$Unique_ID{COW02620} $Pretitle{357} $Title{Nigeria Chapter 1A. Historical Setting} $Subtitle{} $Author{Robert Rinehart} $Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army} $Subject{century trade political hausa yoruba north region fulani ife states} $Date{1981} $Log{Terra-Cotta Head*0262001.scf Figure 2.*0262002.scf Figure 4.*0262003.scf } Country: Nigeria Book: Nigeria, A Country Study Author: Robert Rinehart Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army Date: 1981 Chapter 1A. Historical Setting [See Terra-Cotta Head: Nok terra-cotta head dating from the first millennium B.C.] Like so many other modern African states, Nigeria is the creation of European imperialism. Its very name-after the great Niger River, the country's dominating physical feature, was suggested in the 1890s by British journalist Flora Shaw, who later became the wife of colonial governor Frederick Lugard. The history of Nigeria-as a modern political entity encompassing more than 250 ethnic groups of widely varied cultures and modes of political organization-dates largely from the consolidation of colonial territories in 1914. But some of these people could trace histories in their oral traditions that extended back for centuries before the earliest European intervention. These histories, as well as archaeological evidence and written documentation, indicate the existence of dynamic societies, some of which possessed well-articulated political systems that were preserved under colonial rule and continued as meaningful institutions after Nigeria became independent. Nigerian history is fragmented in the sense that it evolves from these contrasting traditions, but many of the most outstanding features of modern Nigerian society reflect the strong influence of the three regionally dominant ethnic groups-the Hausa-Fulani in the north, the Yoruba in the west, and the Ibo in the east. All evidence points to early migratory movements across the broad Sudanic highway and along the river system that fed all parts of the region. Economic ties were established with North Africa in antiquity through a complex of trade routes along which Islam was later carried to the northern savanna and adopted in the eleventh century. Otherwise separated by geography, politics, and culture, the north and the south were closely linked by their economic cooperation in the slave trade. A reorientation of that activity toward the coast followed the establishment of the earliest European trading posts there in the fifteenth century. British commercial interests, based on the slave trade, were clearly dominant by the end of the eighteenth century. During the nineteenth century Britain became deeply involved in the internal affairs of the region as a result of its efforts to eradicate the commerce in human lives and to protect legitimate traders and missionaries. The first British colony in the region was established at Lagos in 1861. On the basis of a previously established sphere of influence, Britain laid claim in 1900 to all of the area that subsequently became Nigeria, adopting a policy of indirect rule through which traditional rulers acted as agents of the colonial administration. Because of striking differences in ethnic background, religion, and sociopolitical values, two types of nationalism developed in the period between the two world wars. Modern nationalism was usually manifested as pan-Africanism or in the form of regional loyalties. After World War II successive constitutions introduced by the colonial government moved Nigeria toward self-government as a federal state with representative parliamentary institutions. Full independence within the Commonwealth of Nations was achieved in 1960, but from the outset the new nation was beset by ethnic and regional divisiveness that complicated efforts to establish a firm basis for constitutional rule. Leaders learned by cruel experience that real nationhood did not necessarily come with independence. Military rule, punctuated by coups and attempted coups, replaced the parliamentary forms bequeathed by Britain to its former colony. The country went through the ordeal of a bloody civil war in the late 1960s that tested the viability of its federal union. But Nigeria's world political position was strengthened in the early 1970s when it emerged as a leading petroleum-producing country. By 1976 federalism seemed to rest on a more solid foundation than had existed before, and machinery was set in motion that would return the government to civilian hands in October 1979 by a democratic process. Early History The earliest known example of a fossil skeleton with negroid features, perhaps 10,000 years old, was found at Iwo Eleru in Nigeria and attests to the continuity of habitation in the region. Archaeological evidence is scanty, however, for periods before the neolithic revolution when technological advances encouraged a sharp rise in population. The