 47. Dantiye, “Kano Frontier Strongholds,” 93. 48. Philips, “Ribats in the Sokoto Caliphate,” 437–45; and Paul E. Lovejoy, “Plantations in the Economy of the Sokoto Caliphate,” Journal of African History 19, 3 (1978): 341–68. 49. Outside the droughts experienced throughout the Kano Emirate in 1847 and 1855, others that occurred in the 1830s, 1863, 1873, 1884, 1889, and 1890 are not acknowledged in any sources to have affected Fanisau. In view of the relative favorable nineteenth-century climatic conditions in the settlement, it is not surprising that estates were established in the region. 50. It should be noted here that both climatic factors and the end of the Atlantic Slave Trade also influenced the growth of private estates in Fanisau. This chapter will say more on these private holdings. 51. For further discussions on increased use of slaves in nineteenth-century Africa, see, for instance, Paul E. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery. A History of Slavery in Africa (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000), 140–64. 52. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. 53. See, for example, Claude Meillassoux, The Anthropology of Slavery: The Womb of Iron and Gold (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1991), 73–77. 54. Before proceeding further, it is important to note that Fanisau and Kano were not involved in warfare all through the nineteenth century. Indeed, outside war periods there were also stable periods experienced in these societies. In the case of Fanisau, however, available records do not allow me to precisely determine the changing situation of the settlement, and this in turn does not allow for a precise explanation of the changes related to the methods of slave and land acquisition there. Regardless of this fact, however, I recognize that the difference in the level of stability experienced in Fanisau and its immediate environs must have had an influence on the method of slave and land acquisition in the settlement as well as in Kano, in general. 55. J. S. Hogendorn, “Slave Acquisition and Delivery in Precolonial Hausaland,” in R. Dumett and B. K. Schwartz, eds., West African Culture Dynamics: Archaeological and Historical Perspective (New York, Mouton Publishers, 1980), 477–93; and Philip Burnham, “Raiders and Traders in Adamawa: Slavery as a Regional System,” in James L. Watson, ed., Asian and African Systems of Slavery (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1980), 43–72. 56. Smith, Government in Kano, 201. 57. Ado-Kurawa, Jihad in Kano, 51. 58. Zariya refers to the Zaria region in present-day Kaduna State. 59. A town in present-day Katsina State. 60. A prominent unit of present-day Tudun Wada Local Government Area of Kano State. 61. Ado-Kurawa, Jihad in Kano, 53.

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62. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u; Salau and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Uthman AbdulAzizi; and Philip, “Ribats in the Sokoto Caliphate,” 430. 63. Damagaram refers to the Zinder region of present-day Niger Republic. 64. Bovill, ed., Missions to the Niger, Vol. IV, 644, 649–50; and cited in Smith, Government in Kano, 232. 65. One of the earlier skirmishes during the reign of Mohammed Bello is also associated with Fanisau as will be highlighted further in the next chapter. 66. Located in the Bichi region of present-day Kano state. 67. Alhaji Muhammadu Nalado, Kano State Jiya Da Yau (Zaria, Jangari Cultural Organisation, 1968), 9–10; C. G. B. Gidley, “Mantanfas-A Study in Oral Tradition,” in African Language Studies VI, (965): 37; Alhaji Abubakar Dokaji, Kano ta Dabo Cigari (Zaria, Gaskiya Corporation, 1958), 69; and SNP KAN PRO 1/11/1. 68. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Mohammadu Rabi’u. 69. Ibid. 70. Ibid.; Smith, Government in Kano, 233–35; and Mohammed Bashir Salau, “Slaves in a Muslim City: A Survey of Slavery in Nineteenth Century Kano,” in Behnaz A. Mirzai, Ismael Musah Montana and Paul E. Lovejoy, eds., Slavery, Islam and Diaspora (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2009), 93. 71. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Mallam Idrisu Dan Maisoro (Hausawa Ward, Kano, August 7, 1975). 72. Suzanne Miers and Igor Kopytoff, eds., Slavery in Africa: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1977), 28. 73. Gwyn Campbell, “Introduction : Slavery and Other Forms of Unfree Labor in the Indian Ocean World,” Slavery and Abolition 24, 2 (2003): xviii. 74. Situated between present day Kano and Bauchi, the Ningi region was then mainly inhabited by stateless people who spoke a variety of Chadic and Plateau languages. 75. For more details on the raids on the Ningi region, see Adell Patton, Jr., “An Islamic Frontier Polity: The Ningi Mountains of Northern Nigeria, 1846–1902,” in The African Frontier, ed. Igor Kopytoff (Bloomington, IN, 1987), 193–213; and M. G. Smith, Government in Kano, 274–77. However, this is not to suggest that Muslims were not also enslaved from the Ningi region. 76. This is not to suggest that all those enslaved through foreign warfare were retained at Fanisau. However, the specific evidence on those introduced into the settlement indicate that a significant number of enslaved prisoners ended up there, even though in most cases temporarily. See also Paul E. Lovejoy, Abdullahi Mahadi, and Mansur Ibrahim Mukhtar, “C. L. Temples ‘Notes on the history of Kano’,” Sudanic Africa: A Journal of Historical Sources 4 (1993): 7–76 for details on the Warji raid cited above. 77. Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Muhammadu Rabi’u (Fanisau, July 13, 1975) and Hamidu Galadiman Shamaki (Fanisau, April 3, 1975). 78. A major town in present-day Niger Republic. 79. Yunusa, “Slavery in the Nineteenth Century Kano,” 1–4; and Smith, Government in Kano, 276–78.

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80. For introductory details on the pattern of the Atlantic voyage to the New World, see, for instance, James Walvin, Slavery and the Slave Trade: A Short Illustrated History (Jackson, University Press of Mississippi, 1983), 40–64. 81. J. S. Hogendorn, “Slave Acquisition and Delivery in Precolonial Hausaland,” 477–93. 82. Located about three-quarters to three miles south of the ancient wall of Kano city. 83. Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Malam Isyaku (Dorayi, Kano, September 17, 1975) and Dan Rimin Kano (Kano city, December 12, 1975, and the 30th day of the same month). 84. Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Dan Rimin Kano and Muhammadu Rabi’u (Fanisau, July 13, 1975). For a discussion on the humusi practice in the Sokoto Caliphate case, see, for instance, Mahdi Adamu, “The Delivery of Slaves from the Central Sudan to the Bight of Benin in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries,” in H. A Gemery and J. S. Hogendorn, eds., The Uncommon Market. Essays in the Economic History of the Atlantic Slave Trade (New York, Academic Press, 1979), 167. 85. See Mahadi, “State and the Economy,” 325–27 for further details on such gifts or gaisuwa. 86. Yunusa, “Slavery in Nineteenth Century Kano,” 56. 87. Ibid., 57. 88. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. 89. For valuable discussions on the natural increase of the U.S. slave population, see Robert W. Fogel, Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery (New York, W. W. Norton, 1989), 123–26; and C. Vann Woodward, American Counterpoint: Slavery and Racism in the North/South Dialogue (Oxford, Oxford University Press,1983), 91. 90. Located in what is now the northeastern region of Nigeria. 91. Located in what is now Niger State in modern Nigeria. 92. Located in what is now the northeastern region of Nigeria. 93. Gonja or Gwanja was the province north of the Asante.Empire. 94. See Abdullahi Mahadi, “State and the Economy,” 628–742, for more details on the role of the state in trade during the nineteenth century. 95. Yunusa, “Slavery in Nineteenth Century Kano,” 10. Although this figure must not be taken at face value, it should be stated that the number of slaves displayed for sale at Kano did not remain constant through time. 96. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Mohammed Rabi’u. 97. Thus, for instance, even at the end of the nineteenth century, emir Kano Aliyu is said to have ensured his effective control of several estates including Fanisau. 98. Neil Skinner, ed. and trans., Alhaji Mahmudu K’oki: Kano Malam (Zaria, Ahmadu Bello University Press, 1977), 54; and Ibrahim Hamza, “Slavery and Plantation Society at Dorayi in Kano Emirate,” in P. E. Lovejoy, ed., Slavery on the Frontiers of Islam (Princeton, NJ., Markus Wiener, 2004), 130. 99. Emir’s main palace in Kano city.

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100. Ferguson, “Imam Imoru,” 215. According to Imam Imoru the trumpet conveys the following message, “ready riders, ready riders!” harama barade, harama barade! And the cymbals were beaten to convey another message, “untie the hobbles, horsemen!” 101. Skinner, Alhaji Mahmudu K’oki, 54. 102. Ibid. 103. Ibid., and Ferguson, “Imam Imoru,” 215. 104. A good example of works that refer to Fanisau as the emir’s summer residence is Chinedu N. Ubah, Government and Administration of Kano Emirate, 1900–1930 (Nsukka, University of Nsukka Press, 1985), 17, footnote 97. 105. Skinner, Alhaji Mahmudu K’oki, 54. 106. In ibid. Mahmudu Koki mentioned that concubines accompanied the emir to Fanisau but was silent about their sexual roles. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Mohammadu Rab’iu; Salau and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Uthman AbdulAzizi, on the other hand, indicates the occurrence of sexual relations between the Kano nobles and concubines at Fanisau. 107. Both Cairo and Tunis are cities located in North Africa. 108. Rudolf Prietze, “Hausa Singers” (Ph.D. dissertation, Universitaet zu Goettingen, 1916), 28. A reader may also wish to read the notes that, to some extent, explain this portion of the song in page 29 of the dissertation. 109. Lockhart and Lovejoy, Hugh Clapperton, 274. 110. Rufa’i, Gidan Rumfa, 28. 111. Smith, Government in Kano, 316; and Murray Last, The Sokoto Caliphate (London, Longman, 1967), 202–3. 112. Ibid. 113. Lockhart and Lovejoy, Hugh Clapperton, 269. 114. Bovill, ed., Missions to the Niger, Vol. IV, 644. 115. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Mohammed Rabi’u. 116. Bovill, ed., Missions to the Niger. Vol. IV, 645. 117. Mahadi, “State and the Economy,” 649. 118. For details on Lander’s visit, see his journal in H. Clapperton’s Journal of Second Expedition into the Interior of Africa from the Bight of Benin to Socaccatoo (London, Frank Cass, 1966), 287. 119. Lockhart and Lovejoy, Hugh Clapperton, 269. 120. Ibid. 121. Ibid., 270. 122. For details on the presentation of gifts to rulers in the region known as the Sokoto Caliphate in general, see Louis Brenner, “The North African Trading Community in the Nineteenth-Century Central Sudan,” in Aspects of West African Islam, edited by D. F. McCall and N. R. Benett (Boston: Boston University Press, 1971), 141. However, although there is no acknowledged example at Fanisau, the emirs in Hausaland also present gifts to important foreigners. 123. Bovill, ed., Missions to the Niger. Vol. IV, 644.

