Wadai from a Chadian Perspective

It is always disappointing when a local scholar of an understudied precolonial African state produces mediocrity. Although Ouaddai, fondation d'un empire by Mahamat Seid Abazène Seid has the benefit of drawing on local, oral sources as well as the written literature on Wadai, it does not suffice for an overview or deep analysis of a major state in precolonial Chad Unfortunately, his frankly too brief book focuses mainly on the founder of Wadai (Abdel Kerim) and jumps all over the place chronologically to make a few generalizations about the nature of the state, its ethnic dimensions, and the administrative positions. There are some occasionally bizarre irrelevant references to Africa as the berceau of monotheism and an interpretation of Chad as both Arab and Africa. The latter position seems fair enough, and no one can deny the centuries-long presence of Arabic-speaking populations in Chad or their inclusion in the states like Wadai, Bagirmi, and Kanem-Borno. 

He seems to mostly support the idea of Abdel Kerim being of Abbasid Arab origin, but also Maba or at least spoke the language. We are also supposed to believe he married the daughter of the last Tunjur king in the region. The mix of traditions also suggest that he may have studied in Borno and Bagirmi as well as spending time in the Hijaz. His state adopted his name, and Wadai became a regional hegemon (albeit most of this seems to be in the 19th century, not the 17th or 18th centuries?). Wadai's problems with royal succession and internal dissension eventually paved the road to French colonial conquest. Nonetheless, Seid's study points to rational administration through the surveillance and rotation of officials and the non-despotic nature of the state. He rightly points out the limitations of al-Tunisi and Nachtigal, especially as the former was biased and his description of the kingdom should rightfully be seen as mainly reflecting the specific era of Saboun's reign. We also suspect Wadai to have been more in the sphere of influence of Borno until the late 18th century or early 19th. After all, Wadai's first invasion of Bagirmi supposedly occurred at the request of the mai. One also suspects the constant struggles for control of Kanem during much of the 1800s attests to Borno's continued interests in Kanem and the eastern shores of Lake Chad. 

Unfortunately, we are forced to rely on al-Tunisi, Barth, Nachtigal, and other outsiders since our surviving corpus of written sources is rather limited. The oral sources have much potential, but Seid's study is too brief and problematic to provide a proper analysis of this major Chadian kingdom (or empire). Moreover, Seid's attempt to interpret the Tarikh al-Fattash and Tarikh al-Sudan to support a Songhai connection or influence on Wadai is difficult to take seriously. Frankly, we do not know to what extent Muslims from the Songhai state were using the "Sudan Road" to reach Mecca. Moreover, the resurgent Borno kingdom as a huge state blocking Songhai from expanding east of Hausaland would suggest weak or limited Songhai influences or impact on Wadai. We find it far more likely that Wadai (and the Darfur Sultanate) owe more to Kanem-Borno and the previous Tunjur state than to any Songhai or Western Sudan societies. One also wonders if any attempt to read the prophecy of a future caliph of Takrur from Tarikh al-Fattash as predicting Wadai's rise is completely misguided. 

The Union of the Churches

Because it was co-written by Merid Wolde Aregay and frequently cited in Cohen's study of the Jesuit mission, The Question of the Union of the Churches in Luso-Ethiopian Relations, 1500-1632 was the next read on Solomonic Ethiopia. Although a short study of Luso-Ethiopian Relations and the failed unification of the respective churches under Roman authority, Aregay and Girma Beshah has written a cogent introduction to the complex topic of Portuguese-Ethiopian interactions beginning with the legend of Prester John and early contacts between the Latin West and the Horn in the late medieval period. While the authors do not seek to blame the Jesuits for the mission's failure or see in it a colonial relationship, they do acknowledge that expecting to uproot centuries-old customs and beliefs quickly was perhaps misguided. 

Ultimately, Susenyos, our Catholic negus, like Za Dengel before him, also lacked the means to effectively impose Catholicism. The dreamed for or expected Portuguese troops never arrived and resistance from the local clergy, nobility, and peasantry became too consistent and dangerous for Susenyos's rule to survive without freedom of religion. The role of peasant resistance in this process cannot be overlooked, and this essay suggests there was an aspect of class conflict expressed in the numerous revolts and rebellions. Indeed, if Za Dengel, as Crummey suggested, had hoped to win peasant support by attacking gult and building a new military base of peasant conscripts (presumably less destructive to the peasants than the older imperial military units), Susenyos alienated the peasantry with his imposition of Catholicism and the insecurity caused by frequent rebellions, Oromo raids, and banditry. 