neolithic cultures living in the savanna and forests of the lower Niger basin adapted to ways of life appropriate for their environments. Microlithic and ceramic industries were developed by pastoralists on the savanna from at least the fourth millennium B.C. and were continued by grain farmers in the stable agricultural communities that subsequently evolved there. To the south, hunting and gathering gradually gave way to subsistence farming on the fringe of the forest in the first millennium B.C. The cultivation of staple foods, such as yams, was later introduced into forest clearings. The stone ax heads, imported in great quantities from the north and used in opening the forest for agricultural development, were venerated by the Yoruba descendants of neolithic pioneers as "thunderbolts" hurled to earth by the gods. The primitive iron-smelting furnaces at Taruga dating from the fourth century B.C. provide the oldest evidence of metalworking in West Africa. The transition from the Neolithic period to the Iron Age was apparently achieved without intermediate bronze production. Some scholars speculate that knowledge of the smelting process may have been transmitted from the Mediterranean by Berbers who ventured as far as the forest region in search of wood for their own furnaces. Others suggest that the technology moved westward across the Sudan (see Glossary) from the Nile valley, although the arrival of the Iron Age in the Niger River valley and the forest region predated the introduction of metallurgy in the upper savanna by more than 800 years. The usefulness of iron tools was demonstrated in the south for bush cutting and in the north for well digging and the construction of irrigation works, contributing in both regions to the expansion of agriculture. The earliest culture in Nigeria to be identified by its distinctive artifacts is that of the Nok people, skilled artisans and ironworkers who flourished between the fourth century B.C. and the second century A.D. in a large area above the confluence of the Niger and Benue rivers on the Jos Plateau. The Nok achieved a level of material development not repeated in the region for nearly 1,000 years. Their terra cotta sculpture, abstractly stylized and geometric in conception, is admired both for its artistic expression and for the high technical standards of its production. Little is left from the "silent millennium" (first millennium A.D.) that followed the Nok ascendancy. It is assumed, however, that trade linking the Niger region with North Africa played a key role in the continuing development of the area. Trade moved along a north-south axis with the savanna people acting as intermediaries between the Berber traders and the forest people who exchanged slaves, ivory, and kola nuts for salt, glass beads, coral, cloth, weapons, brass rods, and the cowrie shells that were used as currency. Yoruba Kingdoms As far as historical memory extends, the Yoruba have been the dominant group on the west bank of the Niger. A black people of mixed origin, they were the product of the assimilation of periodic waves of migrants who were bound together by a common language and culture. The Yoruba were organized in patrilineal descent groups that occupied village communities and subsisted on agriculture, but from about the eleventh century A.D. adjacent village compounds, called ile, began to coalesce into a number of territorial city-states in which allegiance to a dynastic chieftain replaced traditional loyalties to the clan. This transition produced a highly urbanized political and social environment supported by an economy that relied heavily on the slave trade. The rise of the city-states was accompanied by a high level of artistic achievement, particularly in terra cotta and ivory sculpture and in the sophisticated metal casting produced at Ife and Benin. The brass and bronze used by Yoruba artisans was a significant item of trade, imported in large quantities from North Africa and later from Europe. The Yoruba cities functioned as political and religious centers and as emporia for trade goods. The elaborate earthworks that in time enclosed the strongest of them were a response to military pressure from the Sudanic kingdoms of Mali and Songhai as well as to commercial encroachment by competing Yoruba states, which were alternately aggressive slave raiders and the targets of conquest and enslavement by others. Typically, cities were apportioned into districts presided over by chiefs appointed by the king. Districts, in turn, were divided into a number of walled compounds, each housing members of a single lineage group that could range in size from a few hundred to over a thousand members. Each group might be assigned specific economic tasks or social functions within the city. At a certain point a large compound would be subdivided so that eventually the same lineage was represented by a number of