Chima and the Peasantry

A Kanuri village in Palmer's Bornu Sahara and Sudan.

Although we have still not been able to procure a copy of Hauwa Mahdi's MA Thesis, we believe her essay, "A Tentative Reconstruction of the Political Economy of Metropolitan Borno in the 18th and Early 19th Centuries" is a worthy endeavor. In this essay, Mahdi endeavored to develop a more robust explanation for the political economy of Borno during what we consider the Late Sayfawa Period. In so doing, Mahdi highlights the exploitative system of taxation and tribute imposed on farmers, or peasants. Unsurprisingly, she disagrees with the racist and condescending approach of Palmer, whose racialized lens turned the Sayfawa into enslavers on a massive scale. Yet she also took issue with Muhammad Nur Alkali's work for not properly addressing Palmer's comments on slavery and the slave trade within Borno. We shall begin with a brief overview of Mahdi's argument before addressing an early, colonial-era report on the chima system. 

For Mahdi, the basic unit of production was the peasant family. In a family plot, household labor was obviously key. On the general plot worked by the family, everyone contributed their labor. However, the wives of the male head of the household had their own smaller plots they were expected to work on. This meant that women were expected to provide labor on the general plot of their husband whilst also working on their own lands (Mahdi 4). Fortunately, a peasant farmer had the right to leave the land they worked to their children (5). But in terms of private ownership of the land, the peasant was not so secure in their rights. Moreover, they were also compelled to pay a number of taxes to the holder of the fief in which their lands fell. They could also be conscripted for military service or coerced into providing labor with other peasants on the lands held by the chima. This practice of forced labor on lands held by the elite was called surwa. Mahdi was told by oral informants that peasants had no real way to refuse this practice. After all, "Who are you to refuse?" In addition, the lands held by the elite were also worked by slaves (6).

The chima system of fief allocations usually favored elites based in Gazargamo (or, later, Kukawa). This group of absentee fief-holders appointed chima gana, or representatives to oversee the districts they held as fiefs. In terms of actual administration of these territories, the local representatives for the fief-holder were responsible for collecting taxes and the administrative, military, and legal apparatus overseeing the territory. The taxes were numerous: gidiram, biniram, zakat, sadaqa and various market, toll, and customs taxes. The first was a general tax on peasants, a ground tax, of up to 10% of their produce. The second, a cold season tax, and zakat, a corn tithe were also collected. The sadaqa was also a cold season tax. The market taxes and others would have had more of an impact in the towns or market centers that attracted traders and artisans (9-10). Besides these taxes, peasants could also be compelled to send gifts to the the higher classes. Needless to say, those responsible for administering the fiefs relied on the appropriation of the surplus of farmers. In other words, notables of Borno who allegedly provided protection of the state to peasant communities were also the very forces that consumed the surplus of the peasantry. As the dominant sector of society, this group could further their own interests and increase tribute or tax obligations or administer "justice" in ways that were opposed to the peasant producers.

Since Alkali did not properly respond to Palmer's mischaracterization of precolonial Borno's political economy and emphasized the Sayfawa's "protection" of the people without analysis of the exploitative nature of the fief system, Mahdi is very critical. Indeed, she accuses Alkali of substituting the Sayfawa for the "nation" of Borno and minimizing the coercive nature of the surwa system. After all, if the chima could appoint local agents who then imposed several taxes on peasants and forced them to labor on the lands of the elite, there was a system of class exploitation in place. Consequently, even if one agrees with Mahdi that private land tenure as such as perhaps on the cusp of developing in Borno, those who held land titles from the mai and received fiefs could extract labor from free peasants, impose taxes, and also exploit slave labor to increase their wealth. That the holders of the fief were expected to stay in Gazargamo perhaps made it even easier for their local agents to extract additional surplus through various "gifts" peasants were expected to give. Mahdi's attempt to link this exploitative system and peasant discontent with the uprisings at Misau and Marte, unfortunately, are underdeveloped though worthy of exploration (18).

What about J.R. Patterson's views of the chima system and the peasantry in Borno? Writing in c. 1918, Patterson traveled around the Borsari District to gather information for a report. This district, now in Yobe State, included Gambaru and other sites close to Gazargamo. The area was named after the town of Mbursari, once the headquarters of a kachella named Mbursa. This kachella once owned large fiefs in the area. The chimas, lamentably, lacked any surviving records from the period of Sayfawa rule. Informants told Patterson that the records were destroyed or stolen when Rabeh conquered Borno in the 1890s (Patterson 9). But for the period of the 19th century when the al-Kanemi dynasty ruled, oral tradition provided some clues. Thus, the chimas in this period were held by the royal family, chief slaves, and councilors of the Shehu. In other words, the political elit, who were lon-resident landlords based in Kukawa. Some were even able to become hereditary fief holders passing on their lands to an heir (10). These powerful people also chose the village chiefs, collected taxes, and appointed mallams for judicial affairs through their chima gana. Moreover, they also derived additional wealth through the kariari, or slave, settlements, whose residents paid a portion of their produce to their "owner" (13). 

