Kanem-Bornu Empire Trade Routes Towards Tripoli and Egypt and Based Its Power on Trans-Saharan Trade
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1 Kanem-Bornu Empire trade routes towards Tripoli and Egypt and based its power on trans-Saharan trade. How- VINCENT HIRIBARREN ever, it would not be possible to envisage the King’s College London, UK creation of an empire before the expansion of Kanem towards the northern oases of Kawar Renowned as one of the most powerful during the 11th century. These conquests led empires of Western Africa with Ghana, Mali, to the creation of a trans-Saharan empire that and Songhai, Kanem-Bornu (Kanem-Borno) survived until the 19th century. is often cited as an archetypal example of During the 11th century, the Duguwa were an ancient African pre-colonial kingdom. replaced by another dynasty, the Sayfawa who The empire reached a certain degree of fame ruled the empire until the 19th century. How- not only because it was mentioned in the nar- ever, the territorial extent of this 800-year ratives written by Arab geographers such as long hegemony greatly varied. At first based al-Idrisi (Lange 1984: 239) but also because on Kanem, the center of empire shifted to its history has been taught in schools and the west of Lake Chad during the 13th and universities as an example of the wealth of 14th centuries as a result of deteriorating cli- pre-colonial Africa. matic conditions. Indeed, the continued pro- gression of the Sahara was responsible for the THE LONGEST EMPIRE IN AFRICAN migration of the Kanembu to the more fertile HISTORY lands of Bornu. This region had already become the economic centre of the empire The empire of Kanem-Bornu finds its roots in the 14th century despite the fact that the between Lake Chad and the Bahr el-Ghazal Sayfawa still resided in Njimi the capital they in the region of Kanem (modern-day Chad). had built in Kanem. Furthermore in the sec- It was based on the state of Kanem created ond half of the 14th century after two centu- around the 8th century and was ruled by ries of civil war, Kanem was captured by the Duguwa, an aristocracy who chose a king the Bulala warrior aristocracy. Fleeing their among themselves (Barkindo 1985: 230). enemies, the Sayfawa managed to re-establish Gathering together agriculturalists and pas- their power in Bornu. This second empire toralists, this kingdom consisted of various reconquered Kanem in the 16th century ethnic groups able to use iron-working tech- but Bornu remained the economic and polit- niques and horsemanship. These different ical center of the country, hence the name populations gave birth to the Kanembu ethnic Kanem-Bornu to designate this polity. This group who spoke a Nilo-Saharan language. migration from Kanem to Bornu was a slow Located at the crossroads between northern and sometimes violent process integrating Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, this region various populations known under the collec- benefited from trade contacts with different tive name of So (or Sao) to the Kanembu. This parts of Africa (Barkindo and Lange 1988). merging gave birth to a new ethnic group The early history of Kanem is not well known known as the Kanuri who became the main but it appears that Kanem sought to control ethnic group in the empire. As a consequence, The Encyclopedia of Empire, First Edition. Edited by John M. MacKenzie. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/9781118455074.wbeoe014 2 their Nilo-Saharan language, Kanuri, became domination over a vast territory in order to the lingua franca of the empire. obtain tributes from conquered regions. Kanem-Bornu was also a major diplo- Nonetheless, facing Tuareg and Tubu incur- matic power in the Sahara area and boasted sions from the north during the 18th century, embassies in both Morocco and the Ottoman the empire gradually lost its grip on territories Empire via Tripoli. Its links with the rest of in the desert and on the eastern side of theMuslimworldwerealsosignificantanda Lake Chad. hostel for Bornoan students and pilgrims en One of the largest threats came in 1808 route to Mecca was built in Cairo during the when the jihad proclaimed by Osman dan reign of Sultan, or according to his Kanuri Fodio tried to conquer Bornu to integrate title, mai, Dunama Dibalami (1203–1242). it within the Sokoto Caliphate. This largely One of the most famous episodes of Bornoan Fulani invasion followed an 18th-century history was the correspondence between mai demographic expansion on the western Idriss Alooma and the Ottoman Sultan marches of Bornu. After a defeat and the Murad III during the 1570s, as Mai Idriss destruction of the capital, Birni Gazagarmo, desired to renew an alliance with the Otto- Mohammed El Kanemi, a learned man from mans. Their conquest of Tripoli in Kanem, organized