compounds. Traditional Yoruba society was considered to have been divinely established with a system of ranks in which everyone knew his place, but it also had certain features that protected it from rigidity and even provided for considerable mobility. Ultimately the social order, which was severely hierarchical and functionally differentiated, made it impossible for one class to monopolize all privileges and high offices. An ambitious man could move upward in the social scale, at least obtaining any of the titles and prerogatives to which his lineage was entitled. The Yoruba placated a luxuriant pantheon of gods that was headed by an impersonal deity, Olorun, and included lesser deities, some of them formerly mortal, who performed a variety of cosmic and practical tasks. One of them, Oduduwa, was regarded as the creator of the earth and the ancestor of the Yoruba kings. According to a creation myth, Oduduwa founded the city of Ife and dispatched his sons to establish other cities, where they reigned as priest-kings and presided over cult rituals. Formal traditions of this sort have been interpreted as poetic illustrations of the historical process by which Ife's ruling dynasty extended its authority over Yorubaland. Recent reevaluations suggest, however, that the stories themselves were attempts to legitimize the Yoruba monarchies-after they had supplanted clan loyalties-by claiming divine origin. Oduduwa's descendants ruled not only the city-state and its hinterland but also might exercise hegemony over weaker neighboring states and colonies founded at a distance. The size of a kingdom depended on the strength of an individual king and might fluctuate greatly from reign to reign. The surplus wealth accumulated by the kings from the slave trade and monopolies on the distribution of trade goods allowed for lavish expenditures on the palaces that were the symbols of their political power. Although the king had divine antecedents and might himself partake of divinity, his authority was not absolute nor was his person inviolable. Councils of chiefs or elders stood as a check against abuse of custom by the king and could under certain conditions depose him and take his life. During the fifteenth century Oyo and Benin surpassed Ife, the first of the great Yoruba kingdoms, as political and economic powers, although Ife preserved its status as a religious center even after its decline. Respect for the priestly functions of the oni (king) of Ife linked the frequently warring Yoruba states as an ethnic unit and gave him precedence over other Yoruba rulers, whom the oni invested with the symbols of their temporal power (see fig. 2). Ife Ife, was the center of 400 religious cults whose traditions were manipulated to political advantage by the oni in the days of the kingdom's greatness. Ife also lay at the center of the complex slave-trading network with the north. The oni supported his court on tolls levied on trade, tribute exacted from dependencies, and from tithes due him as a religious leader. He also held a monopoly on the commercial slave raiding in the region that was his principal source of income, providing an export commodity, labor for the city-state, and subjects for ritual sacrifice to the gods. His army was continually active in suppressing unauthorized slaving activities. Many of Ife's political traditions were adopted or modified by other city-states. The oni was chosen on a rotating basis from one of several branches of the ruling dynasty, which was composed of a clan with several thousand members. Once elected he went into seclusion in the palace compound and was not seen again by his people. Below the oni in the state hierarchy were palace officials, town chiefs, and the rulers of outlying dependencies. The palace officials were spokesmen for the oni and the rulers of dependencies who had their own hierarchies of officials. All offices, even that of the oni, were elective and depended on broad support within the community. Each official was chosen like the oni from among the eligibles of a clan that had hereditary right to the office. Members of the royal dynasty were often assigned to govern dependencies, while the sons of palace officials assumed lesser roles as functionaries, bodyguards to the oni, and judges. [See Figure 2.: Yorubaland, Eleventh to Nineteenth Centuries] Oyo The model of Ife was applied in the fifteenth century at Oyo, where a member of its ruling dynasty consolidated several smaller city-states under his control. A council of state, the Oyo Mesi, eventually took over responsibility for naming the alafin (king) from candidates proposed from the ruling dynasty and acted as a check on his authority. Oyo developed as a constitutional monarchy with actual government in the hands of the basorum (prime minister), who presided over the Oyo Mesi. The surrounding countryside was not well endowed with resources, but the city was situated on