NOTES

155

124. Ibid. 125. Lockhart and Lovejoy, Hugh Clapperton, 269. 126. None of the extant source materials suggests this but it is clear that these freeborn top state officials had residences at Fanisau. 127. For further details on the administration of Kano districts and ribats, see, for instance, Ubah, Government and Administration, 17–20; and Dantiye, “Kano Frontier Strongholds,” 117–82. 128. Sean A. Stilwell, “The Kano Mamluks: Royal Slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate, 1807–1903” (Ph.D. dissertation, York University, 1999), 113. 129. Ibid., 136. 130. Ibid., 107–8. 131. Stilwell, “Kano Mamluks”; and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. 132. Ubah, Government and Administration, 17; and testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u and Sarkin Yaki (Kurawa ward on December 30, 1975). 133. Ubah, Government and Administration, 17. 134. Philips, “Ribats in the Sokoto Caliphate,” 437–45. 135. Ibid., 322; and his “Slavery in Two Ribats in Kano and Sokoto,” in P. E. Lovejoy, ed., Slavery on the Frontiers of Islam (Princeton, NJ., Markus Wiener, 2004), 111–12. 136. Philips, “Ribats in the Sokoto Caliphate,” 322–23, and his “Slavery in Two Ribats in Kano and Sokoto,” 111. 137. For more details on the land tenure policy in the Sokoto Caliphate in general, see, for instance, Ibrahim Muhammad Jumare, “Land Tenure in the Sokoto Sultanate of Nigeria,” (Ph.D. dissertation, York University, 1995); Last, Sokoto Caliphate, 77; and Hussaina J. Abdullahi and Ibrahim Hamza, “Women and Land in Northern Nigeria: The Need for Independent Ownership Rights,” in L. Muthoni Wanyeki, ed., Women and Land in Africa: Culture, Religion and Realizing Women’s Rights (London, Zed Books, 2003), 145–47. See also the next chapter’s further discussion on chaffa and humusi as they relate to Fanisau. However, it should be mentioned that the land policy in the Sokoto Caliphate in general was also tied to making land accessible for purposes of building ribats and estates. Indeed, this was what partly influenced the formation of such features in Fanisau. 138. That Kosai settled there before that date is also suggested by Mohammed Bashir Salau and Yusufu Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Sani Kanyan Amana (aged 105, when he was interviewed at Zango Uku, January 10, 2008). 139. For further discussion on land confiscation in nineteenth century Kano, see Mahadi, “State and the Economy,” 459; and Paul E. Lovejoy, “Alhaji Ahmad el-Fellati ibn Dauda ibn Muhammad Manga: Personal Malam to Emir Muhammad Bello of Kano.” (forthcoming). 140. Lovejoy, “Alhaji Ahmad el-Fellati.” 141. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. 142. Ibid. 143. Salau and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Sani Kanyan Amana.

156 144. 145. 146. 147. 148. 149. 150. 151. 152. 153. 154. 155. 156. 157.

158. 159.

160. 161. 162. 163. 164.

165. 166.

167.

168. 169.

NOTES

Salau and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Uthman AbdulAzizi. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. Ibid. Hamza, “Slavery and Plantation Society,” 133. Ibid. Ibid. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. Hamza, “Slavery and Plantation Society,” 133. Ibid. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Hamidu Galadiman Shamaki. Salau and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Uthman AbdulAzizi. Salau and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Sani Kanyan Amana. Of course, this included meeting the increasing demand of the industrial sector in the Kano Emirate. For good discussions on absentee estate holders in non-African contexts, see, for example, Richard S. Dunn, Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624–1713 (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1972); and Lowell Joseph Ragatz, The Fall of the Planter Class in the British Caribbean, 1763–1833: A Study in Social and Economic History (New York, Century,1928). It is probable that Kosai established his estate at Fanisau even before he became a caravan leader in the 1890s. Lovejoy Collection: Testimonies of Miko Hamshaki (Kano, September 8, 1969), Alhaji Ibrahim (Kazaure, April 21, 1970), and Alhaji Bagwanje (Kano, August 18 and 22, September 10, November 8, 1969, and June 13, 1970). Lovejoy Collection: Testimony of Miko Hamshaki. Lovejoy Collection: Testimonies of Alhaji Ibrahim, Miko Hamshaki, and Alhaji Muhammadu Isa Indole (December 27, 1969, and January 18, 1970). Lovejoy Collection: Testimony of Alhaji Ibrahim. Ibid. For further details on the compounds of Kano rich men, see Lovejoy Collection: Testimonies of Alhaji Ibrahim, Bako Madigawa (Madigawa Ward, Kano, December 1, 1969), Alhaji Muhammadu Isa Indole, and Alhaji Audu Ba’are (Kano, January 1, 1970). Lovejoy Collection: Testimonies of Alhaji Ibrahim, and Miko Hamshaki. Inferred from Lovejoy Collection: Testimonies of Miko Hamshaki and Alhaji Ibrahim. In fact, according to Sani Kanyan Amana, Kosai had four wives, but usually had two of them based permanently at his Kano residence. For further details on the use of malams by caravan leaders, see Lovejoy Collection: Testimonies of Miko Hamshaki, Alhaji Muhammadu Isa Indole, and Malam Musa Husaini (35 years when interviewed at Kano on December 26, 1969). Such open fields as well as caravan stopovers were known as zango. Lovejoy Collection: Testimony of Miko Hamshaki.

NOTES

157

170. Zango here refers to the rest stop at Rimin Azbinawa. 171. Lovejoy Collection: Testimony of Miko Hamshaki. 172. According to oral sources, these were the popular destinations of Kano-based caravans during the nineteenth century. However, unlike other madugai who operated together to get to these destinations, Kosai singularly led his caravan to these locations. This does not, however, mean that he did not have assistants, as the following discussion will elaborate. 173. For further details on the character of the Kosai-led caravan and other such units, see, for instance, Lovejoy Collection: Testimonies of Miko Hamshaki, Bako Madigawa, Alhaji Muhammadu Isa Indole, and Mallam Muhammad Kasari (Madigawa ward, Kano, December, 24, 1969). 174. Lovejoy Collection: Testimony of Miko Hamshaki. 175. Salau and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Sani Kanyan Amana. 176. See, for instance, Lovejoy Collection: Testimony of Alhaji Inuwa Yahya (Kano, October 25, 1969), Miko Hamshaki, and Bako Madigawa. 177. Lovejoy Collection: Testimony of Miko Hamshaki. 178. For details on responsibilities of Madugai, see Lovejoy Collection: Testimonies of Miko Hamshaki, Bako Madigawa, and Alhaji Muhammadu Isa Indole. 179. As Madugu, Kosai was ultimately the caravan leader, but, as others in his capacity, he normally remained at the rear of the group while the Jagaba led the expedition at the front. 180. Lovejoy Collection: Testimony of Miko Hamshaki. 181. This is not to suggest that some of the items bought at Asante by Kano merchants were not purchased from the non-Hausa peoples there. However, oral data seems to suggest that this constituted a relatively small portion of the total goods derived by the Kano merchants. 182. Lovejoy Collection: Testimonies of Miko Hamshaki. 183. For further details on these trade goods and their sources, see, for instance, Lovejoy Collection: Testimonies of Bako Madigawa and Miko Hamshaki. 184. Lovejoy Collection: Testimony of Miko Hamshaki. 185. Ibid. 186. Ibid. 187. Ibid. 188. See Chapter 1 for further details on this connection. 189. Refer Lovejoy Collection: Testimony of Miko Hamshaki; Salau and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Uthman AbdulAzizi; and Salau and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Sani Kanyan Amana for the names of Kosai’s children. 190. Lovejoy Collection: Testimony of Miko Hamshaki; and Salau and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Sani Kanyan Amana. 191. Lovejoy Collection: Testimony of Miko Hamshaki. 192. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. 193. Yunusa, “Slavery in Nineteenth Century Kano,” 56; and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. It is important to note here that Gogel was located about 7 miles east-south-east of Kano city at a region known as Dawakin ta Kudu.

158

NOTES

194. Abdulrazaq Giginyu Sa’idu, “History of a Slave Village in Kano: Gandun Nassarawa,” (B. A. Essay, Bayero University Kano, 1981). Meanwhile, it is necessary to note Gandun Nassarawa was located about 8 kilometers from Kano city center, and that the number of slaves at that estate, as in the emir’s estates in Fanisau probably fluctuated during the nineteenth century. In spite of this probability, available sources still confirm the vastness of the royal estates in Fanisau during this same period. 195. Mahadi, “State and the Economy,” 241. 196. Smith, Government in Kano, 58, confirms that not all plantations that subsisted during the nineteenth century were inherited. 197. In fact Salau and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Sani Kanyan Amana suggests that when slave children were added during his precolonial stay in the settlement, the total number of slaves owned by Kosai was about 100. As at the royal estates, however, the number of slaves must have fluctuated in such private estates during the nineteenth century. 198. Mahadi, “State and the Economy,” 461. 199. Dantiye, “Kano Frontier Strongholds,” 27. 200. Heinreich Barth, Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa Being a Journal of an Expedition Undertaken Under the Auspices of H. B. M’S Government in the Years 1849–1855, Vol. 1, (London, Frank Cass, 1965), 609. 201. H. L. B. Moody, The Walls and Gates of Kano City (Lagos, Department of Antiquities, Federal Republic of Nigeria,1969), 43. 202. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Mohammed Rabi’u. 203. Ibid. 204. Bovill, ed., Missions to the Niger. Vol. IV, 644. 205. Dantiye, “Kano Frontier Strongholds,” 28. 206. Moody, Walls and Gates, 55. 207. Rufa’i, Gidan Rumfa, 29; and Bovill, ed., Missions to the Niger. Vol. IV, 644. 208. Rufa’i, Gidan Rumfa, 28–32. 209. Bovill, ed., Missions to the Niger. Vol. IV, 645. 210. Rufa’i, Gidan Rumfa, 29. 211. Ibid. 212. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammed Rabi’u. 213. Ibid., and Salau and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Uthman AbdulAzizi. 214. Philips, “Ribats in the Sokoto Caliphate,” 279. 215. Salau and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Sani Kanyan Amana. According to this informant, the government, sometimes after the nineteenth century, relocated people of the Kanyan Amana community to Zango Uku.