the defense of the empire 1551had already giventheempireof and won a military, diplomatic, and reli- Kanem-Bornu access to Ottoman mercenar- gious battle against Osman dan Fodio. ies who has migrated across the Sahara. Indeed, in his correspondence with the sul- Their firearms and tactical superiority tan of Sokoto, El Kanemi proved that there resulted in victories which facilitated the was no reason to pursue the jihad in Bornu conquest of territories located at the south since its inhabitants practiced a pure form of and west of Bornu (Hunwick 1985: 360- Islam. El Kanemi, who was subsequently 361). The introduction of gunpowder in called shehu of Bornu, managed to establish sub-Saharan Africa was short-lived as by his own power and founded a new capital in the end of the 17th century the Bornoan Kukawa in 1814. However, the nature of his armies had ceased using such weapons. power seems uncertain as the Sayfawas were However, the contacts with Tripoli never not totally supplanted before 1846 (Last totally ceased as embassies were exchanged 1996). The dynasty which took power in until the 19th century. the 11th century was then ended by Umar, To understand how the empire of Kanem- the son of Mohammed El Kanemi, in 1846 Bornu dominated and invaded its neighbors, (Brenner 1973). These events are relatively it is necessary to highlight the importance of well known because of narratives written its cavalry, as the empire relied heavily on the by European travelers in the 19th century strength of its horsemen for its conquests and such as Dixon Denham, Hugh Clapperton, slave raids. Divided between heavy and light Heinrich Barth, and Gustav Nachtigal. The cavalry and a large number of infantry, the third Kanem-Bornu dynasty of the Kanemis Bornoan army could still count 10 000 horses was relatively short-lived as Rabih az- when the German explorer Heinrich Barth Zubayr, a Sudanese warlord, invaded Bornu visited Kanem-Bornu in 1851. The Bornoan in 1893 and put an end to the independence army was not a professional organization of the empire. European conquest at the end and could only be deployed every year during of the 19th century then divided Bornu the dry season. However the reorganization of between the German colony of Cameroon the army by mai Idriss Alooma enabled the and the British colony of Nigeria. After 3 World War I, the territory of Bornu was ancestry was a common practice through reunified under British administration and which trans-Saharan African empires could was officially reunited within independent assert their religious and kinship ties with Nigeria in 1961. Without formal political Arabia. power in Nigeria, descendants of Moham- As a Muslim empire, Kanem-Bornu was med El Kanemi are still shehus of not radically different from other “Islami- modern Borno at the beginning of the 21st cate” polities in sub-Saharan Africa. Indeed, century. whilst it was dominated by Islam, there were many pre-Islamic features that shaped polit- ical and cultural life. A perfect example of the ISLAM AS IMPERIAL CEMENT importance of this pre-Islamic culture was the cult of an undefined sacred object, the Kanem rulers were among the first to be Isla- mune, until its destruction by mai Dunama mized in sub-Saharan Africa in the 11th cen- Dibbalemi (1203–1242). The mune might tury. The empire of Kanem-Bornu became have been a pre-Islamic symbol of unity in rapidly renowned for its Islamic culture with Kanem-Bornubutwasstillhonoreduntil some of its mais undertaking the hajj and the 13th century, more than two hundred building mosques in the country (Barkindo years after the introduction of Islam in 1985: 235). Islam had an important political Kanem. Furthermore, the practice of record- role in Kanem-Bornu as the change of ing orally the names and genealogies of the dynasty between the Duguwa and the Say- kings of Kanem seems to have existed since fawa in the 11th century seems to have been the 9th century. The introduction of Islam triggered by political and religious factors. and the Arabic script codified this tradition Indeed, Hummay (r.1075–1080) became by making it possible to write down the ruler of Kanem and founded the Sayfawa names of the kings. This list or chronicle dynasty with the help of a pro-Islam faction of kings, the diwan or girgam, was written in the Kanem court (Lange 1993: 265). from the 13th or 16th century until the19th Moreover, Islam had an influence on the and contained the names of 67 kings from expansionist policies of the state as the devel- the 9th to the 19th century. It constitutes opment of the kingdom could be justified by one of the most important sources for the the conversion of non-Muslims. Islam also history of Kanem-Bornu and has been exten- influenced the discourse of state-creation as sively used by historians of the empire.