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Slavery & Abolition
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Protecting Freeborn Muslims: The
Sokoto Caliphate's Attempts to Prevent
Illegal Enslavement and its Acceptance
of the Strategy of Ransoming
Jennifer Lofkrantz
Available online: 13 Feb 2011
To cite this article: Jennifer Lofkrantz (2011): Protecting Freeborn Muslims: The Sokoto Caliphate's
Attempts to Prevent Illegal Enslavement and its Acceptance of the Strategy of Ransoming, Slavery
& Abolition, 32:1, 109-127
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Slavery & Abolition
Vol. 32, No. 1, March 2011, pp. 109 – 127
Protecting Freeborn Muslims: The
Sokoto Caliphate’s Attempts to
Prevent Illegal Enslavement and its
Acceptance of the Strategy of
Ransoming
Jennifer Lofkrantz
This article builds upon previous work on the discourse of legal and illegal slavery in
Islamic West Africa and on the issue of illegal enslavement as a major cause of the
Sokoto jihad. It argues that the protection of freeborn Muslims was a major policy
concern for the Sokoto government but that, due to internal factors, the government
could not stop the enslavement of freeborn Muslims nor enforce the legally preferred
remedy of free release. The government’s acceptance of the ransoming of illegally
captive individuals by family and friends is interpreted as a demonstration of the weakness of the Sokoto Caliphate government.
The issue of legal and illegal enslavement had been debated in African Muslim societies
from at least the fifteenth century and was of special importance in the western and
central Sudan region of West Africa. For the Sokoto Caliphate government, the prevention of illegal enslavement of freeborn Muslims was a major policy concern. Its policies concerning illegal enslavement can therefore be used as yet another lens through
which to evaluate the relative strength and weakness of the central government. Rather
than merely point out the conflicted nature of official responses to illegal enslavement,
it will be demonstrated that, while the state tried to follow religious guidelines, its
inability to enforce compliance and its economic dependence on booty in the form
of captives and on plantation slavery meant that it had to accept a more modified
stance in the form of condoning ransoming. Ransoming refers to the practice of
paying for the release of a captive at the time of capture or soon afterwards. Ransoming
differs from redemption in that a redeemed slave remains in a subservient status in his
Corresponding author: Jennifer Lofkrantz is Visiting Assistant Professor, History Department, St. Thomas
University, 51 Dineen Drive, Fredericton New Brunswick, E3B 5G3, Canada. Email: [email protected]
ISSN 0144-039X print/1743-9523 online/11/010109– 19
DOI: 10.1080/0144039X.2011.538201 # 2011 Taylor & Francis
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Jennifer Lofkrantz
or her owner’s society, whereas a ransomed captive returns to their previous status in
their own society.
The Sokoto government’s inability to enforce the legally correct and recognised
method of free release and its acceptance of ransoming as the means to regain the
freedom of freeborn Muslims demonstrates its relative weakness. This will be shown
by first reviewing the debate on legal and illegal enslavement in the central Sudan
prior the nineteenth century; secondly, by discussing the prevention of illegal enslavement as a motivator of the Sokoto jihad and as a goal of the state that was established;
thirdly, by examining the political, economic and social structures that prevented the
Sokoto Caliphate from being able to safeguard the freedom of freeborn Muslims.
Finally, it will be demonstrated that, since it could not enforce free release, the
Sokoto Caliphate condoned ransoming as a practical means for ensuring the
freedom of freeborn Muslims.
Considering the importance of the Sokoto Caliphate, it is not surprising that it has
been an important subject of study for the past 40 years. The Sokoto Caliphate was
founded in 1804, and was the largest state in sub-Saharan Africa in the nineteenth
century. Population estimates range from 8 million to 10 million.1 By the mid-nineteenth century, the Caliphate encompassed an estimated 150,000 square miles. The
state was centred on the Hausa cities of modern-day Northern Nigeria but stretched
westwards to modern-day Burkina Faso, eastwards to the Central African Republic,
northwards into Niger and southwards into Yorubaland. It was an Islamic state whose
founders envisioned a society grounded in Islamic precepts, the Mālikı̄ fiqh (school of
law) and the Sufi Qādiriyya tarı̄qa (order). The Sokoto Caliphate had political, economic
_
and social relationships with Muslim and non-Muslim states in West Africa, the
Maghrib, Ottoman territories and the Arabian Peninsula. The success of the Sokoto
jihad and the establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate helped to inspire later reform movements in the western Sudan. The Sokoto Caliphate was also one of the largest slave
societies in modern history. In 1860, at the outbreak of the American Civil War, there
were possibly as many slaves in the Caliphate as there were in the United States.
Important work has been done on the Sokoto Caliphate’s political history. These
studies highlight disagreement about the relative strength of the Caliphate government. They also demonstrate the existence of a complex political system, at both
the emirate and caliphate level, consisting of a multitude of different types of stakeholder competing for their own perceived best interests. Both Murray Last and
Mervyn Hiskett argue that the reformers established a strong centralised state.
Making extensive use of Arabic documents created by officials of the Sokoto Caliphate,
Last provided the first in-depth study of the political development of the Sokoto Caliphate and the relationships between various office holders and power players within
the government structure. Concentrating on the role of the vizier, he argues that the
Caliphate government provided a strong, centralised form of governance.2 Hiskett
argues that the political, religious and social goals of the reformers who led the
jihad and founded the Sokoto Caliphate were largely met. He argues that the reformers
successfully replaced the Hausa city-state system with a centralised Islamic government
and an Islamic system of law.3
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Countering the argument that the Sokoto Caliphate was a strong centralised state,
M.G. Smith and J.S. Trimingham argue that there was significant slippage on the
emirate level to Hausa forms of administration. Smith argues, that in the case of
Kano, the re-adoption of certain Hausa titles and political institutions in the 1820s
under the reign of Ibrahim Dabo (1819–1846) was an issue of practicality in order
to entrench the position of the new ruling class. Trimingham characterises the organisation and governance of the Caliphate as loose and decentralised and argues that, in
the Emirates, the new elites were unable to form governments based upon the ideals of
the jihad.4 More recently, Sean Stilwell, while focusing on the government of Kano
Emirate and extrapolating to the Caliphate as a whole, has demonstrated the importance of royal slaves in the running of the government. In so doing, he illuminates the
gap between theory and practice in the exercise of political power and the nature of
both the patron-client and the household-style politics of the state.5
Adding yet another level to the discussion of the relative strength of the central
Sokoto government, Paul Lovejoy, in his large corpus of work on the economic and
social history of the Sokoto Caliphate, has demonstrated the importance of slavery
to the political economy of the state. He argues that slavery was the basis both for
the economy and of society and that the functioning of the institution was a vital
concern for all stakeholders, including government and religious leaders.6 As such,
the issue of slavery impacted every facet of daily life and economy. An examination
of the Caliphate’s goals and achievements with regard to their important policy
concern of illegal enslavement builds upon and contributes to the discussion of the
form, effectiveness and strength of the central government.
Indeed, Muslim scholars in the western and central Sudan regions of West Africa
had debated the issue of legal and illegal enslavement from at least the fifteenth
century. John Hunwick, Lovejoy and Humphrey Fisher have addressed this debate.
Hunwick has demonstrated that there were significant debates on a myriad of social
and legal concerns in Muslim West African societies, including slavery.7 Lovejoy, in
his articles on Ahmad Bābā’s opinions and Muhammad Bello’s policies concerning
_
_
slavery, has shown the complexity and ramifications of these debates, both in terms
of justifications for legal enslavement and the impact of the debate on trade. Moreover,
as argued by Fisher, the issue of legal and illegal enslavement was an important motivator for the Sokoto jihad. Both Fisher and Lovejoy point out that in the early nineteenth
century, slavery was no less debated in the Sokoto Caliphate than it was in Britain.