Chapter 3 1. For an example of slaves serving as overseers in another Islamic context outside Fanisau and the Sokoto Caliphate, see, for instance, Frederick Cooper,

NOTES

2. 3.

4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

11.

12. 13.

14.

15. 16.

17. 18.

159

Plantation Slavery on the East Coast of Africa (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1977), 169–70. Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Hamidu Galadiman Shamaki (Fanisau, April 4, 1975) and Muhammadu Rabi’u (Fanisau, July 13, 1975). Sean Stilwell, Paradoxes of Power: The Kano “Mamluks” and Male Royal Slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate, 1804–1903 (Portsmouth, N.H., Heinemann, 2004), 109 and Chapter 4 Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. The galadiman shamaki was usually dressed in a gown. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. As any slave official, an incompetent galadiman shamaki could be replaced by the emir or could be given even more serious punishment. Yusuf Yunusa, “Slavery in Nineteenth th Century Kano,” (B. A. Essay, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, 1976) 57. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. Ibid., and Gwadabe Maidawaki Dogari (aged 54, when he was interviewed at the emir’s palace in Kano, July 11, 1975). Maidawaki Dogari was one of the emir’s bodyguards and a royal slave descendant. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. Obviously, the galadiman shamaki could also face the emir’s wrath if estate activities were not going right, and this also partly explains his actions here. D. E. Ferguson, “Nineteenth Century Hausaland. Being a Description by Imam Imoru of the Land, Economy and Society of his People” (Ph.D. dissertation University of California, Los Angeles, 1973), 213. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Hamidu Galadiman Shamaki and Muhammadu Rabi’u. Other slaves, apart from the galadiman shamaki, permanently inhabited the palace at Fanisau. These slaves included concubines and eunuchs and they performed several duties within the household. Some of them held titles, which were subordinate to that of the galadiman shamaki. For instance, according to oral data, there was a sarkin gida resident at the Fanisau palace during the nineteenth century. This and other discussions on the responsibilities of the galadiman shamaki are primarily based on the Yunusa Collection, especially the testimonies of Hamidu Galadiman Shamaki and Muhammadu Rabi’u. Stilwell, “Kano Mamluks,” 295. For a discussion on slave soldiers elsewhere, see Daniel Pipes, Slave Soldiers and Islam: The Genesis of a Military System (New Haven and London, Yale University Press,1981); and Peter Wood, Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion (New York, Alfred Knopf, 1974), 125–26. Cooper, East Coast of Africa, 190–93. Testimony of Sallaman Kano (Emir’s Palace, Kano, September 20, 1975) and Muhammadu Rabi’u.

160

NOTES

19. Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. 20. Ibid. 21. Ferguson, “Imam Imoru,” 286. Also see Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Sallaman Kano and Malam Abdullahi Adamu (aged 43 years when he was interviewed at Diso ward in Kano city, August 3, 1975). Between 1957 and 1961, Adamu was a Ningi title holder. However, he was a civil servant based in Kano at the time of the interview. 22. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u; and Salau and Yunusa Collection:Testimony of Sani Kanyan Amana (Zango Uku January 11, 2008). 23. Ibid. 24. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Sallaman Kano. See also Yunusa, “Slavery in Nineteenth Century Kano,” 58. 25. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. It is apparent that such collective farm work involving free people is locally known as gayya. For more discussion on gayya, see pages 123–25 below. Meanwhile, it is worth stressing that free men in Fanisau comprised only the ex-slaves and free butchers mentioned earlier. It is apparent that free butchers in the settlement were barori or clients of the emir while ex-slaves often remained with their former masters, often in the latters’ households. Ex-slaves could be engaged in different types of occupation, including trading. However, most of them continued to depend on their former masters for access to land, which they cultivated to make a living. 26. “Authorities” here refers to the relevant privileged slaves, either based in Fanisau or in the Kano royal palace, who, among other responsibilities, often passed on orders from the emir to the rest of the population and often passed on messages from the emir’s slaves in Fanisau to their superiors. 27. Claude Meillassoux, Anthropology of Slavery, trans. by Alide Desnois (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1991), 9–10. 28. Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Muhammadu Rabi’u and Gwadabe Maidawaki Dogari. 29. Abdulrazaq Giginyu Sa’idu, “History of a Slave Village in Kano: Gandun Nassarawa,” (B. A. Essay, Bayero University Kano, 1981), 38. See also Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Muhammadu Rabi’u, Gwadabe Maidawaki Dogari, and Muhammadu Sarkin Yaki Dogari (Kurawa Ward, Kano, September 28, 1975). 30. Ferguson, “Imam Imoru,” 330. 31. Yunusa, “Slavery in the 19th Century,” 23–24. See also Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Muhammadu Sarkin Yaki Dogari and Sallaman Kano (aged 55, when he was interviewed at the emir’s palace, September 20, 1975). Sallaman Kano was resident at the palace and responsible for the royal holdings at Giwaram and Gogel. 32. Northern Nigerian Annual Report, 1902, 29, as quoted in F. L. Lugard, The Dual Mandate in Tropical Africa (Edinburgh and London, William Blackwood, 1922), 99 fn. 33. Ibid., 199.

NOTES

161

34. Yunusa, “Slavery in the 19th Century,” 23–24. See also Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Muhammadu Sarkin Yaki Dogari and Sallaman Kano. 35. Yunusa, “Slavery in Nineteenth Century Kano,” 60. See also Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Hamidu Galadiman Shamaki, Muhammadu Rabi’u, and Sallaman Kano. 36. Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Muhammadu Rabi’u and Gwadabe Maidawaki Dogari. 37. Salau and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Sani Kanyan Amana. 38. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. 39. Ibid. and Salau and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Sani Kanyan Amana. 40. Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Sallaman Kano, Muhammadu Rabi’u, and Alhaji Yunusa Mikail (Tudunwada ward, Kano, August 2, 1975). 41. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. 42. Ferguson, “Imam Imoru,” 66. 43. Ibid., 69. 44. Yunusa, “Slavery in Nineteenth th Century Kano,” 58. 45. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. 46. For discussion on work schedule in sugar estates, for instance, see Richard S. Dunn, Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624–1713 (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1972). 47. See, for instance, Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u; and Salau and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Sani Kanyan Amana. 48. NAK, SNP 6/4 C. 111/1908, W. P. Hewby, Report on Kano Emirate, July 10, 1908, Festing report. 49. For further details on the taxation in the Kano Emirate, see, for instance, Tijani Garba, “Taxation in Some Hausa Emirates, c. 1860–1939” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Birmingham, 1986); and J. S. Hogendorn and Paul E. Lovejoy, Slow Death for Slavery. The Course of Abolition in Northern Nigeria, 1897–1936 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993), 128–29. 50. NAK, SNP 6/4 C. 111/1908, W. P. Hewby, Report on Kano Emirate, July 10, 1908, Festing report. 51. The recognition of such rights depended, however, upon the payment of a special tax known as jizya. 52. Hogendorn and Lovejoy, Slow Death for Slavery, 128. 53. NAK, SNP 6/4 C. 111/1908, W. P. Hewby, Report on Kano Emirate, July 10, 1908, Festing report, and also indicated in Hogendorn and Lovejoy, Slow Death for Slavery, 162–72. 54. Salau and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Sani Kanyan Amana. 55. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. 56. Heidi J. Nast, Concubines and Power: Five Hundred Years in a Northern Nigerian Palace (Minneapolis/London, University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 122–23. Other works by Nast that examine the Kano palace include “Space, History, and Power: Stories of Spatial and Social Change in the Palace of Kano, Northern Nigeria, circa 1500 to 1990” (Ph.D. dissertation, McGill University, 1992); “Engendering ‘Space’: State Formation and the Restructuring of the

162

57.

58.

59.

60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66.

67.

68.

NOTES

Kano Palace Following the Islamic Holy War in Northern Nigeria, 1807–1903,” Historical Geography 23 (1993): 62–75; “The Impact of British Imperialism on the Landscape of Female Slavery in the Kano Palace, Northern Nigeria,” Africa 64, 1 (1994): 34–73; and “Islam, Gender, and Slavery in West Africa circa 1500: A Spatial Archaeology of the Kano Palace, Northern Nigeria,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 86, 1 (1996): 44–77. Ibrahim Aliyu Kwaru, “Waziri Allah Bar Sarki, 1865–1917: A Neglected Personality in the Political History of Kano” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Usmanu Danfoddiyo University, Sokoto, 1991), 48 and 54. Kwaru (“Waziri Allah Bar Sarki,” 48) identifies the Fanisau ward within the Gidan Rumfa. The author, however, on page 55 of the same study, mentions that the ward in question was no longer there by 1991, probably “because certain sections have been pulled down in the course of raising modern infrastructures such as the clinic which did not exist in the 19th century.” Kwaru might be right, however, the phasing out of the ward also indicates the relatively insignificant position of the main Fanisau community in Kano today. For further details on transportation in the Kano Emirate and Sokoto Caliphate in general, see M. B. Duffill and P. E. Lovejoy, “Merchants, Porters, and Teamsters in the Nineteenth-Century Central Sudan,” in Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch and P. E. Lovejoy, eds., The Workers of African Trade (Beverly Hills, Sage, 1985) 137–68. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. C. K. Meek, The Northern Tribes of Nigeria, vol. 1 (London, Oxford University Press,1925), 21. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. This is not to suggest that the conveyance of goods to the palace at Kano was always crisis free. See the next chapter for further details on murgu and fansar kai. For further insight on this issue, see Duffill and Lovejoy, “Merchants, Porters, and Teamsters,” 152. Abdullahi Mahadi, “The State and the Economy: The Sarauta System and It’s Roles in Shaping the Society and Economy of Kano with Particular Reference to the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries” (Ph.D. dissertation, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, 1982), 496. A. G. Hopkins, An Economic History of West Africa (New York, Columbia University Press,1973), 76–77; and Abdullahi Mahadi and Joseph E. Inikori, “Population and Capitalist Development in Precolonial West Africa: Kasar Kano in the Nineteenth Century,” in Dennis D. Cordell and Joel W. Gregory, eds., African Population and Capitalism. Historical Perspectives (Boulder and London, Westview Press, 1987), 62–75 discuss how market development was undermined in West Africa and in the Kano Emirate, respectively, as a result of the low purchasing power of slaves and other factors. On the question of agricultural potential surplus in the savanna areas of Africa, where Fanisau is also located, Martin Klein in a paper presented at Rio argues that

NOTES

163

“a hard-working and healthy man could produce in a good year enough grain to feed three or four persons for a year—but those are serious conditions.” Martin Klein, “Was American Slavery Unique?” paper presented at Confronting Slavery: Towards a Dialogue of Cultural Understanding conference, Academia Brasileira de Letras, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, November 22–25, 2007. 69. Ibid.