In terms of actual village-level administration and taxation, the headmen were appointed by the chima gana. They were under constant pressure from them. These village headmen often bought their position by giving rich presents to the chima gana (14-15). Naturally, this meant that a village headmen (the bulama or marumawa) could just as easily lose their post if someone else gave richer gifts to the chima gana. The buying and selling of village leadership positions may have pressured the headmen to overtax or exploit their positions. Even the chima gana and their messengers demanded gifts on top of the biniram tax (42). The farm rent, or Keskaram tax, was another way for the chima gana and village headmen to demand additional payments of gifts or money from the talakawa. This even included the expectation for additional gifts at festivals or other times for the chimas to redistribute the "gifts" upwards to the Shehu (43). In short, the taxation or tribute system included several opportunities for unfair expectations of "gifts" or extra payment from the peasantry. Since the holder of the fief was based in Kukawa (or, earlier, in Gazargamo), they likely relied on their chima gana to maximize surplus appropriation in their various fiefs. The fact that village leadership could be bought by paying the chima gana could have put the bulama and maruma in a position where they too had to rely on coercive measures to extract additional taxes or "gifts" from the talakawa. 

But was the system of taxation always so oppressively exploitative? Surprisingly, Patterson's report suggests that the village headmen were indeed accountable to their village community. According to Patterson, "Obliged, as he was, to respond to the exorbitant and incessant demands of the Chima Gana and at the same time to keep on good terms with his 'talakawa' to whom he was often little better than a peg on which to hang their ills, a headman's term of office was usually only as long as his purse" (14). If this characterization is generalizable, then only in large villages where a headman was wealthy and more powerful than the chima gana were they able to occupy their office for a long period of time. In most cases, the village headmen were under pressure from both the peasantry and the chima gana, indicating that the talakawa could and did resist their exploitation. How exactly this took form is unclear, but they presumably expected the headmen to convey their discontent or grievances to the chima gana or even higher up the hierarchical administrative chain. One thinks of a word translated by Ali Eisami and Koelle, burguma, that is often associated with crying out for help to the king due to oppression. In this case, it may have also been addressed to charismatic mallams or reformers. As the Manga Revolt of the 1820s illustrates, mallams could become leaders in peasant movements against central authority. Of course, the political context of the Manga Revolt was complex as it involved a pro-Sayfawa movement against the leadership of al-Kanemi.

Unlike the chimas, other parts of Borno were mallam's towns, the so-called mallamti. They were founded by a mallam who received the land titles from the Shehu. They were not supposed to add subsidiary towns or farms to their land nor receive people. They also paid no taxes to the chimas near them. However, the leaders of mallam settlements or lands were expected to pray visit Kukawa to give a present to the Shehu and say the al fatia (13). Although they were not expected to take in newcomers and add more land to their domains, the mallamti settlements could grow to be prosperous communities over time. Undoubtedly, it was in the interests of the chimas to stop them from growing or threatening their control of the population living on their fiefs. To what extent this was possible to enforce in the centuries before the 1800s is unclear. One can easily imagine situations in which ineffective chima ganas could not prevent peasants from flocking to mallam settlements or villages, or perhaps escaping clandestinely to join these settlements away from oppressive chima taxation. Further study of mallamtis could illuminate this aspect of rural Borno's tensions between mallams and secular/state-affiliated land title holders eager to bleed the peasantry.

To return to Mahdi's analysis, there is an undeniable exploitative nature of the chima system. It relied on the appropriation of the surplus of farmers. These peasants could access land in a village, but by doing so were obligated to pay taxes or tribute in various guises to the recipient of the land title based in Gazargamo (or Kukawa, after the fall of the old capital). This meant that the peasant household production system was forced into an unequal relationship with the state's officials. These officials, supposedly providing protection to the farming communities in their fiefs, used a coterie of officials, local village headmen, and messengers to impose taxation. This taxation and tribute could also include coerced or forced labor on the private lands within the fief held by the chima. At various moments, the peasant could also be expected to provide "gifts" to these aforementioned officials. As for the local side of the equation, the rotating door of village headmen meant that the chima ganas and talakawa were likely engaged in constant struggle. The former sold the position of village headmen to whoever gave them the richest gifts. The latter continued to expect the headmen to represent the interests of the community and likely resisted him. Thus, the chima ganas and their messengers occasionally faced resistance from farmers who revolted or, as we suspect, fled to settlements of the mallams or sought redress from the mai. While the overall picture is more consistent with the analysis of Mahdi, documentation from the Sayfawa period is sorely lacking to confirm a number of details. Nonetheless, we believe it likely that the peasantry resisted their unfair oppression in a plethora of ways. To what extent peasant discontent really fueled the fall of the Sayfawa dynasty and the jihad remains to be seen.