Indeed, at times, policies stemming from the European and the Muslim West African
debates could come together, as shown by the influential but never ratified 1824
Anti-slave Trade Accord negotiated between Bello and Hugh Clapperton. However, as
Lovejoy demonstrates, there were two very important differences between the debates
that took place in Britain and the Sokoto Caliphate. First, British abolitionism was
focused on the transatlantic slave trade whereas in the Sokoto Caliphate, the debate
was concentrated on the emancipation and protection of Muslims. Secondly, in the
Muslim regions of West Africa the slavery debate was centred on religious identity; in
other words, on social and cultural categories, rather than on ‘race’ and Enlightenment
ideals as in European and European-derived societies.8
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Jennifer Lofkrantz
In the central Sudan, according to local interpretations of Islamic law, the correct
manner with which to deal with a captive or enslaved freeborn Muslim was to
return that person to a state of freedom. According to all schools of Islamic law,
only non-Muslims captured through a legally perpetrated jihad could be legitimately
enslaved. The fifteenth-century scholar Muhammad al-Maghı̄lı̄ was of the strong
_
opinion that it was the responsibility of Muslims, and especially of Muslim rulers,
to protect the rights of freeborn Muslims and to free them from captivity and enslavement when necessary.9 Al-Maghı̄lı̄ is often credited with introducing Islam and the
Mālikı̄ school of law to Hausaland. While the spread of Islam in the region was a
complex process, this accreditation indicates his importance to the intellectual
tradition of the area. Al-Maghı̄lı̄’s legal opinions, like those who came after him,
were based on the fundamental principle of Islamic jurisprudence that the natural condition, and therefore the default status, of a person is that of freedom. Therefore, a
person ought to be presumed to be free unless he or she is proven to be a slave.
The sixteenth-century Timbuktu jurist Ahmad Bābā, who wrote one of the most
_
important treatises on legal and illegal enslavement, also grounded his legal opinions
in the principle that the natural condition of a person is that of freedom. It was his
opinion that freeborn Muslims ought to be granted free release immediately upon
their free status being verified. Yet, as he discusses in Mi‘rāj al-Su’ūd, one of the ques_
tions repeatedly put to scholars was: who was responsible for proving or disproving a
person’s freeborn Muslim status? Did the onus lay with the enslaved individual to
prove that he or she was a freeborn Muslim or did the responsibility rest with the
captor to demonstrate that the slave was not a freeborn Muslim? Bābā demonstrated
in his discussion of the legal opinions of the important scholars Abū’l- Asbagh b. Sahl
Muhammad b. Yahyā ibn Zurb, Mahmūd b. ‘Umar b. Muhammad Aqı̄t, and Makhlūf
_
_
_
b. ‘Alı̄ b. Sālhi al-Balbālı̄ that scholarly opinion was that it was the responsibility of
the owners to prove that their slaves were not freeborn Muslims; in other words,
free status was favoured over that of enslaved. He shared and reiterated this opinion
in his judgements and advice.10
It was the failure of the pre-nineteenth-century Hausa states to recognise the special
protected status of a freeborn Muslim and to follow accepted norms of enslavement
that led in large part to the launch of the Sokoto jihad.11 While the political leadership
of the Hausa states considered themselves to be Muslims, they based their legitimacy
and therefore their power, leadership and governorship upon pre-Islamic traditional
values. Yet, by the end of the seventeenth century, Islam had spread among the
general populace, including the rural Fulani population, from its initial base among
the Hausa political elite, merchants and intellectuals. With the growth of Islamic
education throughout the eighteenth century came a questioning of the traditional
religions, values and customs upon which the structure of the eighteenth-century
states was based and a desire to reorganise society according to Islamic law.12
One of the most important complaints of the Muslim community towards the
Hausa states was their inability or unwillingness to protect freeborn Muslims from
enslavement. Throughout the eighteenth century the political landscape was
complex. The region was politically divided into numerous city states, of which the
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most important included Gobir, Kano, Katsina, Rano and Zaria. The eighteenth
century was a period of warfare between the Hausa states as each tried to assert dominance and to attain control of both the north–south and east–west trade routes of the
central Sudan. These wars produced captives and many of these captured enslaved
individuals were freeborn Muslims. Significant numbers of Muslim slaves were sold
southwards towards Yorubaland and Asante as well as northwards.13 Towards the
end of the eighteenth century, due to the enslavement of captives in the wars
between the Hausa states, the enslavement of freeborn Muslims became especially
alarming to religious leaders. Individuals such as the Tuareg scholar Jibrı̄l b. ‘Umar,
and his student, the future leader of the Sokoto jihad, ‘Uthmān ibn Fūdı̄, also
known as Usman dan Fodio, were amongst the eighteenth century intellectuals who
protested the capture and enslavement of freeborn Muslims.14 In the years leading
up to the Sokoto jihad, religious leaders, including the future leaders of the movement,
repeated the injunction against enslaving freeborn Muslims, and attempted to free
captive freeborn Muslims.15
Indeed, both the leader of the Sokoto jihad, ‘Uthmān, and his brother ‘Abdullāhi
were educated with the belief that it was the state’s responsibility to protect the
rights of freeborn Muslims. In the late eighteenth century, their teacher, Jibrı̄l
b. ‘Umar, actively protested the enslavement of freeborn Muslims. Through their
education, the brothers had inherited the collective assessment of the debates
surrounding issues of legal and illegal enslavement as discussed by scholars trained
in Mālikı̄ jurisprudence and who belonged to the Qādiriyya tarı̄qa.16 Uthmān and
_
‘Abdullāhi were well versed in the work of both al-Maghı̄lı̄ and Bābā. Along with
Khalı̄l b. Ishāq’s Mukhtasar, their writings were included in the general corpus of a
_
_
Mālikı̄ legal education of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century western and central
Sudan. Indeed, Jibrı̄l b. ‘Umar, relied upon Bābā’s analyses and the analyses upon
whom Bābā relied, to challenge the infringement of the rights of freeborn Muslims
to protection against enslavement. It is therefore not surprising that ‘Uthmān and
the leadership of the jihad believed that it was incumbent upon them to prevent the
enslavement of freeborn Muslims.
‘Uthmān’s movement was, in large part, a response to what the Muslim community
perceived to be injustices being committed against them and an attempt to protect
their freedom from potential enslavement. ‘Uthmān viewed his attack against the
Hausa state of Gobir, the first battle of the jihad, as an act of self-defence.17 The
concern over the enslavement of freeborn Muslims and the willingness to act
against it, though, was not unique to the leaders and participants of the Sokoto
jihad. Nāsir al-Dı̄n’s 1670s movement, based in Mauritania, for example, was
_
founded in large part to stop the enslavement of freeborn Muslims and their sale
into the transatlantic slave trade.18 Just as they were familiar with the debate on
legal and illegal enslavement and the ‘proper’ role of the state in the protection of
the rights of freeborn Muslims, the leaders of the Sokoto jihad would have been familiar with past uses of political reform in West Africa as a means of achieving their goal.
The emphasis that the leadership placed on the government’s role in facilitating legal
slavery while preventing illegal enslavement can be seen in their laws concerning
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individuals whose status was unknown. The leadership adopted the viewpoint that it
was better to permit a non-Muslim to go free than wrongly to enslave a freeborn
Muslim. In his 1802 treatise Masa’il muhimma, ‘Uthmān forbade the sale of any
Fulani on the basis that the Fulani had long been recognised as Muslims. This injunction was later upheld by ‘Uthmān’s son Muhammad Bello, despite the fact that Bello
_
did not consider all Fulani to be Muslims. Attempts were also made to stop the export
of freeborn Muslims from the Sokoto Caliphate. In the 1830s there were efforts to
inspect all northbound caravans, and export checks were also conducted in Katsina,
Agadez, Tassaoua and Damergou. Caravans found to be transporting illegally enslaved
individuals were subject to the loss of all the caravan’s merchandise. Similar
restrictions were also placed on the southern slave trade. One of the justifications
for enslavement was to encourage the conversion of non-Muslims to Islam. This
purpose is defeated if captives are sold to non-Muslims. Selling slaves, especially
those who had converted to Islam, or, worse yet, illegally enslaved freeborn
Muslims, to non-Muslims was considered wrongful and was highly discouraged by
the government. It was against Sokoto Caliphate law to sell slaves to Christians on
the Atlantic Coast. Bello found the practice of selling slaves to non-Muslims so offensive that he condemned Oyo’s slave trade with Europeans on the Atlantic Coast. Later,
‘Umar al-Fūtı̄, who had close ties with the Sokoto regime and had married Bello’s
daughter Mariam, also adopted this injunction against selling slaves to Christians in
his jihad of the 1850s in the western Sudan.19
While the Caliphate emphasised caution in the enslavement of individuals whose
status was unknown, for people whose status was known, the reformers’ definition
of who was considered to be a freeborn Muslim was narrow and might even disagree
with an individual’s own definition of his/her religious identity. In deciding Muslim
identity, ‘Uthmān divided the population of the central Sudan into three categories.