Chapter 4 1. For a discussion of rewards and incentives in other slave systems, see Frederick Cooper, Plantation Slavery on the East Coast of Africa (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1977), 213–52; and E. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York, Pantheon, 1974), especially books 2 and 3 therein. 2. Klein suggests that in the Western Sudan, there is manumission, though probably less than in Asante or the Ottoman empire, but there is a normal progression from gang labour to a status in which slaves work for themselves in exchange for an annual payment. Thus, they are essentially serfs or sharecroppers. 3. For a critique of Meillassoux’s relevant argument as advanced in his Anthropology of Slavery, see, for instance, Gwyn Campbell, “Introduction: Slavery and other forms of Unfree Labor in the Indian Ocean World,” Slavery and Abolition, 24, 2 (2003): xxi–xxiii. 4. For a good discussion on such issues as how planters in the antebellum South and northeastern Brazil interacted with their slaves, see, for instance, Genovese, World the Slaves Made, 21–102; and Stuart B. Schwartz, “Patterns of Slaveholdings in the Americas: New Evidence from Brazil,” American Historical Review 87, 1 (1982): 55–86; and Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, American Negro Slavery (New York, D. Appleton and Company, 1918). 5. D. E. Ferguson, “Nineteenth Century Hausaland. Being a Description by Imam Imoru of the Land, Economy and Society of his People,” (Ph.D. dissertation University of California, Los Angeles, 1973), 286. Also see Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Hamidu Galadiman Shamaki (Fanisau, April 3, 1975). 6. Kabiru S. Chafe, State and Economy in the Sokoto Caliphate (Zaria, Ahmadu Bello University Press, 1999), 173. 7. Ferguson, “Imam Imoru,” 286. Also see Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Hamidu Galadiman Shamaki. 8. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u (Fanisau, July 13, 1975). 9. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of M. Muhammadu Bakin Zuwo (Bakin Zuwo ward, Kano, October 9, 1975). Also accounts of, Muhammadu Rabi’u indicate that the emir’s slaves were engaged in these acts. 10. Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Gwadabe Maidawaki Dogari (Emir’s Palace, Kano, July 11, 1975) and of Muhammadu Rabi’u.

164

NOTES

11. Abdulrazak Giginyu Sa’idu, “History of a Slave Village in Kano: Gandun Nassarawa,” (B. A. Essay, Bayero University Kano, 1981), 130. 12. Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Muhammadu Rabi’u and of Alhaji Garba Sarkin Gida (aged 50 years when he was interviewed at Gandun Nassarawa in the Kano Emirate, September 14, 1975). Garba was a slave descendant and was supervising activities at the emir’s residence in the Nassarawa ward of Kano city. 13. Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (London, Oxford University Press, 1964), 127. See also Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Sani Shu’aibu (aged 36 years when he was interviewed at Hausawa ward in Kano city, August 22, 1975). Shu’aibu taught Arabic and Islamic religious studies while he was also a court official. 14. Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of M. Muhammadu Bakin Zuwo, Muhamadu Rabi’u, and of Sallaman Kano (Emir’s Palace, Kano, September 20, 1975). 15. M. G. Smith, “Slavery and Emancipation in Two Societies,” Social and Economic Studies, 3, 3–4 (1954): 126. 16. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. 17. Yusufu Yunusa, “Slavery in Nineteenth Century Kano,” (B. A. Essay, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, 1976), 27. 18. According to oral data, slaves used to visit Kano city during public holidays, but they had to get the approval of the gandu or galadiman shamaki to do so. 19. Ferguson, “Imam Imoru,” 180. 20. Yunusa collection: Interview with M. Muhammadu Bakin Zuwo. 21. Abdullahi Mahadi, “The State and the Economy: The Sarauta System and its Roles in Shaping the Society and Economy of Kano with Particular Reference to the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, 1982), 424. 22. Yunusa collection: Interview with Rabi’u. However, Idrisu (aged 77 years when he was interviewed by Yunusa at Hausawa Ward Kano, August 7, 1975) corroborates this fact in a separate interview thus: “When anyone purchased a slave, that person usually charmed the slave. When the slave tries to escape and goes westward, he sees that he has no where to go. If he goes south, he cannot go anywhere. So also northwards. Allah will make his intellect to be of no use and as such he will not be able to go anywhere. There is a spell cast upon the slave, which makes him unable to run away. Anywhere he goes to, he eventually returns home.” 23. For details on the use of charms in Fanisau and elsewhere in the Kano Emirate, see Salau, “Slaves in a Muslim City: A Survey of Slavery in Nineteenth Century Kano,” in Behnaz A. Mirzai, Ismael Musah Montana, and Paul E. Lovejoy, eds., Slavery, Islam and Diaspora (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2009), 98. Also see Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Alhaji Wada (aged 60 years when he was interviewed at Shahuci ward in Kano City, July 18, 1975) and of M. Idrisu Dan Maisoro (Hausawa Ward, Kano, August 7, 1975).

NOTES

165

24. Some slaves had facial marks before arriving at Fanisau, however. The young ones were given marks only at the settlement. For further details, see Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Alhaji Yunusa Mikail (Tudunwada Ward, Kano, August 2, 1975) and Mallam Abdullahi Adamu Ningi (43 years old when interviewed at Diso ward, Kano, August 3, 1975). 25. Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of M. Muhammadu Bakin Zuwo, Gwadabe Maidawaki Dogari, and Muhammadu Rabi’u. See also Yunusa, “Slavery in Nineteenth Century Kano,” 16–18. 26. A. J. N. Tremearne, Hausa Superstitions and Customs: An Introduction to the Folk-Lore and the Folk (London, Frank Cass, 1970), 181–82; and Yunusa, “Slavery in Nineteenth Century Kano,” 16–17. 27. Yunusa, “Slavery in Nineteenth Century Kano,” 17. 28. Ibrahim Hamza, “Slavery and Plantation Society at Dorayi in Kano Emirate,” in P. E. Lovejoy, ed., Slavery on the Frontiers of Islam (Princeton, NJ., Markus Wiener, 2004), 137–38. It should be noted that Hamza only refers to the term Gwarawa, but Warjawa and other such ethnic categories were also used. 29. Salau and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Sani Kanyan Amana (Zango Uku, January 11, 2008). 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid. 32. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. 33. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Mallam Abdullahi Adamu Ningi; and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. 34. For a discussion on the place of slave children in other slave systems, see, for instance, Martin Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule in French West Africa (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998), 10–11. 35. See ibid. for a discussion on the relationship between child labor and natality in Western Sudan. 36. Salau and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Sani Kanyan Amana. 37. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. 38. See M. G. Smith, Government in Kano 1350–1950 (Boulder, CO, Westview Press, 1977), 36; and Yunusa, “Slavery in Nineteenth Century Kano,” 25. In fact, Salau and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Sani Kanyan Amana specifically indicates that slaves employed in private estates, irrespective of their roles, did not have more than one wife. Masters, like Kosai, evidently discouraged their males from having more than one wife. 39. Salau and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Uthman AbdulAzizi (Fanisau, January 11, 2008). 40. Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Muhammadu Rabi’u and Gwadabe Maidawaki Dogari. 41. Yusuf Yunusa and Mohammed Bashir Salau Collection: Testimony of Uthman AbdulAzizi (Fanisau, January 11, 2008). 42. Other works that throw light on the nature of slave marriage in the Kano Emirate include Hamza, “Slavery and Plantation Society at Dorayi,” 140; Joseph Greenberg, The Influence of Islam on a Sudanese Religion (Seattle and

166

43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48.

49.

50.

51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61.

62.

63.

NOTES

London, University of Washington Press, 1966), 130–33; and Yunusa, “Slavery in Nineteenth Century Kano,” 25–26. Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Alhaji Garba Sarkin Gida and Gwadabe Maidawaki Dogari. See also Greenberg, Influence of Islam, Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Muhammadu Rabi’u and Gwadabe Maidawaki Dogari. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Hamidu Galadiman Shamaki, Alhaji Garba Sarkin Gida, and Muhammadu Rabi’u recorded July 13, 1975. Cooper, East Coast of Africa, 195. For more discussion on the institution of concubinage in the Sokoto Caliphate, see Ferguson, “Imam Imoru,” 231; Sa’idu, “Gandun Nassarawa,” 130–31; Yunusa, “Slavery in Nineteenth Century Kano,” 28; and Paul E. Lovejoy, “Concubinage in the Sokoto Caliphate,” Slavery and Abolition 21, 2 (1990): 159–89. Salau and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Sani Kanyan Amana (Zango Uku, January 11, 2008) indicates that Kosai maintained a concubine in Fanisau. Neil Skinner, ed. and trans., Alhaji Mahmudu Koki: Kano Malam (Zaria, Ahmadu Bello University Press, 1977), 54. See also Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Muhammadu Rabi’u and Hamidu Galadiman Shamaki. Mahadi, “State and Economy,” 466. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Alhaji Wada (Shahuchi, Kano, July 18, 1975). See also Ferguson, “Imam Imoru,” 231. Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Alhaji Wada and Hamidu Galadiman Shamaki. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Hamidu Galadiman Shamaki. Lovejoy, “Concubinage,” 168–69. Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Hamidu Galadiman Shamaki and Muhammadu Rabi’u. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. Ibid. Ibid. Salau and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Uthman AbdulAzizi. Ibrahim Muhammad Jumare, “Kwarkwara (Concubinage): A Persistent Phenomenon of Slavery in the Centre of the ‘Sokoto Caliphate,’” Seminar paper, Department of History, Usumanu Danfodiyo University, 1988; and Lovejoy “Concubinage,” 175–76. For a good discussion on self-supporting activities of slaves in other contexts, see, for instance, Peter Kolchin, “Reevaluating the Antebellum Slave Community: A Comparative Perspective,” Journal of American History 70, 3 (1983): 588–92; Sidney W. Mintz, “Was the Plantation Slave a Proletarian?” Review 2 (1978): 92–96; and Gwendolyn Mildo Hall, Social Control in Slave Plantation Societies: A Comparison of St. Domingue and Cuba (Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1971), 66–68. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u.