the terminus of the trade route about 170 kilometers north of Ife and cut off the mother city from access to market centers. Unlike the forest-bound Yoruba kingdoms, Oyo drew its military strength from the savanna where the alafin could deploy cavalry to counter the threat from the Sudanic kingdoms and secure control of the trade route farther to the north. The arrival of the Portuguese on the coast at the end of the fifteenth century opened a new market for slaves in the south that eventually eclipsed demand from traditional customers in the north. At the height of Oyo's expansion in the eighteenth century, the alafin was overlord of most of Yorubaland, and his empire extended in the west to Dahomey (present-day Benin), to Hausaland in the north, and encroached on the coastal ports. Authority for governing outside Oyo itself, however, was distributed among satellite kings who purchased their autonomy with tribute paid to the alafin. Plagued by a bloody history of internal dissension and palace coups, Oyo declined rapidly toward the end of the century. In 1837 the capital was destroyed by the Fulani, and refugees founded a new city at the site of present-day Oyo. Benin Benin was already a well-established agricultural community in the Edo-speaking area about 100 kilometers from the coast when at the beginning of the fourteenth century it became a dependency of Ife. By the fifteenth century it had set out on an independent course and become a major slave trading power in its own right, blocking Ife's access to the coastal ports as Oyo had cut off the mother city from the savanna. Political power and religious authority resided in the oba (king), who was according to tradition descended from a line of the Ife dynasty. The oba was advised by a council of six hereditary chiefs, who also nominated his successor. The city, which housed over 100,000 inhabitants, spread over twenty-five square kilometers that were enclosed by three concentric rings of earthworks. Responsibility for administering the urban complex lay with sixty trade guilds, each with its own quarter, whose membership cut across clan affiliations and owed its loyalty directly to the oba. At his wooden, steepled palace, the oba presided over a large court, where he displayed his enormous wealth in brass, bronze, and ivory objects. Unlike the other Yoruba kingdoms, Benin developed a centralized regime to oversee the administration of its expanding territories. At its apogee in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Benin was the center of an empire that encompassed southeastern Yorubaland. Dependencies were governed by members of the royal family who were assigned several towns or villages scattered throughout the realm rather than a block of territory that could be used as a base for revolt against the oba. Benin profited from its close ties with the Portuguese and exploited the firearms obtained from them in trade to tighten its hold on the lower Niger. In the long run, however, the constant warfare unleashed by Benin's efforts to procure slaves and other commodities for lucrative trade with Europe overtaxed its strength and contributed to a gradual decline that had set in by the eighteenth century and culminated in the city's capture by British forces in 1897. The Ibo: A Stateless Society The Niger, which was an avenue for north-south trade in the lower basin, was a barrier to east-west movement, keeping the Ibo and Ijaw peoples on the east bank in relative isolation from the state-building Yoruba. The egalitarian Ibo lived in small, self-contained villages organized according to a lineage system that did not allow for social stratification. They had no tradition of centralized political authority and no concept of a political unit larger than a group of villages. An individual's fitness to govern was determined in terms of his wisdom and his wisdom in terms of his age and experience. In the absence of chiefs, some Ibo relied on an order of priests chosen from outsiders on the northern fringe of Iboland to ensure their impartiality for settling disputes between communities. Ibo gods, like those of the Yoruba, were numerous, but their relationship to one another and to men was essentially democratic. Although there was a variety of oracles and local cults that attracted devotees, the central deity was the earth mother and fertility figure, Ala, whose shrines were venerated everywhere in Iboland. Subsistence farming was practiced by Ibo villagers who cultivated yams as the staple crop in their own fields. Land, obtained through inheritance, was the measure of wealth and prestige. Iboland was always overpopulated in relation to its resources, however, and the poor quality of its soil encouraged the Ibo to develop handicrafts and commercial skills. As in Yorubaland, however, slavery was the most crucial element in the region's economy, both for domestic labor and for export. The