As stated by later scholars on the Jesuits in Ethiopia, the Society of Jesus relied on the patronage of local rulers and elites. Once circumstances changed and those groups could not or would not back them, the Jesuit mission declined and often a mass support to rally it. Ethiopian Catholicism may have had that if Susenyos's brother, Sela Christos, had been able to rally forces around him and the defeated patriarch against Fasiladas. However, due to the forced conversions and general resistance to Roman Catholicism from above and below, one doubts local Catholics would have been able to stage an effective military resistance. Aregay and Beshah cite Jesuit sources suggesting over 100,000 local Catholics by 1630, but how many of these were the result of forced or coerced conversions or, perhaps like some of the conversions to Islam under Ahmad Gran, merely acts of opportunism or self-preservation in the face of a new boss or bully? One wishes Susenyos had found a way to consolidate his government and centralize the state without imposing Catholicism, perhaps a method that could have carried out some of Za Dengel's reforms with freedom of religion for Orthodox, Catholic, Muslims, Falasha, and "pagans." Ironically, his son would go on to establish a reinvigorated Solomonic dynasty that resisted the resurgence of the provincial nobility until the mid-18th century.

Histoire des Arabes sur les rives du lac Tchad

Jean-Claude Zeltner's Histoire des Arabes sur les rives du lac Tchad is one of those important works that sorely needs an updated sequel. The history of Arabs in the Chad Basin is a significant topic pertinent to the ethnographic, demographic, religious, and cultural history of our region. However, the paucity of sources for earlier periods and some of Zeltner's outmoded concepts of "Hamites" hinders this study. One would hope a modern sequel to Zeltner's research would unveil more intimate details of the relations between the state and Arab nomads in the larger region. Instead of seeing Arabs as outside the state and, until the rise of al-Kanemi and Rabeh, marginal, perhaps a new perspective could shed light on more active involvement of some groups in Kanem, Wadai, Borno, the Kotoko principalities, and Bagirmi. Something of this can be gleamed from historians of the Darfur Sultanate or Bagirmi, for example. The Arab population in Bagirmi, for instance, appear to have been one of the 3 principal ethnic groups of the kingdom. Arab relations and intermarriage with the Fulani also seems important.

Unfortunately given our few sources on the earliest penetration of Arab migrations into the Lake Chad area, Zeltner has to really begin with the late Kanem phase of the Sayfawa dynasty. We know from our Arabic sources that the earliest Arab migrations (in this case referring to nomadic or semi-nomadic populations, not Arab traders or individual immigrants coming via Egypt and North Africa) were present in the Kanem region by the late 14th century. Zeltner links them to Arab migrations to Egypt and Sudan since the early days of the Islamic conquests in the 7th century. As indicated in his magisterial history of Kanem, some of these Chadian Arabs claim descent from tribes whose history appears in the records of pre-Islamic Arabia or the early days of Islamic expansion. If Robin Law is correct, these Arabs in 14th century Kanem may have aligned themselves with the Bulala against the Sayfawa, perhaps providing horses and siding with the Bulala in raids and pillaging. It is not too much of a stretch of the imagination to envision the marauding Arab tribes of the 14th century as decentralized and perhaps motivated by easy booty, but lacking deeper loyalties to the Bulala sultans.

Later, during Idris b. Ali's reconquest (or re-assertion of Bulala loyalty to the Borno sultans), Arab populations in Kanem were among those resettled to Borno. According to Zeltner, the Sayfawa dynasty did not rely on Shuwa Arabs in the way al-Kanemi or Rabeh did. Vassals of the Sayfawa, however, did accord some kind of land rights or impose tribute on Arab tribes, like their Borno overlords. Overall, in Zeltner's eyes, the Shuwa remained outside the state and subject to their own shaykhs. Although in Borno an official was appointed by the mai to oversee nomadic groups, they were largely left alone as long as they paid tribute. Perhaps to truly understand Arab populations during the Sayfawa period woudl also require historical context on the Tedas, Dazas, Koyam, Fulani, and Tuareg subject to the Sayfawa of Borno. 

With further migration of Arab tribes into Borno and other regions south of Lake Chad, they came to play a major role in supporting al-Kanemi defeat forces aligned with the jihad to the west. Some of them became key officials of the al-Kanemi dynasty, although the majority remained largely unassimilated. Another group, the Awlad Sulayman, came to play a major role in 19th century Kanem. In spite of their failure to serve the larger interests of a Bornoan reconquest of the lost territory, as effective rulers of Kanem they made the region a buffer between Wadai and Borno. Despite subsequently becoming even more integrated into Rabeh's state, Shuwa Arabs seem to have been most effectively integrated under al-Kanemi and his successors than the Sayfawa. Rabeh, on the other hand, represented something new and different in the region. Despite other scholars seeing continuity from the al-Kanemi dynasty to Rabeh's brief empire, Zeltner emphasizes how it represented a dramatic break with established tradition. Moreover, chiefs of the Arab tribes were now appointed by Rabeh's state directly. 