NOTES

167

64. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Hamidu Galadiman Shamaki. 65. See Chapter 3. 66. Salau and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Sani Kanyan Amana. Indicates that slaves in private holdings, as those in Kanyan Amana, never took part in warfare. 67. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. 68. Technically, however, the horse given to the brave slave as reward remained the emir’s property. He could, therefore, reclaim the horse whenever he wished. 69. Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Muhammadu Sarkin Yaki Dogari (Kurawa Ward, Kano, September 28, 1975), Sallaman Kano, and Muhammadu Rabi’u. 70. For a discussion on weaving by slaves in Western Sudan, for instance, see Richard L. Roberts, Warriors, Merchants and Slaves: The State and the Economy in the Middle Niger Valley, 1700–1914 (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1987), 125–26; and Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule, 7. 71. Salau and Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Uthman AbdulAzizi and Sani Kanyan Amana. 72. Salau and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Sani Kanyan Amana. 73. Colleen Kriger, “Textile Production and Gender in the Sokoto Caliphate,” in Journal of African History 34, 3 (1993): 361–401. 74. Jan S. Hogendorn, “Economics of Slave Use on Two ‘Plantations’ in the Zaria Emirate of the Sokoto Caliphate,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 10 (1977): 377. Also see Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Malam Abdullahi Adamu Ningi. 75. For a discussion of the etymology of this concept, see Paul E. Lovejoy, “Murgu: The Wages of Slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate,” Slavery and Abolition 14 (1993): 168–85. 76. It must be mentioned that the arrangements were not necessarily limited to the dry season. The duration of the agreement varied from a very brief period to a lengthy one. 77. Cooper, East Coast of Africa, 189. 78. For the relevant discussion on the Western Sudan, see Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule, 6–7; and Claude Meillassoux, Anthropology of Slavery, trans. Alide Dasnois (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1991), 118–19. 79. Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule, 6. 80. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. 81. Ferguson, “Imam Imoru,” 230. 82. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of M. Muhammadu Bakin Zuwo. He was a Muslim scholar at that date. 83. Ferguson,” Imam Imoru,” 230. 84. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. It is significant to note at this point that various writers suggest that the worth of the cowrie varied during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For instance, in David Carl Tambo’s “Sokoto Caliphate Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century,”

168

85.

86. 87.

88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100.

101. 102. 103. 104. 105.

106.

NOTES

International Journal of African Historical Studies 9, 2 (1976): 191, Tambo suggests that by 1820 an exchange rate of 2000 cowries to the silver dollars was in effect while the rate was 5000 cowries to the dollar from the mid1860s to the end of the century. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Malam Bawa (aged 102 years when he was interviewed at Dambazau Ward in the Kano Emirate, July 31, 1975). Based on his age, his knowledge of slavery in the emirate was remarkable. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. According to oral data (for instance, Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Mallam Abdullahi Adamu Ningi), the slaves engaged at the gandun sarki were not eligible for fansar kai. Ferguson, “Imam Imoru,” 231–32. Ibid. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Alhaji Yunusa Mikail. Ferguson, “Imam Imoru,” 232. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u and Sarki Yaki (Kurawa Ward, Kano, December 30, 1975). Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. Lovejoy, “Slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate,” 235–36. W. Arafat, “The Attitude of Islam to Slavery,” The Islamic Quarterly 10 (1966): 14. Ferguson, “Imam Imoru,” 231. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u and Alhaji Yunusa Mikail. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Malam Bawa and Muhammadu Rabi’u. See, for instance, Ferguson, “Imam Imoru,” 232. The fact that slaves and their descendants remained at the gandun sarki, for instance, illustrates this point. See also Salau and Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Sani Kanyan Amana. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. Lovejoy, “Slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate,” in his The Ideology of Slavery in Africa, (Beverly Hills, Sage, 1981), 235; and Ferguson, “Imam Imoru,” 232. Ferguson, “Imam Imoru,” 232. See, for instance, Cooper, East African Coast, 252. Individual slaves must have resisted conversion to Islam and were either executed or exported. In the face of such realities (and other forms of coercion) as well as the possibility of mobility, however, accommodation must have seemed preferable to most slaves. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Gwadabe Maidawaki Dogari.

Chapter 5 1. For further discussion agricultural developments in colonial Northern Nigeria, see, for instance, Robert Shenton, The Development of Capitalism in Northern

NOTES

2.

3. 4.

5.

6.

7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 13.

169

Nigeria (London and Toronto; James Currey and University of Toronto, 1986); and Michael Watts, Silent Violence: Food, Famine and Peasantry in Northern Nigeria (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1983). Many of the slave-control strategies described in previous chapters were, as hinted later in this chapter, still used during the colonial era. The concern here is, however, mainly to highlight the more pronounced strategies used under the colonial context that helped to contain slaves in Fanisau. NAK Kano Prof 717/1913. Studies on slave rebellion in other parts of the world include C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Overture and the San Domingo Revolution (New York, Vintage, 1973); Eugene D. Genovese, From Rebellion to Revolution: Afro-American Slave Revolts in the Making of the Modern World (Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 1979); Herbert Aptheker, American Negro Slave Revolts (New York, Columbia University Press, 1943); and Michael Cranton, Testing the Chains: Resistance to Slavery in the British West Indies (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1982). For a discussion on factors that made organized rebellion difficult in the Sokoto Caliphate and in other Islamic regions of Africa, see, for instance, Paul E. Lovejoy, “Problems of Slave Control in the Sokoto Caliphate,” in Paul E. Lovejoy ed., Africans in Bondage: Studies in Slavery and the Slave Trade (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1986), 261; Paul E. Lovejoy, “Fugitive Slaves: Resistance to Slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate,” in Gary Y. Okihiro ed., In Resistance (Amherst, University of Massachusetts Press, 1986), 91; and F. Cooper, Plantation Slavery on the East Coast of Africa (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1977). For the debate on whether or not slaves were docile in the context of the Old South, see, for instance, Stanley M. Elkins, Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life (Chicago, Chicago University Press,1959); and Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York, Pantheon, 1974). Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u (Fanisau, July 13, 1975). Ibid. Ibid. For discussion on the relationship between slave culture and resistance, see, for instance, Cooper, East Coast of Africa, 155–56, 236–37, 257. Among other works, A. J. N. Tremearne, Hausa Superstitions and Customs: An Introduction to the Folk-Lore and the Folk (London, Frank Cass, 1970), 148; D. E. Ferguson, “Nineteenth Century Hausaland. Being a Description by Imam Imoru of the Land, Economy and Society of his People,” (Ph.D. dissertation University of California, Los Angeles, 1973), 189; and Ibrahim Hamza, “Slavery and Plantation Society at Dorayi in Kano Emirate,” in P. E. Lovejoy, ed., Slavery on the Frontiers of Islam (Princeton, NJ., Markus Wiener, 2004), 139, establish the widespread practice of bori in Hausaland. Ferguson, “Imam Imoru,” 189. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u.

170 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

20. 21.

22.

23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

28. 29. 30.

31. 32.

NOTES

Ibid. Hamza, “Slavery and Plantation Society,” 140. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. Ibid. Ibid. On the connection between religion and resistance in various slave systems, see, for instance, Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll, 254; Cooper, East Coast of Africa, 238 and 257; and Lovejoy, “Problems of Slave Control,” 262–64. Hamza, “Slavery and Plantation Society,” 140. Ibid.; Abdulrazak Giginyu Sa’idu, “History of a Slave Village in Kano: Gandun Nassarawa,” B. A. Essay, Bayero University Kano, 1981), 36; and Ferguson, “Imam Imoru,” 242. Sa’idu, “History of a Slave Village,” 36. Sa’idu also reveals in the same page that “[a] Mallam is called to in order to record the event ‘We want to let so-and-so have his freedom,’ from there the name of the ex-slave is changed to that of a free person. The names of all witnesses were written, the name of the town and time it was done, this was to prevent the sons of the slave-holder from demanding the slave later.” Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. For further details, see Sean A. Stilwell, “The Kano Mamluks: Royal Slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate, 1807–1903,” (Ph.D. dissertation, York University, 1999), 208–13. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Alhaji Isyaku (Yakasai, Kano, August 6, 1975) and Gwadabe Maidawaki Dogari (Emir’s Palace, Kano, July 11, 1975). The following account of the rebellion is mainly drawn from M. G. Smith, Government in Kano 1350–1950 (Boulder, CO, Westview Press, 1977), 253–54. However, the accounts of Malam Adamu na Ma’aji, Tarikh Kano, and Alkali Muhammadu Zangi, Taqyid al-Akbar, as well as the works of Adell Patton, Jr., “The Ningi Chiefdom and the African Frontier: Mountaineers and Resistance to the Sokoto Caliphate” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1975); “An Islamic Frontier Polity: The Ningi Mountains of Northern Nigeria, 1846–1902,” in Kopytoff Igor, ed., The African Frontier (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1987), 193–213; and “Ningi Raids and Slavery in Nineteenth Century Sokoto Caliphate,” in Slavery and Abolition 2, 2, (1981): 114–45, are relevant. See Smith, Government in Kano, 253–55. According to Muhammadu Rabi’u, for instance, Hamza could suspend himself in between the ground and the sky with a rug while M. Idrisu Danmaisoro (Hausawa Ward, Kano, August 7, 1975) testified that “Malam MaiMazori of Tsakuwa deceived people by making miracles of killing a person and bringing him back to live.”