slave trade was carried on through a network established by members of the Aro clan, who served as arbiters in villages throughout Iboland. By custom their persons were sacrosanct, allowing them to travel anywhere with their goods without fear of attack. As oracle priests they also received slaves paid as fines or dedicated by their masters to the gods as scapegoats for their own sins. These slaves thereby became the property of the Aro priest who was at liberty to sell them. Northern Kingdoms As in the south trade was the key to the emergence of organized communities in the north. Prehistoric migrants, scattering before the encroaching desert, used paths already established to reach the savanna in the third millennium B.C. when the Sahara began to desiccate. The trans-Saharan trade routes linked the western Sudan with the Mediterranean from the time of Carthage and with the upper Nile from a much earlier date, also establishing an avenue of communication and cultural influence that has remained open into the twentieth century (see fig. 3). By these same routes Islam made its way south into West Africa. After the ninth century a string of powerful dynastic empires dominated the western Sudan. Famous states like Ghana, Mali, and Songhai were loosely administered and fell apart when their military power declined, but their cultural development and economic prosperity equaled that of many parts of Europe in the same period. Bornu was the only kingdom on what became Nigerian territory to achieve a status comparable to the Sudanic states farther to the west. With them and the smaller Hausa states on the savanna, it thrived on regular trade with North Africa and prospered in the role of middleman between the Berber caravans and their trading partners in the forest region (see fig. 4). Bornu About the seventh century a pastoral people, who were the ancestors of the Kanuri, migrated into the Lake Chad region and by about 1000 had founded the kingdom of Kanem on the north shore. The mai (king) of Kanem was by custom the first among equals in the Kanuri nobility and ruled in conjunction with a council of peers as a constitutional monarch. In the eleventh century the mai and his court accepted Islam, but their conversion led to no fundamental changes in the Kanuri way of life. Rather, Islam was used to reinforce existing political and social structures. Women, for example, continued to exercise considerable political influence. The mai employed his mounted bodyguard, composed of abid (slave soldiers), and an inchoate army of nobles to extend Kanem's authority into Bornu on the south shore of Lake Chad. By tradition the territory was conferred on the heir to the throne to govern during his apprenticeship. In the fourteenth century, however, dynastic conflict forced the then-ruling group and its followers to establish a separate regime in Bornu, which became the focus of Kanuri power and eventually made Kanem its satellite. Bornu's prosperity depended on its stake in the eastward-oriented trans-Sudanic slave trade, and its economy was extremely sensitive to any shift in trading patterns. The need to protect its commercial interests along the trade route compelled Bornu to extend its sphere of influence in the sixteenth century to Kordofan and Darfur in the eastern Sudan. Although Bornu's political power waned in the eighteenth century, its court and mosques under the patronage of a line of scholarly kings earned fame as centers of Islamic culture and learning. Bornu maintained its independence against the Fulani, but the wars in the early nineteenth century led to the fall of the ruling dynasty and its replacement by a group of warriors from Kanem who had come to fight the Fulani. Because they shared in the ancient traditions of Bornu, the sense of continuity so important to the Kanuri was not lost with the succession of the new dynasty. Hausa The Hausa were the descendants of Chadic-speaking migrants who moved westward across the Sudan in continuous waves during the first millennium A.D. They settled in the savanna and high plains, where they assimilated the indigenous population and slaves brought from the south. According to their reckoning, Hausaland extended across the Niger-Volta basins wherever Hausa was spoken, and the term "Hausa" was applied by them to anyone speaking the language. Unlike the Kanuri, the Hausa never exhibited a tendency toward political unity, but their trading instincts gave rise to a number of competing market centers on the caravan routes. By the eleventh century some of these-such as at Kano, Katsina, and Zaria-had emerged as great walled cities with populations of 50,000 inhabitants or more, which were engaged in trade and in servicing the caravans as well as in the manufacture of cloth and leather goods. Cereal crops, sugarcane, and cotton were produced in the surrounding countryside, which also provided grazing land for cattle. [See