The first group comprised of people who followed ‘pure’ Islamic law. This was the
group he considered as Muslim and who should be protected. The second category
included individuals who followed a mixture of orthodox Islamic practices and
pagan practices, while the third group was comprised of people who had never
accepted the ‘truth’ of Islam. In his opinion, it was acceptable to enslave members
of the last two groups along with their children and to confiscate their property.20
Indeed, following his father’s direction, Bello disagreed and narrowed Bābā’s cheat
sheet of Muslim and non-Muslim populations of the region.21 He argued that the
majority of people whom Bābā considered Muslims were not actually Muslims.
Bello argued that either Bābā was mistaken or that by the nineteenth century these
populations were no longer Muslim.22 The Caliphate’s narrow definition of a freeborn
Muslim makes its difficulty in protecting the relatively small group that it wanted to
protect especially intriguing.
Impacting the Caliphate’s ability to enforce its will concerning legal and illegal
slavery was the political structure of the Sokoto Caliphate. In setting up the postjihad state, the leaders of the movement first chose to model their society and government on that of the Prophet at Medina and the four Companions that succeeded him.
This was a patriarchal and direct form of government that was democratic in the sense
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that the Prophet, followed by the four Companions who were each elected Caliph after
the Prophet’s death, ruled in consultation with community elders. Yet, unlike the
original Muslim community at Medina, the Sokoto Caliphate covered a vast territory.
It was a four-month journey from east to west and a two-month journey from north to
south. Due to the sheer distances involved, the central government had to abrogate
powers to local authorities. Therefore, they adapted the constitutional frameworks
of the Umayyad and ‘Abbāsid dynasties who also had to deal with governing a state
over a large geographic region. These political structures were in accordance with
respected texts of jurisprudence. In so doing, the new state leadership was in
keeping with the goal of the jihad of establishing an Islamic community governed
in accordance with Islamic law.
The Caliphate was initially divided into four and later reorganised into two sections.
The north and east of the Caliphate was governed directly by Sokoto whereas the south
and west sections were governed through Gwandu. The amı̄r at Gwandu was subordinate to the Sarkin Musulmi at Sokoto but was in charge of the southern and western
emirates. Initially, local amı̄rs were chosen from and by local leaders with the approval
of the governments at Sokoto and Gwandu. An emissary from Sokoto supervised each
local amı̄r. In this way, the central government had oversight over the activities of the
emirates, but lacked a means to take direct action. In total, the Caliphate was comprised of 30 emirates and 2 capital districts; yet the emirates themselves could be
divided into many sub-emirates. Bauchi, for example, had nine sub-emirates and
numerous semi-autonomous districts. There was no central standing army. Obedience
to the central authority and the Caliphate’s unity was dependent on the prestige of
‘Uthmān, ‘Abdullāhi, Bello and their heirs.23 The government in Sokoto needed to
work with the amı̄rs, taking into consideration the political, economic and strategic
concerns of the emirate governments in order to maintain a unified state.
Despite its desire to limit enslavement, and instead of decreasing the number of
people enslaved, the founding of the Sokoto Caliphate actually led to an increase in
slavery within the region that included the enslavement of freeborn Muslims. This
was due to the development of the plantation economy and to the importance of
booty collection as a source of personal and public income. Indeed, slavery came to
form the root of many social and political relationships throughout the core emirates
of the Caliphate and fell within the official jurisdiction of the state. Taxes, for example,
were often paid in slaves.24 The increase in enslavement also highlighted the state’s
inability to enforce its will in terms of protecting freeborn Muslims from enslavement.
It was difficult for the state to meet its goal and promise of fair enslavement while
simultaneously trying to fulfil the needs of a range of interests, including those of
plantation owners and soldiers. As the state was organised to produce a continuous
stream of new captives, slave raiding and the chances of taking captive freeborn
Muslims increased.
Key to the increase in slavery and therefore of enslavement was the growth of the plantation sector in the nineteenth century. Plantations had long existed in the central
Sudan, especially in Kano, but in the eighteenth century, this sector had suffered due
to warfare between the Hausa states and to periodic draught.25 The founding of the
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Sokoto Caliphate for the first time unified the various Hausa states. This unification led
to a solidification of a regional economy that was based, in large part, on slave-produced
plantation agriculture. Agricultural products formed an important component of the
Caliphate’s trade and took advantage of and supplied the various climatic zones of
the central Sudan. Grains such as millet and sorghum were traded northwards to the
Sahel and southern Sahara in exchange for livestock and salt while cotton and indigo
were traded from countryside to the urban dye works within the textile belt of southern
Kano and northern Zaria. Other plantation-produced agricultural products included
rice, tobacco, locust beans, cowpeas, peanuts, sugar cane, kola nuts and shea nuts.
Internationally traded products included prepared indigo, tobacco; dried onion leaves
and finished goods such as cotton textiles.26 Increased agricultural production was
also needed in order to support the burgeoning Caliphate population. For example,
according to observations made by European travellers, the population of Kano city,
the most important economic centre of the Caliphate, rose from 30,000 to 40,000
people in 1824, to 60,000 in 1851, and to 100,000 in 1900.27
Initially, government officials, especially Bello, were concerned not just with economic growth but with consolidating and defending the state. Plantations were not only
centres of agricultural production but in the early years of the Caliphate those located
near ribut (sing. ribāt), defensive centres, became the focal points for stabilising the
_
_
eastern, northern and western frontiers and for providing relative safety for civilian
economic, religious, cultural and social life to flourish. The focus on agriculture
also more closely integrated Hausa and Fulani. One of the weaknesses of the Hausa
states was their inability to incorporate the Fulani into the state. Bello encouraged
Fulani to settle in ribut. He was concerned that their nomadic lifestyle would leave
_
vast tracts of land undefended and therefore open to attack from the Caliphate’s
enemies. The result of the sedentarisation of the Fulani was a mixed economy as
individuals combined pastoral and agricultural activities, and a growth in plantations.
The government further encouraged the development of an agriculture economy by
freely distributing fields to slave owners and by granting parcels of uncleared land
to immigrant merchants and craftsmen who switched to agriculture.28
Key to this plantation agricultural economy was labour, mostly in the form of slave
labour. Out of a Sokoto Caliphate population of 8 to 10 million there were between 2
million and 4.5 million enslaved individuals.29 However, the concentration of slaves
varied across emirates with the core emirates having the higher slave populations.
In nineteenth-century Kano, the economic hub of the Caliphate, European travellers
in the early to mid-nineteenth century estimated the slave population as being
between one third and one half of the total population, with a significant number
working on plantations. There were similar ratios for Katsina and Zaria.30
As well as having its economy based on slave labour, the enslavement of new captives
formed an important role in the politics of the state and its social organisation. For the
most part, these new slaves were derived from the booty collected in wars and raids.