NOTES

171

33. Smith, Government in Kano, 254. 34. Lovejoy, “Fugitive Slaves,” 71–95. 35. Yusufu Yunusa, “Slavery in Nineteenth Century Kano,” (B. A. Essay, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, 1976), 41; Lovejoy, “Fugitive Slaves,” 81; and Smith, Government in Kano, 254. 36. Lovejoy, “Problems of Slave Control.” 37. For more details on the Basasa struggles in the Minjibir region and on the role of slaves in the movement, see, for instance, Smith, Government in Kano, 346. 38. J. S. Hogendorn and Paul E. Lovejoy, Slow Death for Slavery. The Course of Abolition in Northern Nigeria, 1897–1936 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993), 31–63. 39. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. 40. Ibid. 41. Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Malam Bawa (Dambazau Ward, Kano, July 31, 1975) and M. Idrisu Danmaisoro. 42. Northern Nigeria Annual Report, 1907–08, 613. 43. Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Muhammadu Rabi’u, Hamidu Galadiman Shamaki (Fanisau, April 3, 1975), and M. Idrisu Danmaisoro. 44. Navetanes refers to migrant workers who moved to the Senegal region from French colonies of Sudan, Upper Volta, and Guinea. They consisted of freeborn migrants as well as freed and escaped slaves. 45. Bernard Moitt, “Slavery and Emancipation in Senegal’s Peanut Basin: The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” International Journal of African Historical Studies, 22 (1989): 27–50. 46. Martin Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule in French West Africa (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998). 47. James F. Searing, “God Alone is King”: Islam and Emancipation in Senegal. The Wolof Kingdoms of Kajoor and Bawol, 1859–1914 (Portsmouth, NH; Oxford; Cape Town, David Philip, Heinemann and James Currey, 2002). 48. Kenneth Swindell and Alieu Jeng. Migrants, Credit and Climate: The Gambian Groundnut Trade, 1834–1934 ( Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2006). 49. Ibid. 50. Ibid. 51. Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Alhaji Wada (Shahuchi, Kano, July 18, 1975), Gwadabe Maidawaki Dogari, Hamidu Galadiman Shamaki, and M. Idrisu Danmaisoro. 52. Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Muhammadu Rabi’u. 53. Ibid. and Hamidu Galadiman Shamaki. 54. For further details on the various colonial anti-slave flight policies, see, for instance, Hogendorn and Lovejoy, Slow Death for Slavery. 55. NAK Kano Prof. 717/1913 56. Jan S. Hogendorn, Nigerian Groundnut Exports: Origins and Early Development (Zaria, Ahmadu Bello University Press, 1978), 102. 57. NAK Kano Prof. 717/1913. 58. Hogendorn, Nigerian Groundnut Exports, 101.

172

NOTES

59. Chinedu N. Ubah, “Suppression of the Slave Trade in the Nigerian Emirates,” Journal of African History 32, 3 (1991): 447–70. 60. NAK Kano Prof. 717/1913. 61. It is important to note here that Hogendorn’s works fail to acknowledge that the colonial record mentioned the word gayya. In fact, he defines gayya only while discussing other issues not directly related to Fanisau. 62. Only persons in power at the household or communal labor have authority to compel their wards to perform. 63. Polly Hill, Rural Hausa: A Village and a Setting (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1972), 251–52. 64. See pages 82–83 above for further discussion on gayya in Fanisau. 65. Yunusa Collection: Testimonies of Muhammadu Rabi’u and Hamidu Galadiman Shamaki. 66. For evidence on the use of prisoners in production, see, for instance, Yunusa Collection: Testimony of Isyaku (Dorayi, September 17, 1975). 67. Jan S. Hogendorn, “The Origins of the Groundnut Trade in Northern Nigeria,” in Carl K. Either and Carl Liedholm, eds., Growth and Development of the Nigerian Economy (East Lansing, Michigan State University Press, 1970), 39. 68. Ibid., 38–40. 69. Lovejoy Collection: Testimony of Miko Hamshaki (Kano, September 8, November 19, and December 21, 1969 as well as January 31 and June 7, 1970). 70. Ubah, “Suppression of the Slave Trade,” 451. 71. Ibid., 462–63. 72. Ibid. 461–62. 73. Martin Klein, “Women and Slavery in the Western Sudan,” in Claire C. Robertson and Martin A. Klein, eds., Women and Slavery in Africa (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1997), 76. 74. Allan Christelow, Thus Ruled Emir Abbas: Selected Cases from the Records of the Emir of Kano’s Judicial Council (East Lansing, Michigan, Michigan State University Press, 1993), 80–84. 75. Ibid., 84. 76. As Lovejoy and Hogendorn rightly suggest in their Slow Death for Slavery, such land distribution through the emir point to several facts including the recognition of private rights to land within the context of this colonial era. 77. For further details of the emir’s land grant to Dantata, see Christelow, Thus Ruled Emir Abbas, 90; and Hogendorn and Lovejoy, Slow Death for Slavery, 153. 78. Tijaniyya is a Muslim brotherhood founded in Algeria by Ahmed al Tijani (1737–1815). 79. Tukur was the son of Emir Muhammadu Bello while Yusuf, the son of Emir Abdullahi of Kano who died in 1882, was his cousin. 80. I am grateful to Paul Lovejoy who provided further details on Dantata. In terms of his groundnut trading activities, however, Hogendorn stresses that upon arrival in Kano, Dantata established a new trading organization that was based on clientelism, and that it was through this organization that he exclusively

NOTES

173

participated in the groundnut boom. He explains further that through his trading organization, Dantata ultimately became the Niger Company’s largest supplier of groundnuts. Further details on Dantata’s trading activities are in Hogerndorn’s Nigerian Groundnut Exports, 85–86, 108, 141, and 142.

Conclusion 1. John E. Philips, “Ribats in the Sokoto Caliphate: Selected Studies, 1804–1903,” (Ph.D. dissertation University of California, 1992), 409–56, provides the most comprehensive general account of the classic roles of ribats in the Sokoto Caliphate. 2. Beside this particular war against Damagaram, Fanisau was also involved in other engagements that took place against that state in the nineteenth century.


Bibliography

Oral Sources The oral data used in this study are on several tapes located at the Harriet Tubman Institute, York University. The transcriptions and translations of the testimonies recorded on most of the tapes are also available in the same location.

1. Paul Lovejoy Collection Alhaji Abdullahi Nagudu, 72 years when interviewed, Kano City, October 25 and December 28, 1969, and June 14, 1970. Alhaji Adamu Bagwanje, 83 years when interviewed, Kano City, August 18 and 22, September 10, November 8, 1969, and June 13, 1970. Alhaji Inuwa Yahya, 69 years while interviewed, Kano City, October 25, 1969. Alhaji Muhammadu Isa Indole, 60 years old when interviewed, Kano City, December 27, 1969, and January 18, 1970. Audu Ba’are, 100 years when interviewed, Kano City, January 1, 1970. Bako Madigawa, Madigawa Ward, Kano City, December 1, 1969. Malam Ibrahim, 50 years when interviewed, Dunkura, Kano Emirate, January 27, 1970. Malam Iliyasu, 72 years when interviewed, Dunkura, Kano Emirate, January 27, 1970. Malam Muhammad Kasari, 67 years when interviewed, Madigawa ward, Kano, December 24, 1969. Malam Musa Husaini, 35 years when interviewed, Kano City, December 26, 1969. Malam Salihu, 60 years when interviewed, Kumurya, Kano Emirate, January 28, 1970. Miko Hamshaki, 97 years when interviewed, Kano City, Septmeber 8, November 19, and December 21, 1969, as well as January 31 and June 7, 1970.

2. Yusuf Yunusa Collection Alhaji Garba Sarkin Gida, 50 years when interviewed, Gandun Nassarawa, Kano Emirate, September 14, 1975. Alhaji Wada, 60 years when interviewed, Shahuci, Kano City, July 18, 1975.

176

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dan Rimin Kano, 70 years when interviewed, December 12 and 30, 1975. Gwadabe Maidawaki Dogari, 54 years when interviewed, Emir’s palace, Kano City, July 11, 1975. Hamidu Galadiman Shamaki, 70 years when interviewed, Fanisau, Kano Emirate, April 4, 1975. M. Abdullahi Adamu, 43 years when interviewed, Diso Quarters, Kano Emirate, August 3, 1975. M. Muhammadu, 75 years when interviewed, Bakin Zuwo, Kano Emirate, October 9, 1975. Malam Bawa, 102 years when interviewed, Dambazau Ward, Kano Emirate, July 31, 1975. Mallam Idrisu Dan Maisoro, 77 years when interviewed, Hausawa Ward, Kano City, August 7, 1975. Malam Isyaku, 90 years when interviewed, Dorayi, Kano Emirate, September 17, 1975. Moh. Sarkin Yaki Dogari, 70 years when interviewed, Kurawa Ward, Kano Emirate, September 28, 1975. Muhammadu Rabi’u, 59 years when interviewed, Fanisau, Kano Emirate, July 13, 1975. Sallaman Kano, 55 years when interviewed, Emir’s palace, Kano City, September 20, 1975. Sani Shu’aibu, 36 years when interviewed, Hausawa Ward, Kano City, August 22, 1975.

Archival Materials National Archives Kaduna (Copies of the National Archives Kaduna files used in this study are also available at the Harriet Tubman Institute, York University.)

a. Secretariat, Northern Province (SNP) SNP 6/4 C. 111/1908, W. P. Hewby, Report on Kano Emirate, July 10, 1908, Festing report SNP 7/3834/1912 SNP 7/13, 4503/1912, Sifawa and Bodinga Assessment, Sokoto Province report no. 343/1912 SNP 10/4, 252p/1916, Binji District Assessment, Sokoto Province, March 23, 1916 SNP 17 K2151, Principal famines of Hausaland, 1926

b. Official Publications Northern Nigerian Annual Report, 1902. Northern Nigeria Annual Report, 1907–8.

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c. Kano District Notebooks Kumbotso District Notebook

d. Kano Province Kano Prof 717/1913. 1913 Annual Report on Kano

e. Kano Native Administration KAN N.A 1/11/1, 1961–62: Ungogo History

Arabic Materials Abdullahi dan Fodio, Tazyin al-Waraqat. ———, Diya ul-Hukkam. ———, Diya al-Siyasat. Abu Abdullah Muhammad b. Abdulkarim b. Muhammad Al-Maghili, Wasiyyat al-maghili ila Abi Abdullah Muhammad b. Ya’ub. Adam b. Muhammad al-Arabi b. Adam al-Funduki al-Kanawi, Al-I’lan. Muhammad b. Salih, Taqyid akhbar jama’at al-Shaykh alladhina bi kanu wa ma jara baynahum wa bayna al-taghut al-Wali min al-hurub. Mohammad Bello, Al-ghayth al-wabl fi sirat al-imam al-ad. ———, Diya al Siyasa. ———, Infaq al-maysur fi ta’arikh bilad al-takrur. ———, Shams al-zahira fi minhaj ahl al-ilm wa al-basira. ———, Tanbih al-sahib ala ahkami al-makasib. Usman Dan Fodio, Bayan Wujub al Hijra ———, Kitab al-Farq. ———, Siraj al-Ikwan.