Figure 4.: Hausaland and Bornu, Ninth to Nineteenth Centuries] According to Hausa tradition, a line of rulers descended from a "founding hero" of Kanuri origin and formed kingdoms based on the cities. Wedged in among the stronger Sudanic kingdoms, each of the Hausa states acquired special military, economic, or religious functions. No one state dominated the others, but at various times different states assumed a leading role. They were under constant pressure from Mali and later Songhai to the west and Kanem-Bornu to the east, to which they paid tribute. Armed conflict was usually motivated by economic concerns as coalitions of Hausa states mounted wars against the non-Hausa Jukun, Tiv, and Nupe peoples in the Kasashen Bauchi (Middle Belt-see Glossary) to collect slaves or against one another for control of important trade routes. Status determined by lineage was the basis for political authority and the key element in the Hausa social structure. Clear distinctions were drawn among three classes-chiefs, nobles, and commoners-but a hierarchy of functionally differentiated groups also operated within each level of that structure. There was even a great range of distinction among slaves. The class of chiefs produced the ruling dynasties of cities, while the class of nobles provided the titled officeholders who served them. Together they were expected to govern and to supply warriors for the large, undisciplined bodies of heavily armored cavalry whose battles were invariably decided by the weight of numbers brought to bear on the field. Neither class engaged in commerce nor showed much interest in landholding. Wealth was accounted by the size of their herds of long-horned cattle, and prestige by the rank that their lineage entitled them to in the state. Public service was rewarded with fiefs, territory allotted at the pleasure of the king to kin and nobles according to their ability to equip fighting men to defend it. The fiefholders administered justice and raised troops in their territory and kept a share of the taxes they collected as compensation for their efforts on the king's behalf. Commerce was in the hands of commoners. Within the cities trades were organized under a hierarchical system of guilds, each of which was self-regulating and collected taxes from its members to be transmitted to the king as a pledge of loyalty. In return the king guaranteed the security of the guild's trade. The surrounding countryside produced grain for local consumption, cotton and hides for processing, and sugarcane for export. Islam was introduced to Hausaland through the caravan routes, but the Kano Chronicle records the conversion of Kano's ruling dynasty by missionaries from Mali, suggesting that political pressure by the stronger Sudanic kingdom may have been a factor in the process. Acceptance of Islam was gradual and was often nominal in the countryside, where folk religion continued to exert a strong influence on the Hausa people. Traditional pre-Islamic practices were also retained in the court ceremonies of the Hausa kings. Kano, with its famous mosques and schools, and other Hausa cities came to participate fully in the cultural and intellectual life of the Islamic world. Piety, especially among guildsmen in the cities, was expressed through membership in Muslim brotherhoods, which also had political and social functions. From the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century, two issues dominated the political life of Hausaland: the incessant warfare among the Hausa states themselves and the claims of non-Hausa powers, Songhai and Bornu, over some of the Hausa kingdoms that had become their clients. Neither admitted to a solution until Hausaland was overrun by a Fulani-led jihad (holy war) and divided among Fulani emirs. Fulani The ancestors of the Fulani were probably pastoral people forced south by the gradual desiccation of the Sahara. Their range eventually extended over the whole of the western Sudan. Many Fulani were converted to Islam in the Senegal region as early as the eleventh century. Their peaceful entry into Hausaland began in the thirteenth century. One group of Muslim Fulani settled in the cities and mingled freely with the Hausa, from whom they were indistinguishable. There they constituted a fiercely religious, educated elite who made themselves indispensable to the Hausa kings as government officials, Islamic judges, and teachers. Another group, the lighter skinned pastoral or "cattle" Fulani, remained aloof from the Hausa and in some measure from Islam as well, herding cattle outside the cities and leading a nomadic way of life according to their own customs. In the early nineteenth century Fulani of both groups joined in the holy war, led by Usman dan Fodio, that brought down the Hausa states and established the Fulani aristocracy as the ruling elite in the region (see Usman dan Fodio and the Fulani Emirates, this ch.).