From the beginning of the jihad and the founding of the Sokoto Caliphate, the collection of booty in the form of captives was important in Caliphate warfare and state
maintenance. Indeed, the collection and distribution of booty had long played an
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important role in the warfare of the western and central Sudan and the warfare
associated and subsequent to the jihad was no different. According to the Tadhkirat
al-nisyān, raiding and the collection of booty was an important component of
warfare in the region from at least the Moroccan invasion of Songhay in 1591.31 A
common military technique in the establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate was to raid
a particular village or town, taking captive whoever was not killed in the fighting.32
Booty in terms of captives was an important motivator for the soldiers. The collection of booty was of such significance that ‘Uthmān addressed the topic in Tanbı̄h al
ikhwān alā ard al-sūdān. He argued that being motivated by booty collection ought
_
not be counted against an individual if that person had still fought to ‘make God’s
law supreme’. Here, he disagreed with the ninth-century jurist ibn ‘Arafa’s qualification
of a mujāhid. This difference was important, since Sokoto Caliphate officials regularly
referred to ibn ‘Arafa’s opinions in forming their policies. According to ibn ‘Arafa a
person who is motivated to fight in order to collect booty or to demonstrate his
bravery cannot be considered a mujāhid.33 Like his father, Bello also faced the problematic situation of booty. After one expedition against Gobir, his troops were prepared
to desert if they did not receive what they considered to be a more equitable share of
the captives.34
Moreover, booty was an important source of income for both the jihad and for the
state throughout the nineteenth century. Booty was one of the seven income sources
for the public treasury along with the fifth, the land tax, the poll tax, the tithe, inheritance, and property with a missing or no owner.35 The Sokoto treasury received one
fifth of all the booty gathered by the emirates. It was of such importance that the
imperial tribute rates of the eastern emirates were raised sharply in the 1840s in
order to maintain state revenues.36 As indicated in an undated letter, most probably
from the 1890s from the Amı̄r of Katsina to the Sarkin Muslimi of Sokoto, the
collection booty remained an important part of military expeditions.37 Therefore,
the Caliphate was faced with the challenge of balancing the need for booty collection
as compensation for soldiers, as a source of government income, and as the source
for new slaves for plantations with its goal of safeguarding freeborn Muslims from
enslavement.
Adding to the problematic situation that continuous raiding was required in order
to produce booty for the public treasury was the social concern of employing the
growing number of sarakai, or nobles, in culturally legitimate occupations.38
Throughout the nineteenth century, in the lineage-based emirates, the ranks of the
sarakai grew exponentially. In 1820, the typical household may have consisted of a
mai sarauta, his wives, concubines and children, yet by 1900, it could have numbered
c.1000 adult men. The problem, according to Last, was how these elite men could be
legitimately employed. Legitimate occupations for sarakai were as scholars, soldiers
and governors. Throughout the nineteenth century, excess sarakai were often sent to
the frontier where they engaged in activities away from the direct supervision of
scholars, senior officials and their elders, who usually resided in Sokoto and near
other main cities. They were supposed to be defending the border and occasionally
raiding into enemy territory. Often, however, in order to make a living, since
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Jennifer Lofkrantz
raiding across the border was not sufficiently lucrative, they raided the local
population, including Muslims.39 The Lander brothers observed this problem in the
mid 1850s. They stated that,
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many thousands of his [Bello’s] men, fearing no law and having no ostensible
employment are scattered over the whole face of the country. They commit all
sorts of crimes; they plunder, they burn, they destroy, and even murder, and are
not amenable to any earthly tribunal for their actions.40
For both political and economic reasons, the Caliphate required the continuous
raiding of frontier regions and the enslavement of the frontier populations, even
after the state was well established. While the targets of these raids were the nonMuslim population, Muslims were often swept up and taken captive.
Indeed, freeborn Muslims were taken captive through politically sanctioned raids,
warfare and criminal activity. During the Kano civil wars of the late nineteenth
century, freeborn Muslims were often taken prisoner, their status disregarded, and
sold as slaves. For example, both Halı̄ma and Khadı̄ja were free women who were captured during this conflict in the 1890s and sold as slaves.41 Baba of Karo recounts that
when she was a child in the 1890s, Ibrahim Nagwamase, also known as Mai Sudan,
continuously raided the Katsina-Zaria region and also sent raiding parties into her
region of southern Kano. According to Baba, it was possible to trace the captives,
enter into negotiations with their captors, and arrange their ransoms.42
Caravans were often targeted. One of the inherent risks of being a caravaner was the
possibility of being raided. The inability of the state to safeguard caravans on the main
transportation routes and to protect their members from captivity demonstrates the
relative weakness of the state. In his correspondence, Bello acknowledged the
problem to the north of the Sokoto Caliphate, especially by the Tuareg Kel Gress.43
In the 1850s, to the north, the roads in and out of Zinder especially gained a reputation
for being attacked.44 In an attempt to control the situation and as a deterrent,
‘Abdullāhi advocated the enslavement of the women and children of highwaymen as
punishment.45 Obviously, he did not consider those who would engage in highway
robbery and their families as ‘true’ Muslims. Highway robbery was not a problem
limited to the Sokoto Caliphate. The raiding of caravans was also an issue throughout
the western Sudan and western and central Sahara. French colonial officials gathered a
myriad of individual case examples of pillaged caravans and kidnapped caravaners that
took place in the last half of the nineteenth century.46 In the late-nineteenth-century
Sahara, caravan chiefs, whose families were more likely to have the money for ransom
payments, were often targeted for kidnapping and ransoming.47
Another important component in the dynamic of raiding, booty-taking and the
need for slaves as agricultural workers was the high manumission rate in the Sokoto
Caliphate. This meant that new slaves were constantly needed.48 In discussing
slavery, the Qu’rān was biased towards the liberation of slaves. There were several
means through which a slave could be freed. Slaves could become lawfully free if
they were manumitted. Manumission was viewed as an act of benevolence and
many pious owners manumitted slaves for that reason. Manumitting slaves was also
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119
viewed as a way to make amends for committed sins. Owners could also permit slaves
to buy their freedom, or pledge to free the slave at a later date or after the owner’s
death. The Qu’rān recommends that owners permit their slaves to purchase themselves
or to permit a third party to purchase their freedom. A qādı̄ could order an owner to
_
free a slave on account of mistreatment. A concubine who gives birth to her owner’s
child and thereby acquires the title of umm al-walad (mother of the son), gains
certain legal rights that eventually lead to her freedom. A slave, who subsequently converts to Islam and is owned by a dhimmı̄, must be freed or sold by his or her owner,
since a non-Muslim is forbidden to own a Muslim, although a Muslim is permitted to
continue to own an enslaved individual who converts to Islam.49 While the chances of
a particular individual being manumitted by their owner were low, the emphasis on
manumission meant that there was a continual need for new captives to be enslaved.
The practice of manumission combined with continuous raiding at the frontiers
meant that new people were constantly being taken captive and enslaved, including
individuals whose status as freeborn Muslims should have protected them.
It was the failure of the Sokoto state to protect freeborn Muslims from enslavement
and to enforce legally correct processes (free release) to return them to a state of
freedom that explains the practice of ransoming. The government at Sokoto, especially
in the early years, tried to discourage the enslavement of freeborn Muslims. Leaders
labelled those who engaged in the practice as ‘unbelievers’.50 In accordance with the
opinions of al-Maghı̄lı̄ and Bābā, ‘Abdullāhi argued that a captive who claimed to
be a freeborn Muslim must be released unless evidence was provided to prove that
he was either a slave or a non-Muslim.51 Yet the government was unable to stop the
enslavement of freeborn Muslims. This demonstrated both the strong desire on the
part of officials to protect the rights of freeborn Muslims and to implement proper
processes as well as their inability to do so. Instead of forcing the free release of
Muslims wrongly taken captive, the government condoned their ransoming by
family and friends. ‘Uthmān discussed ransoming as a strategy for protecting the
freedom of freeborn Muslims in Bayān wujūb al-hijra ‘alā ‘l-‘ibād.52 As seen in his discussion of ransoming in Risāla ilā ahl al-haramayn al-sharı̄fayn wa ilā ahl al-mashriq,
_
Bello also strongly emphasised the importance of freeing freeborn Muslim from
captivity and slavery. In this text, Bello stated that it was incumbent upon Muslims
to free enslaved fellow Muslims.53 He, himself, always freed prisoners whom he
captured who proved that they were freeborn Muslims, but this was not enforced
on other soldiers.54 Therefore, despite the intentions of the jihad and the desires of
the state, individuals were often left on their own to secure the freedom of those
who should never have faced the possibility of enslavement. With the state condoning
the practice, these individuals often turned to ransoming.