Internet Sources H-Net: Definition of Plantation, http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse. p l ? t r x = v x & l i s t = h - s l ave r y & m o n t h = 0 4 0 5 & we e k = b & m s g = e h hu B R f 5 / tZhgSVDcqIRHA&user=&pw=, (accessed May 14, 2004). See the H-net Web site for more messages related to this thread.

Unpublished Theses and Scholarly Papers Aliyu, Y. A., “The Establishment and Development of Emirate Government in Bauchi, 1805–1903” (Ph.D. dissertation, A. B. U. Zaria, 1974).

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Index

Page numbers in italics indicate illustrations. Abbas (emir of Kano), 12, 122–24, 134 AbdulAzizi, Uthman, 17, 18, 41, 141n57 Abdullah, Rabih b., 66 Abdullahi, emir of Kano, 33, 53, 131, 172n79 Achi, Bala, 6, 26 Ada, Madugu, 66, 72 Adamawa, 2, 35, 38, 55, 96 Adeleye, R. A., 18 Agalawa, 36–37, 63, 127, 146n72 Ahmadu (emir of Damagaram), 52 Aliyu (emir of Kano), 33, 39, 52, 131, 153n97 Al-Maghili, Abd al Karim, 15, 23, 31, 131 Alwali (sarkin of Kano), 32, 46 Andah, Bassey W. E., 43 Angas, 96 aristocracy, 22, 27, 129–30 and courtiers, 37 Fulani, 32 taxation of, 86–87 Asante Empire, 66, 67, 163n2 Austin, Gareth, 11

Baro-Kano railway, 10, 133 barori, 30, 144n42 Barth, Heinrich, 14, 16, 35, 72, 135 Basasa (Kano civil war), 16, 63, 81, 118, 127, 135 Bauchi Emirate, 39, 117 bawa/bayi. See slaves Bayero, Abdullahi (emir of Kano), 33 Bello, Muhammad (emir of Kano), 15, 31–33, 38, 46–47, 58–59 and Dabo, 51, 62, 63, 131 son of, 172n79 Berbers, 146n72 Berkey, Jonathan P., 13 Birom, 96 blacksmiths, 93–94 bori, 113–14 Borno, 2, 25, 49, 55, 66, 67, 144n36, 150n45 Brazilian plantations, 4, 92, 163n4 Burja, Abdullahi (sarkin of Kano), 23, 26, 28, 129 Burumburum, 32 butchers, 74–75

babani. See eunuchs Babura, 24, 130n30 bado. See gifts Bagarmi, 38, 55 Bagauda, 21–22 Bagwanje, Alhaji Adamu, 147n75 Bakatsine, Malam, 31

caffa, 87 Campbell, Gwyn, 53 caravans, 66–71, 88 Caribbean plantations, 4, 7–9, 12, 54, 77, 85 absentee owners of, 66 slave rebellions at, 112

190

INDEX

Carrow, J. H., 126 “cash crop revolution,” 10–12, 121, 134 Chafe, Kabiru S., 92 Christelow, Allen, 127 Christianity, 94 Chubok, 96 civil war. See Basasa Clapperton, Hugh, 14, 16, 33, 35, 135 on Fanisau, 41, 42, 47, 51–52, 59–60, 73, 74 clientage system, 10, 62, 172n80 concubines, 57–58, 87, 99–102, 154n106, 159n13 Cooper, Frederick, 12–13, 81, 99, 104 corn, 45, 82, 85, 102 corvée, 6, 82–83, 85 See also taxation cotton, 22, 33, 35–36, 100, 103 and groundnut production, 10 See also textiles cucanawa, 94–95, 98–99 Dabo, Abdullahi (emir of Kano), 15, 63 Dabo, Ibrahim (emir of Kano), 16, 32, 40, 95, 135 children of, 34 and Fanisau, 46–49 policies of, 38–39, 51, 62, 76, 131 and slavery, 50, 51 Dalà, 56, 68 Damagaram, 49, 51–53, 73, 96, 107, 131, 152n64 Dambatta, 46 Dambazau, 47 dan Daku, Iguda, 37 Dando, 39 dan Fodio, Usman, 31, 32, 46 Dan Rimi, 54 dan Sudu, 66, 72 Dantata, Alhassan, 127, 134, 172n80 Dantiye, Nasiru Ibrahim, 8, 43 Dan Tunku, 15, 46–47, 51, 52, 73, 107, 131 Dan Yayya, 46

dan Zabuwa, 31–32 Daura, 46 Dawakin Kudu, 33, 47 Dawakin Tofa, 24 Dawaki ta Kudu, 34, 145n60 Dawuda, Galadima, 23, 27, 28, 40, 129 debt bondage, 11, 30–31 dogarai, 57 Dorayi, 7, 8, 34, 74, 115 droughts, 28–30, 34–35, 45, 130, 151n49 dukiya, 98 dumde, 4–5 See also plantations Dutse, 24 Economic History Project, 16 emancipation, 9, 95, 105–10, 118–19, 133, 170n22 Endangered Archives Programme, 141n57 eunuchs, 57, 159n13 facial marking, 67, 95, 165n24 fadawa, 37 Fanisau, 1, 8, 12–14, 41–65, 77–89, 131–35 development of, 41–42, 45–49, 131 after emancipation, 9, 95 emir’s palace in, 73–74, 80 map of, 48 royal estates of, 33, 50, 62, 64, 71–72, 130 scholarly neglect of, 42–43 settlement pattern of, 71–75 slave resistance at, 112–19 sociocultural life at, 72, 91–110 sources on, 14–19, 148n4 See also plantations fansar kai, 106–7, 110, 168n87 “feudal economy,” 6 Fika, Adamu Mohammed, 18

INDEX

freeborn laborers, 6, 27, 30, 62–63, 82 and ex-slaves, 11, 124, 133, 160n25 marriage with slave by, 99 as soldiers, 81 taxation of, 61, 86–87 Fulani, 31, 32, 38, 39, 46, 47 gaisuwa. See gifts galadima, 23, 27–28, 64, 87 galadiman shamaki, 63–64, 78–81, 84, 109 food distribution by, 88 and slave marriages, 97 during wars, 80–81, 102–3 Gamar Kwari, 43 Gambarjado, 41, 131, 149n6 Gambia, 120, 121 gandu, 4–6, 27, 33 definitions of, 4 overseer of, 78–79, 109, 113 Pierce on, 138n11 slave plots on, 63–64, 72, 76, 82, 92–93, 97, 98, 102 See also plantations Gandun Albasa, 40 Gandun Nassarawa, 71, 158n194 gandun sarki, 41, 61, 71–72 management of, 78–85 and slaves’ food, 93 Garba, Alhaji, 164n12 Garki, 24 Gasgainu plantation, 34 gayauna, 63–64, 72, 76, 82, 92–93, 97, 98, 102 gayya, 30, 123–25, 172n61 Genovese, Eugene, 112 Gidan Ma’ajin Watari, 83–84 Gidan Rumfa, 49, 56, 57, 73–74 as administrative center, 60, 87 supplies for, 87–88 gifts, 33, 60, 103, 154n122 of horses, 103, 167n68 of land, 33, 63–64 for marriages, 108–9

191

for naming ceremonies, 79, 94–96, 107–9 of slaves, 54 Gill, J. Withers, 123 Gogel, 71, 74, 157n193, 160n31 gold trade, 22 Gonja, 55, 69–70, 153n93 grain production, 6, 28, 82, 87–88, 124 groundnut production, 10–12, 82, 133–35 merchants’ role in, 125–27 promotion of, 111–12, 123–25, 127 in Senegal, 119–20 slave labor for, 120–24, 128, 133–34 Guinea, 120 guinea corn, 45, 82, 85, 102 Gumel, 49 Gwarzo, 24, 139n30 Hadith, 5, 13, 51 See also Islam hakimi (district head), 54, 102 Hamshaki, Alhaji Miko, 17, 66, 69–70, 125–27, 134 Hamza, Ibrahim, 7, 8, 34, 96 Hamza, Malam, 117–18 Hill, Polly, 4, 9 Hiskett, Mervyn, 26 Hogendorn, Jan, 7–12, 123–25, 133 and Lovejoy, 16, 133–34 on Zaria Emirate, 54 horses, 22 as gifts, 103, 167n68 humusi, 54, 153n84 Hunwick, John, 7 hurumi, 86–87 ibdabu, 26–27, 144n24 Ibrahim, Alhaji, 67 Ibrahim, Malam, 146n72 Idrisu, Mallam, 164n22 Iliyasu, Malam, 146n72 Ilorin, 2, 7

192

INDEX

immigrants, 21–22, 36–39, 66, 120 butcher, 74–75 concubines of, 100 from drought, 29 freeborn laborers as, 62–63 taxation of, 62 Tuareg, 130 Imoru, Imam, 104, 108 indentured servants. See debt bondage indigo, 22, 33 inheritance customs, 54, 65, 98 Inikori, Joseph, 7, 9 Islam, 22–26, 32, 51 inheritance customs of, 64–65 and slavery, 5, 9, 13, 54, 92, 94–95, 107–10, 117–18 and zakka, 29, 86, 87 See also Shari’a Isawa movement, 118 Jagaba, 69, 157n179 jakadu, 61 Jamaica, 7–9 See also Caribbean plantations Jeng, Alieu, 121 Jigirya, 40 jihad (1804–1808), 15, 18, 25, 26, 46 plantations after, 31–40, 130 sarauta system after, 22 and slavery, 38, 50–51 jingina, 65 jizya, 117 Jumare, Ibrahim, 7, 141n56 kaffara, 108 Kaje, 96 Kambarin Beriberi, 36–37 Kanawa, 37, 39 kane, 97, 99 Kano Chronicle, 26, 41 Kano City, 131 demographics of, 35, 45 emir’s palace in, 49, 56, 57, 73–74, 87

founding of, 41 history of, 22 maps of, 2, 24, 48, 56 mid-nineteenth-century view of, 68 wall of, 56, 72–73 Kano Emirate, 4, 42–46, 129–35 civil war of, 16, 63, 81, 118, 127, 135 history of, 21–40 Islamization of, 22–26, 32 maps of, 2, 24, 48 ribats of, 8, 8 kanwa, 97, 99 Kanyan Amana, 70, 71, 72, 75, 141n57, 158n215 Kanyan Amana, Sani, 17–18, 66, 158n197 Karaye, 24, 35–36, 126, 139n30 Kasar Kano, 4, 21–40, 42–46, 129–31 See also Kano Emirate Kasuwar Kurmi, 70, 114–15 Katsina, 7, 25, 28, 46, 148n96, 150n32 Kazaure, 47, 59, 150n33 kharaj, 86 Kiru, 24, 31 Klein, Martin, 91, 104, 105, 162n68, 163n2 on slavery, 120, 126 Koki, Mahmudu, 14, 57–58 kolanuts, 16, 22 trade in, 36–37, 63, 66, 69–71, 147n75 Kosai, Madugu, 17, 63, 66–72, 75, 125 children of, 71 on slave marriages, 96–97 women of, 102 Kriger, Collin, 103 Kumbotso, 34 Kundila, 34, 37 kurdin kasa, 86 Kutumbi (sarkin of Kano), 28, 144n24 Kwararafa, 28 Kwarkwarori. See concubines Kwaru, Ibrahim Aliyu, 162n58