State support for ransoming as a means of guaranteeing the freedom of individuals
who ought not to have been taken captive and to have faced the possibility of enslavement was not unique to the Sokoto Caliphate, or Muslim societies. Indeed, ransoming
has been practised throughout the world with both state and non-state support.55
In condoning ransoming, Caliphate officials were following a strategy similar to the
one practised in the neighbouring region of the Maghrib in its long-standing relations
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with Europe. Considering the commercial, intellectual and legal links between the
western and central Sudan and the Maghrib, it is most likely that the eighteenthcentury scholars of Hausaland as well as the nineteenth-century leaders of the
Sokoto Caliphate were aware of Maghriban policies on the protection of freeborn
Muslims. That the Maghrib and the Sokoto Caliphate would develop similar strategies
on the use of ransoming is both important and unsurprising, since both the Maghrib
and the western and central Sudan share a common foundation in Mālikı̄ law and both
drew on the scholarship of the bilād al-shingı̄t in modern-day Mauritania.56 Just as
_
West African scholars believed that it was incumbent upon government leaders to
free wrongly enslaved Muslims, so too did Maghriban officials. This is exemplified
through the actions of the eighteenth-century Moroccan Sultan Sayyı̄dı̄ Muhammad
_
ibn Abdallāh, also known as Sı̄dı̄ Muhammad. The exchange and ransoming of
_
Muslim captives were key components of his negotiations of peace and commercial
treaties with England, France, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Venice, Tuscany, Portugal,
the Netherlands, Sicily, Austria and the United States in the 1760s, 1770s and
1780s.57 Moreover, he organised individual ransoms of not just Moroccans but of
Muslims of any nationality.58
While ransoming became a practical means for the freeing of individuals who ought
not to have been taken captive and to have faced the possibility of enslavement, it was
limited. Not all of the individuals in the western and central Sudan and within the
Sokoto Caliphate who could have been ransomed were ransomed. Successful
ransom negotiations were dependent on communication between the captor and
the ransom payer and usually on the social status of the captive. In terms of communication, ransoming and enslavement were polar opposites. Successful enslavement
involved suppressing communication between the captive and his or her family and
friends and quickly moving the captives away from territory where they could
escape or seek help. Successful ransom negotiations, on the other hand, required communication between the captor and the ransom payer. The Tuareg Kel Gress usually
waited in the general area of their raids to see whether or not someone would send
an emissary to conduct ransom negotiations. In late-nineteenth-century upper
Niger, in the aftermath of Samori’s raids captives were often held to see whether or
not surviving relatives and friends were willing and able to ransom them back.59
Information could also be passed through long-distance traders and through
trading diasporas.60 Indicating state support for ransoming, in the Sokoto Caliphate,
it was possible to travel to politically sanctioned markets in order to gather information about captive relatives and occasionally to find and ransom them. In the
latter half of the nineteenth century, Muslim prisoners brought to Kano were most
often ransomed.61
However, mediators were usually used to negotiate ransoms between the captor and
those willing to pay a ransom. Demonstrating state support for ransoming in the
Sokoto Caliphate, the mediator was most probably a government official. For
example, in the late 1890s, the ransom negotiations for Baba of Karo’s aunt and her
children involved both the Sarkin Zarewa and the Amı̄r of Katsina as mediators.62
Even cases of captive freeborn Muslims that were of personal interest to powerful
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officials were dependent on negotiating ransoms and using mediators. For example, in
answering a query on the progress of a particular set of ransom negotiations, the third
Sarkin Musulmi and ‘Uthmān’s son, Abūbakar Atikū expressed concern for the
captives and was waiting to hear back from the mediator.63 Similarly, in the 1890s,
a mediator was also involved in making contact for ransom negotiations in the case
of a grandson of the Sarkin Musulmi ‘Abd al-Rahmān.64
_
The second factor affecting the outcome of ransom negotiations was the social
status of the captive. Here, the role of the individual was more important than the
role of the state as it was dependent on the resources of the captive and of those of
his or her family. This is because ransom fees were high. According to Zinder oral tradition, important and elite captives were always offered for ransom.65 Similarly, due to
their status and upon payment of a ransom, Kado nobles from Anzourou, northwest of
present-day Niamey, were most often returned by their Tuareg captors.66 While the
captive and the payer of ransom may have been motivated by a desire to prevent
the enslavement of the captive, the captor was often motivated to ransom the
captive instead of selling him or her into the slave trade because of the higher
ransom fee. On average, ransom prices throughout the western and central Sudan
and not just the Sokoto Caliphate were twice the slave price and sometimes more.67
Yet prices varied. In the 1850s and 1860s, during the Ningi raids on Kano Emirate,
the Ningi were demanding on average 200 000 cowries in ransom per person. In the
1890s, Baba of Karo’s uncle paid ransom prices 400 000 cowries for his wife,
400,000 for his children and 400,000 for his unborn child. The ransom price of the
Sarkin Musulmi ‘Abd al-Rahmān’s grandson, Barayi Zaki was set at 20 black kore
_
cloths, 40 wawa cloths, 20 kudi da kudi cloths, 3 youths and 2 girls.68
Yet, from at least the fifteenth century, when Al-Maghı̄lı̄ advised the Amı̄r
Muhammad Rumfa of Kano that he needed to preserve a surplus in his treasury for
_
ransoming captives, there existed throughout the region the idea that the state bore
some responsibility for paying the ransoms of freeborn Muslims.69 However, due to
the cost of ransoming, there was a debate, especially in the early years of the Sokoto
Caliphate, about who should be responsible for the payment of ransoms. Indeed,
this was not a new debate in the region. This debate was mainly concerned with the
fate of poor ‘good’ Muslims who could not afford large ransom payments. The elite
usually had the funds with which to pay the ransoms if negotiations were successfully
concluded.
‘Uthmān outlined the main issues of the debate on the responsibility of paying
ransoms in Bayān wujūb al-hijra ‘alā ‘l-‘ibād through a discussion of the positions
of the scholars ibn Juzayy and Khalı̄l ibn Ishāq. The disagreement was centred on
which order of responsibility for the paying of ransoms should be followed. According
to ‘Uthmān’s interpretation, ibn Juzayy argued that the payment of a ransom was first
the responsibility of the captive, secondly the State Treasury, thirdly the Muslim community and lastly non-Muslims. According to ‘Uthmān, Khalı̄l argued for almost the
reverse order. Ransom fees should first be paid out of the fay’, second from among the
Muslim community and lastly from the captive’s own assets.70 Khalı̄l reasoned that it
was easier for the state and Muslims at large than individuals to pay ransom fees and
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Jennifer Lofkrantz
that the community benefited more from the return of the individual captive than the
captive himself.71 In this text ‘Uthmān did not state which order he preferred.
However, ‘Abdullāhi made his opinions on the subject clear. In Diyā’ al-hukkām, he
_
_
stated that there was a community obligation to ransom freeborn Muslims. Yet, he
added that wealthy Muslims should pay for their own ransoms, whereas the local
imām should organise the ransoms of poor freeborn Muslims.72
In conclusion, the practice of ransoming and the failure to implement the free
release of captive freeborn Muslims demonstrates the relative weakness of the
Sokoto Caliphate government to impose its will. This can be seen in the treatment
of enslavement and slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate. The Sokoto jihad was undertaken
in large part to prevent the enslavement of freeborn Muslims; yet, due to political,
economic and social structures, the state that was established as a result of the jihad
was unable to protect freeborn Muslims from being taken captive and from facing
the possibility of enslavement. Since it was unable to enforce the free release of
captive freeborn Muslims, the state condoned their release through payment of a
ransom.
Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this article was first presented at the VI International Conference
on Forced African Labour: Slavery, Migration and Contemporary Bondage in Africa
held at the Wilberforce Institute, University of Hull in September 2009. I would like
to thank all of the participants, and, in particular, Robin Law, for their comments
and advice.
Notes
[1] These estimates are uncertain, due to a lack of census data for the nineteenth century and complications in the data arising from the division of the Sokoto Caliphate into British, French and
German spheres at the time of conquest. For a discussion on the difficulty of determining the
population of the Sokoto Caliphate, see Paul Lovejoy, Slavery Commerce and Production: Essays
in the Social and Economic History of the Central Sudan (Trenton NJ: Africa World Press), 1 –2.
[2] Murray Last, The Sokoto Caliphate (London: Longmans, Green & Co. Ltd, 1967).
[3] Mervyn Hiskett, The Sword of Truth: The Life and Times of the Shehu Usuman Dan Fodio
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1973).
[4] M.G. Smith, ‘Historical and Cultural Conditions of Political Corruption among the Hausa’,
Comparative Studies in Society and History 6 no. 2 (1964): 164–194; M.G. Smith, Government
in Kano 1350– 1950 (Boulder: Westview Press), 225–227; J. Spencer Trimingham, A History of
Islam in West Africa (London: 1962), 195– 202.
[5] Sean Stilwell, Paradoxes of Power: The Kano ‘Mamluks’ and Male Royal Slavery in the Sokoto
Caliphate, 1804–1903 (Portsmouth NH: Heinemann, 2004).
[6] For a compilation of Paul Lovejoy’s work on slavery and the economy of the Sokoto Caliphate,
see Lovejoy, Slavery, Commerce and Production in the Sokoto Caliphate of West Africa.
[7] See, for example, John Hunwick, trans. and ed., Shari’a in Songhay: The Replies of al-Maghı̄lı̄ to
the Questions of Askia al-hājj Muhammad (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997); John
Hunwick ‘Al-Maghı̄lı̄ and the Jews of Tuwāt: The Demise of a Community’, Studia Islamaica
61 (1985): 155 –183; John Hunwick and Fatima Harrack, trans. and eds, Mi’rāj al-Su’ūd,
_
Slavery & Abolition
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[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]
[16]
[17]
[18]
[19]
123
Ahmad Bābā’s Replies on Slavery (Rabat: University Mohammed V Souissi Institute of African
_
Studies, 2000); John Hunwick, ‘Secular Power and Religious Authority in Muslim Society: The
Case of Songhay’, The Journal of African History 37 no. 2 (1996): 175–194.
Paul Lovejoy, ‘The Context of Enslavement in West Africa: Ahmad Bābā and the Ethics of
_
Slavery’ in Slaves, Subjects and Subversives: Blacks in Colonial Latin America, edited by Jane
Landers and Barry Robinson (Alberquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006); Paul
Lovejoy, ‘The Bello– Clapperton Exchange: The Sokoto Jihad and the Transatlantic Slave
Trade’, in The Desert Shore: Literatures of the Sahel, edited by Christopher Wise (Boulder:
Lynne Reinner Publishers, 2001); Humphrey J. Fisher, ‘A Muslim William Wilberforce? The
Sokoto Jihād as Anti-Slavery Crusade: An Enquiry into Historical Causes’, De la traite a
l’esclavage du XVIII au XIVieme siècle: Actes du Colloque Internationial sur la traite des Noirs
Nantes 1985 (Nantes and Paris: Centre de Recherche sur l’histoire du monde atlantique,
société française d’histoire d’outre mer, 1988), vol. 2, 537–555.
Muhammad al-Maghı̄lı̄, Taj al-din yajib ‘ala’mulūk, translated by T.H. Baldwin (Beyrouth_
Liban: Imprimerie Catholique, 1932), 21; Hunwick, Sharı̄ ‘a in Songhay.
Hunwick and Harrack.
Fisher, ‘A Muslim William Wilberforce?’
‘Uthmān ibn Fūdı̄, Bayān wujūb al-hijra ‘alā ‘l-‘ibād, in F.H. el-Masri, ‘A Critical Edition of
Dan Fodio’s Bayān wujūb al-hijra ‘alā ‘l-‘ibād; with Introduction, English Translation and
Commentary’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Ibadan, 1968), 521–522.
R.A. Adeleye, ‘Hausaland and Borno 1600–1800’, in History of West Africa, edited by J.A. Ajayi
and Michael Crowder, 3rd edn (Longman: Longman, 1985), vol. 1, 616; Fisher, ‘A Muslim
William Wilberforce?’, 543– 548.
A.D.H. Bivar, ‘The Wathiqat ahl-Sudan: A Manifesto of the Fulani Jihad’, The Journal of African
History 2 no. 2 (1961): 240 – 241. See also A.D.H. Bivar and Mervyn Hiskett, ‘The Arabic
Literature of Nigeria to 1804: A Provisional Account’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and
African Studies University of London 25 (1962): 143.
See, for example, Muhammad Tukrur, ‘Busuraa’u’, in J. Haafkens, Chants Musulman en Peul
(Brill, 1983), verses 8 –15; ‘Abdullāhi ibn Fūdı̄, Tazyı̄n al-waraqāt, translated and edited by
M. Hiskett (Ibadan: Ibadan University Press, 1983), 142.
For more on Islamic education in the western and central Sudan, see Ivor Wilks, ‘The Transmission of Islamic Learning in the Western Sudan’, in Literacy in Traditional Societies, edited
by Jack Goody (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 162–197; Nehemia Levitzion,
‘The Eighteenth Century Background to the Islamic Revolutions in West Africa’, in Eighteenth
Century Renewal and Reform in Islam, edited by Nehemia Levitzion and John Voll (Syracuse:
Syracuse University Press, 1987); Hunwick, ‘Secular Power and Religious Authority in
Muslim Society: The Case of Songhay’.
‘Uthmān ibn Fūdı̄, Tanbı̄h al ikhwān alā ard al-sūdān, in H.R. Palmer ‘An Early Fulani
_
Conception of Islam (Continued)’, Journal of the Royal African Society 14 no. 54 (January
1915): 185 –192. There was also opposition among West African Muslim scholars to militant
political reform. See Ivor Wilks, ‘Mallams Do Not Fight with the Heathen: A Note on Suwarian
Attitudes to Jihad’, Ghana Studies (2002): 215 –230.
See Martin Klein, ‘Social and Economic Factors in the Muslim Revolution in Senegambia’, The
Journal of African History 13 no. 3 (1972): 419–441; Martin Klein, Islam and Imperialism in
Senegal (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1968); Michael Gomez, Pragmatism in the Age
of Jihad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
Hiskett, The Sword of Truth, 77; Lovejoy, ‘The Bello– Clapperton Exchange’, 205, 211, 219–220;
‘Umar al-Fūtı̄, Risālat sahwa al-habib ilā ibrāhı̄m al-labı̄b, in O Jah ‘The Effects of Pilgrimate on
_
the Jihad of Al-Hajj ‘Umar al-Futi 1799–1864’, in The Central Bilad al-Sudan: Tradition and
Adaption, edited by Yusuf Fadl Hasan and Paul Doornbos (Khartoom: Khartoom University
Press, 1977), 239. Throughout the nineteenth century the Sokoto Caliphate was an important
124
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[20]
[21]
[22]
[23]
[24]
[25]
[26]
[27]
[28]
[29]
[30]
[31]
[32]
Jennifer Lofkrantz
exporter of slaves. See David Tambo, ‘The Sokoto Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century’, The
International Journal of African Historical Studies 9 no. 2 (1976): 187–217.
‘Uthmān ibn Fūdı̄, Nūr-al-albāb, trans. Ismail Hamet, Revue Africaine, XLI (1897): 300–303.
In response to a series of enquiries that originated from Tuwāt and southern Morocco about the
enslavability of certain captives, Ahmad Bābā devised a list of ethnicities whose members were
_
generally considered to be Muslims and another whose members were generally considered not
to be Muslims. See Hunwick and Harrack; John Hunwick, ‘Islamic Law and Polemics over Race
and Slavery in North and West Africa (16th –19th century)’, Identifying Enslaved Africans. The
‘Nigerian’ Hinterland and the African Diaspora, (Proceedings of the UNESSCO/SSHRC
Summer Institute, York University 14 July to 1 August 1997); Lovejoy, ‘The Context of
Enslavement in West Africa: Ahmad Bābā and the Ethics of Slavery’.
_
Muhammad Bello, Infāq al-Maysūr fı̄ Tārikh bilād al Takrūr, edited by Bahuji Hadli (Rabat:
_
Publications of the Institute of African Studies, 1996), 298– 299.
For a much larger discussion of the constitutional framework of the Sokoto Caliphate, see
Philip Burnham and Murray Last, ‘From Pastoralist to Politician: The Problem of a Fulbe
Aristocracy’, Cahiers d’Etudes Africaines 34 no. 134/135 (1994): 315–319; Hiskett, The Sword
of Truth, 134 –146; Lovejoy, Slavery Commerce and Production, 2 –3.
For a discussion of the monetary role of slaves in the Sokoto Caliphate, see Jan Hogendorn,
‘Slaves as Money in the Sokoto Caliphate’, in Credit, Currencies, and Culture: African Financial
Institutions in Historical Perspective, edited by Endre Stiansen and Jane I Guyer (Stockholm:
Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1999), 56 –71.
For a good summary on the debate about the usage of the word ‘plantation’ in reference to the
Sokoto Caliphate, see Mohammed Bashir Salau, ‘The Growth of Plantation Economy in Sokoto
Caliphate: Fanisau, 1819– 1903’ (Ph.D. diss., York University, 2005), 3 –19. Paul Lovejoy argues
that enslavement was a crucial institution and that the political order was based on systematic
enslavement. Paul Lovejoy, The Ideology of Slavery in Africa (Beverley Hills: Sage, 1981), 201.
See also M.G. Smith, Government in Kano, 107–172; Abdullahi Mahadi, ‘State and the
Economy: The Sarauta System and its Roles in Shaping the Society and Economy of Kano
with Particular Reference to the 18th and 19th Centuries’ (Ph.D. diss., Ahmadu Bello University,
1982), 20– 23; Paul Lovejoy and Stephen Baier, ‘The Desert-side Economy of the Central
Sudan’, International Journal of African Historical Studies 8 no. 4 (1975): 551–581.
Lovejoy, ‘The Characteristics of Plantations in Nineteenth-century Sokoto Caliphate’, American
Historical Review 84, no. 4 (December 1979): 1282–1283.
E.W. Bovill, ed., Missions to the Niger, vol. 4, The Bornu Mission 1822–25, (London), 650; Heinrich Barth, Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa 1849–1855 (London: Frank Cass
& Col Ltd), vol. 1, 510; Charles Henry Robinson, Hausaland or Fifteen Hundred Miles through
the Central Soudan, 3rd edn (Sampson, Low & Marston, 1900), 113.
Lovejoy, ‘Plantations in the Economy of the Sokoto Caliphate’, Journal of African History 20 no.
3 (1978): 341 –348; Lovejoy, ‘The Characteristics of Plantations in Nineteenth-century Sokoto
Caliphate’, 1282–1283. For a discussion on the development of the ribāt system in the Sokoto
_
Caliphate, see Mervyn Hiskett, The Development of Islam in West Africa (New York: Longman,
1984), 174 –176.
Lovejoy, Slavery Commerce and Production, 9.
Dixon Denham, Hugh Clapperton and Walter Oudney, Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in
North and Central Africa, 1822,1823, 1824 (London: Dorf, 1985), vol. 2, 251; Barth, vol. 1, 510,
523; Robinson, 112 –133. See also Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery, 2nd edn (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2000), 202.
Akbar Mulūk es-Soudan, Tadhkirat al-Nisyān translated by O. Houdas (Paris: Librairie
d’Amerique et d’Orient, 1966).
Es-Soudan, ‘Histoire de Sokoto’, in Tadhkirat al-Nisyān, translated by O. Houdas (Paris: Librairie
d’Amerique et d’Orient, 1966); ‘Uthmān ibn Fūdı̄, Tanbı̄h al ikhwān alā ard al-sūdān, 180.
_
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125
[33] ‘Uthmān ibn Fūdı̄, Tanbı̄h al ikhwān alā ard al-sūdān, 180, 191. See also Hiskett, ‘An Islamic
_
Tradition of Reform in the Western Sudan from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century’,
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 25, nos 1/3 (1962): 592.
[34] Es- Soudan, ‘Histoire de Sokoto’, 306 –307.
[35] ‘Uthmān ibn Fūdı̄, Kitāb al-farq, in M Hiskett, ‘Kitab al-farq: A Work on the Habe Kingdoms
attributed to ‘Uthman dan Fodio’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 25, nos
1/3 (1962): 571.
[36] For a discussion of Caliphate as well as British colonial taxation policy, see Ibrahim Jumare,
‘Colonial Taxation in the Capital Emirate of Northern Nigeria’, African Economic History 26
(1998): 83 –97; M.G. Smith, Government in Kano, 258.
[37] Abukar, 7th Emir of Katsina to the Sultan of Sokoto, the Sarkin Musulmi Abderrahman,
undated, H.F. Backwell, ed., The Occupation of Hausaland 1900–1904 (London: Frank Cass
& Co Ltd, 1969), 34.
[38] In terms of governance, the emirates of the Caliphate could be divided into two broad groups.
The majority of emirates were lineage-based. They were established with the support of a large
cohesive group. Offices, titles and major government functions were distributed among
members of this founding group and their descendants. Instead of being formed by a large
cohesive group, a minority of emirates were formed with the help of a varied group of individuals such as friends and slaves attached to the amı̄r. Office-holding dynasties did not form in
these clientage-based emirates. See Burnham and Last, 320–321.
[39] Murray Last, ‘1903 Revisited’, in Northern Nigeria: A Century of Transformation, 1903–2003,
edited by A.M. Yakubu, I.M. Jumare and A.G. Saeed (Kaduna: Arewa House Ahmadu Bello
University, 2005), 63 –66.
[40] Richard and John Lander, Journal of an Expedition to Explore the Course and Termination of the
Niger (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1858), vol. 1, 282.
[41] Allan Christelow, ed., Thus Ruled Emir Abbas: Selected Cases from the Records of the Emir of
Kano’s Judicial Council (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1994), 118, 124, 127.
[42] Mary F. Smith, ed., Baba of Karo, a Woman of the Muslim Hausa (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1981), 67 –75.
[43] Muhammad Bello to Wachar, undated, in Boubou Hama, ‘Journal de 2 mars 1968 au 6 mai
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1969’, 282 – 283, Archives National du Niger; Muhammad Bello to Sı̄dı̄ Mahmūd, undated in
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Boubou Hama, ‘Journal de 2 mars 1968 au 6 mai 1969’, 284, ANN. Boubou Hama is one of
Niger’s pre-eminent scholars. In the 1960s he collected primary documents from around the
country that interested him and stored them by collection date in journals. These journals
are now stored at the ANN and at the Institut de Recherches en Sciences Humaines, Université
Abdou Moumouni, Niamey. Sokoto’s trade routes to the south were also affected by banditry.
See Olayemi Akinwumi, ‘Princes as Highway Men. A Consideration of the Phenomenon of
Armed Banditry in Precolonial Borgu’, Cahiers d’Etudes Africaines 162, no. 2 (2001): 333–350.
[44] James Richardson, Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa 1850–1851 (London: Chapman &
Hall, 1853) vol. 2, 225.
[45] ‘Abdullāhi ibn Fūdı̄, Diyā’ al-hukkām, in Shehu Yamusa, ‘The Political Ideas of the Jihad
Leaders: Being Translation, Edition and Analysis of (1) Usal al-syayasa by Muhammad Bello
and (2) Diya’ al-Hukkam by Abdallhah B. Fodio’ (M.A. thesis, Bayero University Kano,
1975), 6. For an Arabic edition, see ‘Abdullāhi ibn Fūdı̄, Diyā’ al-hukkām (Zārı̄ya:Maktab
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Nūlā, 1956).