INDEX

Kwazzazabon Yan Kwando, 32 kyauta. See gifts Lagos, 2, 67 land policies, 11, 33, 65 Lander, Richard, 60 Last, Murray, 18 Lennihan, Louise, 11 Lovejoy, Paul E., 7, 9, 11 interviews by, 12, 15–17 on plantation system, 3, 4, 13, 133–34 on slave flight, 118 Lugard, F. L., 73 Mahadi, Abdullahi, 26, 33, 71–72 maigida, 64 Maitabarya, 66 maiwa. See millet malams, 52, 117 Maliki law, 98–100 mamluks, 62 manumission. See emancipation Maradi, 2, 49, 53 Mariri, 48 marriage customs, 55, 79, 96–99, 108–9 and concubinage, 99–101 Marwa, 96 Mason, Michael, 18 masu sarauta. See aristocracy masu ungwani, 22 Meillasoux, Claude, 91–92, 163n3 mike kafa, 114–15 millet, 45, 85 See also grain production Minjibir, 43 Moitt, Bernard, 119–20 monetary values, 36, 70, 167n84 Monteil, P. L., 14 Moody, H. L. B., 73 mudabbar, 108 murgu, 104–6, 109, 110, 115 Nagudu, Alhaji Abdullahi, 147n75 naming ceremonies, 79, 94–96, 107–9, 170n22

193

Nasarari, Lawan, 37 Nassarawa, 2, 40, 74 navetanes, 120 Ningi, 2, 53, 96, 117, 131, 152n74 Nupe, 2 O’Hear, Ann, 7 Oman, 5 Ottoman Empire, 5, 163n2 Panisau. See Fanisau peasants, 3, 11, 27, 30 slaves versus, 6–8, 163n2 Philips, John Edward, 8, 62 Phillips, Ulrich Bonnell, 9, 133, 139n32 Pierce, Steven, 11, 138n11 plantations, 129–31 definitions of, 3–7, 137n8 development of, 25–31 after jihad, 31–40, 130 management of, 77–89 private, 33–34, 37, 62–72, 75, 84–85, 94–97, 102, 116 sociocultural life on, 72, 91–110 types of, 33–34 See also Fanisau; gandu polygamy, 98 porters, 69, 88, 105 Prietze, Rudolf, 58 prisons, 83–84, 124–25 prostitution, 105 See also concubines purdah, 100–101 Quran, 5, 13, 51 See also Islam Rabi’u, Muhammadu, 17, 64 on freeborn laborers, 82 on galadiman shamaki, 79–80 on murgu arrangements, 104 on slaves’ food, 93

194

INDEX

Rano, 24, 139n30 ribats, 8, 18, 63, 130–31 definition of, 45–46 development of, 38–39, 135 map of, 48 sansani versus, 41, 147n86 rice cultivation, 6, 146n64 See also grain production Rimin Azbinawa, 67, 157n170 Ringim, 24 Roberts, Richard, 7 Robinson, C. H., 14, 35 Rufa’i, Ruqayyatu Ahmed, 42, 74 Rumfa, Muhammad (sarkin of Kano), 23, 25, 28 Sa’ad, Abubakar, 18 Salah, Hat, 73 Salama, 17, 54 Salaman Kano, 17 Salih, Muhammad b., 15 salt trade, 22, 29 sansani, 41, 42, 147n86 sarakunan, 6, 22, 27–28 Sararin Garke, 87 sarauta system, 22, 25, 27, 33, 164n21 Sarkin Dawaki, 58, 59 sarkin gandu (overseer), 84 sarkin hatsi (granary official), 87 sarkin Makera (chief of blacksmiths), 93–94 Sawaina, 34 Searing, James F., 120–21 sedentarisation policy, 38, 39, 62, 130–31 Senegal, 119–20 serfs. See peasants Shaho, Madugu, 126 shamaki, 14, 34, 60–61, 71, 103, 145n60 food distribution by, 87 overseer of, 77–78, 84 during war, 54

Shamaki, Hamidu Galadiman, 17 shari’a, 5, 32, 129 and butchers, 75 and concubines, 99–101 enforcement of, 39 See also Islam Sharubutu, 37 Shaw, Thurstan, 43 Shenton, Robert, 11 slavery, 3–5, 132–33 in Americas, 4, 9, 12–14, 50, 54, 77, 85, 92, 94, 104, 112, 113, 133 British trade ban on, 50, 125–26, 151n50 and corvée, 6, 82–83, 85 debt bondage versus, 11, 30–31 development of, 5–8, 26–30, 130 documentation of, 12–19 Islamic view of, 5, 9, 13, 54, 92, 94–95, 107–10, 117–18 and jihad, 38, 50–51 in Ottoman Empire, 5, 163n2 stigma of, 109 slaves, 52–53 acquisition of, 28, 55, 66, 81, 103, 125–26, 129, 134 in army, 8, 62, 80–81, 102–3, 107 burial of, 94 on caravans, 69, 88 child, 30, 55, 66, 94, 97, 98, 101, 126, 158n197 elderly, 108 emancipation of, 9, 95, 105–10, 118–19, 133, 170n22 entrepreneurial work of, 103–4 facial marks of, 95, 165n24 food of, 82, 83, 88, 92, 102, 113, 122, 132 gifts of, 54 land plots of, 63–64, 72, 76, 82, 92–93, 97, 98, 102 management of, 14, 17, 62, 77–89, 91, 119–22, 145n60, 169n2

INDEX

marriages of, 55, 79, 96–99, 108–9 “masterless,” 104 naming ceremonies of, 79, 94–96, 107–9, 170n22 new masters for, 114–15 and prison laborers, 124–25 punishment of, 83–85, 91, 113, 116, 121, 131 resistance by, 112–19, 128, 132 runaway, 116–19, 121–22 serfs versus, 6–8, 11 sociocultural life of, 72, 91–110 as tribute, 26, 84 Smith, M. G., 7–9, 26, 28, 47, 133 Sokoto Caliphate, 1–7, 31, 45–46, 130, 133 army of, 8 map of, 2 sources on, 14–19 Songhay empire, 5–7, 25 Soninke-Marabout wars, 120, 121 Stampp, Kenneth, 3–4 Stilwell, Sean Arnold, 78 Sudan, 35, 104, 126 Suleiman (emir of Kano), 31, 32, 42, 46, 50–51, 129 Suleimanu, of Modibawa clan, 31 Sule, Umaru, 37 Sumaila, 24, 37 Sunna, 5, 13 Swindell, Kenneth, 121 Takai, 74 Tanagar, 48 taxation, 8, 61, 62 and caravans, 69 and corvée, 6, 82–83, 85 exemptions from, 33, 86–87 of groundnuts, 123 and jakadu, 33, 61 of murgu arrangements, 104–5 and tithes, 29, 86, 87 types of, 86

195

textiles, 35–36, 70, 103 See also cotton Tijaniyya brotherhood, 127, 172n78 tithes, 29, 86, 87 tobacco, 33 Tokarawa, 28, 36–37, 63, 66, 146n72 facial marks of, 67 Toledano, Ehud R., 5 tribute, 26, 84, 87 Tsamia (sarkin of Kano), 26 Tuareg, 29, 39, 144n36 and Agalawa merchants, 146n72 migration of, 130 Tubman Institute at York University, 15, 16 Tudun Maliki, 34 Tudun Wada, 24, 151n60 Tukur, Galadima, 6, 58 Tukur, Mahmud Modibbo, 6 Tukur, Muhammad (emir of Kano), 15, 33 tungazi, 4–5 See also plantations Ubah, C. N., 126 Uban Dawaki, 69 Ungogo, 11, 43, 47, 48, 72 United Kingdom, slave trade ban by, 50, 125–26, 151n50 United States, slavery in, 4, 9, 12–14, 50, 54, 77, 85, 92, 94, 104, 112, 113, 133 Usman, Yusuf Bala, 6–7 Usman I (emir of Kano), 33, 131 Usman II (emir of Kano), 33 Utai, Abdullahi, 37 Waceni, 71–73, 76, 79 Wada, Alhaji, 164n22 wakili, 109 wambey, 60 Wangarawa, 22 waqf, 86–87 Warji, 53, 96

196

INDEX

wars, 8, 131 Basasa, 16, 63, 81, 118, 127, 135 booty from, 54, 153n84 slaves used during, 8, 62, 80–81, 102–3, 107 Soninke-Marabout, 120, 121 Watts, Michael, 9, 11 women and division of labor, 82 and groundnut production, 10 and inheritance customs, 65 seclusion of, 100–101 slave, 82, 87, 98 during wars, 103 Wudil, 74 Yada Kunya, 43 Yahya, Alhaji Inuwa, 146n75

Yaji (sarkin of Kano), 23 Yakubu (sarkin of Kano), 28 yan bayi, 114–15 yan uku uku. See facial marking Yokanna, 34 Yunusa, Yusuf, 16, 17, 41, 141n57 Zabainawa, 72 zakka, 29, 86, 87 Zamfara, 2 Zangeia, 32–33 Zango, 156n168 Zango Uku, 17, 158n215 Zanzibar, 5 Zaria, 2, 7–9, 16, 51, 54 Zinder, 58, 59

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