[46] See, for example, Archives Nationales du Mali FA 1E 113 Renseignements politiques, Cercle de
Segou 1890–1914. 4ieme trimester 1898; ANM FA 1E 47 Rapports politiques et rapports de
tournées, Cercle de Kita 1883–1905. Rapport sur la situation politique du Cercle, Kita 15
octobre 1889.
[47] ANM FA 1E 16 Note sur les rezzous Marocains Tombouctou 1906; ANM FA 1D-59-10 Notes
sur les rezzous Marocains, 1906. Région de Tombouctou.
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Jennifer Lofkrantz
[48] Stilwell, 6 –7.
[49] On the treatment of slaves and the avenues of manumission advocated in the Qu’rān, see, for
example, passages 4: 92, 5: 89, 16: 71, 24: 32, 24: 33, and 90: 13. For Malik ibn Anas’ opinion,
the founder of the Mālikı̄ school of law which was the school of law followed in Islamic West
Africa, see Al-Muwatta of Iman Malik ibn Anas, translated by Aisha Abdurrahman Bewley
(London: Kegan Paul International Limited), 320–326. See also, Bernard Lewis, Race and
Slavery in the Middle East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964), 3–12; Joseph Schacht, Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964). For the practice of murgu in the Sokoto
Caliphate, see Paul Lovejoy, ‘Murgu: The Wages of Slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate’, Slavery and
Abolition 14 (1993): 168–185. It is important to note, as it has been done elsewhere, that there is a
big gap between theory and practice. While there were thoughtful owners and judges who
followed the law many did not. The power dynamics were such that there was usually little
except an owner’s personal ethics to stop an owner from abusing a slave. Except in a tiny minority
of cases a slave’s ability to gain freedom was at the behest of the owner. As the late nineteenthcentury scholar and thinker, Imam Imoru, observed, ‘People have nothing but contempt for
slaves in Hausaland. The slaves suffer; people look at slaves as worthless creatures; they do not
consider slaves human beings; and they treat them harshly’ (Stilwell, 7).
[50] Tukrur, verses 8 –15; Abdullāhi ibn Fūdı̄, Tazyı̄n al-waraqāt, translated and edited by M. Hiskett
(Ibadan: University of Ibadan Press, 1983), 142.
[51] Abdullāhi ibn Fūdı̄, Diyā’ al-hukkām, 5.
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[52] ‘Uthmān ibn Fūdı̄ Bayān wujūb al-hijra ‘alā ‘l-‘ibād, translated and edited by F.H. el-Masri
(Khartoum: Khartoum University Press, 1978), 123.
[53] Muhammad Bello, Risāla ilā ahl al-haramayn al-sharı̄fayn wa ilā ahl al-mashriq, in ‘Umar
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al-Naqar, The Pilgrimage Tradition in West Africa (Khartoum: Khartoum University Press,
1972), 142.
[54] es-Soudan, ‘Histoire de Sokoto’, 313.
[55] For example, for a discussion of ransoming in the early Islamic period, see Seth Ward,
‘Muhammad Said: ‘You are Only a Jew from the Jews of Sephoris’: Allegations of the Jewish
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Ancestry of Some Umayyads’, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 60, no. 1 (2001): 31 –42; for medieval Palestine, see Hassan S. Khalilieh, ‘The Ribât System and its Role in Coastal Navigation’,
Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 42, no. 2 (1999): 212–225; for Nasrid
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Granada see Manuela Marı́n and Rachid El Nour, ‘Captives, Children and Conversion: A Case
from Late Nasrid Spain’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 41, no. 4
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(1998): 453 –473; for present-day Burma/Myanmar and Thailand, see Andrew Turon,
‘Violent Capture of People for Exchange on Karen-Tai Borders in the 1830s’, Slavery and
Abolition 24, no. 2 (2003): 69 –82; for colonial New Mexico, see James F. Brooks, ‘This Evil
Extends Especially . . . to the Feminine Sex: Negotiating Captivity in the New Mexico
Borderlands’, Feminist Studies 22, no. 2 (1996): 279–309.
[56] An important difference between ransoming practices in the Maghrib and in the Sokoto
Caliphate is that the Maghrib favoured the ransoming of captives held in North Africa
whereas the ransoming of captives held by Sokoto Caliphate forces was highly debated and
was only practised towards the end of the nineteenth century. See Jennifer Lofkrantz,
‘Ransoming Policies and Practices in the Western and Central Bilād al-Sūdān c 1800–1910’
(Ph.D. diss., York University, 2008), 44 –82.
[57] See the appendix in Jacques Caillé, Les accords internationaux du Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben
Abdallah (1757 –1790) (Tangiers: Faculté de droit du Maroc, 1960) for copies of the treaties.
[58] Thomas Freller, ‘The Shining of the Moon – The Mediterranean Tour of Muhammad ibn
Uthmān, Envoy of Morocco, in 1782’, Journal of Mediterranean Studies 12, no. 2 (2002): 307–326.
[59] Pierre Bonte, ‘Esclavage et relations de dependences chez les Touaregs Kel Gress’, in L’ésclavage
en Afrique précoloniale, edited by Claude Meillassoux (Paris: François Maspero, 1975), 56; Yves
Person, Samori: Une Revolution Dyula, (Dakar: IFAN, 1968–1975) vol. 2: 927.
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[60] For in-depth discussions of African trading networks, see Ghislaine Lydon, On Trans-Saharan
Trails: Islamic Law, Trade Networks and Cross-Cultural Exchange in Nineteenth-Century Western
Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Paul Lovejoy, Caravans of Kola: The
Hausa Kola Trade 1700–1900 (Zaria: Ahmadu University Press, 1980); Paul Lovejoy, Salt of
the Desert Sun (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); Edward Alpers, ‘Trade, State
and Society among the Yao in the Nineteenth Century’, Journal of African History 10, no. 3
(1969): 405 – 420; Marie Perinbam, ‘The Julas in Western Sudanese History: Long-distance
Traders and Developers of Resources’, in West African Cultural Dynamics: Archaeological and
Historical Perspectives, edited by B.K. Swartz and R. Dumet (The Hague: Mouton Publishers,
1980).
[61] Economic History Project Interview with Dan Rimin Kano, Kano, 12 and 30 December 1975.
Copies of these interviews are held at the Tubman Institute, York University.
[62] Mary F. Smith, 69.
[63] Abūbakar Atikū to Sı̄dı̄ Mahmūd, undated in Boubou Hama, ‘Journal de 2 mars 1968 au 6 mai
1969’, 279, ANN.
[64] Sarkin Bayaro Abdullāhi to the Sarkin Musulmi ‘Abd al-Rahmān, undated, Backwell, 23 –24.
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[65] André Salifou, ‘Colonisation et sociétés indigenes au Niger de la fin du xix siècle au debut de la
deuxieme guerre mondiale’, (Ph.D diss., Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail, 1977), 249–250.
[66] Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan, Quands nos pères étaient captifs . . . Récits paysans du Niger (Paris:
Nubui, 1976), 32 –34.
[67] Lofkrantz, 104 –111.
[68] Kano State Cultural and History Bureau KAN PRO 1/11/7 Rano – 1955–1959, 19; Mary
F. Smith, 69; Backwell, 23– 24.
[69] Al-Maghı̄lı̄, 21.
[70] Originally fay’ referred to war booty and then the revenue raised from the people and territory
conquered by force. It also generally refers to the revenue collected by an Islamic state from
non-Muslim sources. See Hunwick, Sharı̄’a in Songhay, 74ff.
[71] ‘Uthmān ibn Fūdı̄ Bayān wujūb al-hijra ‘alā ‘l-‘ibād, 123.
[72] Abdullāhi ibn Fūdı̄, Diyā’ al-hukkām, 5.
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