The rest of Zeltner's book provides a quick overview of the Arab population under French colonial rule. He essentially sees them as a population refusing the modern or new. Their refusal to embrace the modern or find effective ways to challenge it with their own internal resources ensured their marginalization under colonial rule and into the postcolonial period. Following this interpretation, Zeltner briefly summarizes the peculiarities of their vernacular Arabic, family structure, religious life, and the individual. We will have to find Chadian Arab authors or perhaps Chadian or Nigerian scholars who tackle the complex history of Arabs in this region, perhaps scholars who can shed more light on the particularities of Arab-state relations in the Central Sudan. Zeltner's work is indispensable, particularly his work on Kanem. Nonetheless, a more modern approach with comparative data on other transhumant pastoralists could shed new light on the subject. Furthermore, we find Zeltner to be too influenced by Urvoy and Lange on the allegedly "Berber" origins of the Sayfawa dynasty and his view of land tenure in Borno may require some modifications.

Jesuit Missionary Strategies in Ethiopia

Although we are still only beginning to grapple with the large body of literature on the Jesuits in Ethiopia, Cohen's Missionary Strategies of the Jesuits in Ethiopia (1555-1632) is a good overview on Jesuit strategies of evangelizing. Based on Portuguese, Jesuit, and Ethiopian sources, Cohen succeeds in demonstrating the key areas of religious, political, cultural, and theological contention and proselytization. Unlike other areas of Africa, Asia, or the Americas, the Jesuits perceived Ethiopia to be more "civilized" (like China and Japan) and an area of schismatic Christianity in need of reformation. For these reasons, the Jesuits employed sophisticated techniques of Christological debate, biblical exegesis, translation, theater, architectonics, and top-down evangelization based on the hopes of converting the emperor and nobility. The Catholic Counter-Reformation also influenced the Jesuit mission as a reformed Church sought to standardize rituals, centralize authority, and counter Protestant theological debate. 

Ethiopian Christianity's encounter with Roman Catholicism naturally led to conflict, evolution, and the discovery of shared commonalities. Jesuits, for instance, realized the Ethiopian Church drew from the same sources (the Bible, patristic literature). Both also shared a similar belief in the uses of icons and visual arts and the practice of Eucharist and baptism. Nonetheless, Ethiopian persistence in circumcision, anti-Chalcedonian perspectives, adherence to the Alexandrian See, lack of uniformity in some sacraments, observance of the Sabbath, and frequency of divorce revealed huge differences. The debate between the two Churches appears to have played a major role in fomenting Ethiopian religious literature that sought to clarify and define the tenets of the church. Some of this literature was clearly influenced by earlier Ge'ez translations of Church Fathers, and appears to have influenced subsequent internal theological debate within the Ethiopian Christian tradition. The Jesuit debate with local clergy and monks reminds us of their arguments with Buddhist priests in Japan. 

However, according to Cohen, the Jesuits did not properly prepare themselves for the centrifugal forces in Ethiopian Christianity which opposed them, particularly monastic clergy, members of the nobility, and the political crises and rebellions which forced Susenyos to restore freedom of worship. The near total conquest by Muslims in the 1500s had further fragmented the Church while ongoing Oromo expansion further weakened the authority of the Solomonic emperors. Perhaps seeing the absolutizing tendencies of the Jesuits as something that could strengthen their authority, Za Dengel and Susenyos favored the Jesuits. Unfortunately for the latter, Za Dengel's assassination and the inability of Susenyos to end revolts flight of hermits or monks, and stifle resistance to the prohibitions imposed on the Orthodox faith entailed an end of the mission when the political support from the top disappeared under the next emperor. Anyway, it looks like our next read into this topic will have to be either Caraman, the short work coauthored by Merid Wolde Aregay or the hagiography of Walatta Petros. 

Borno Music: Ganga Alitama Bornoye

Beautiful music from Borno is always a delight to find. The alita playing is very delightful and seems appropriate in a region like Borno, which enjoyed centuries-long ties to musical styles from the larger Islamic world. The drumming is a little repetitive but this is probably a fair indicator of what music was like in precolonial Borno. In that era, perhaps there were larger bands of instrumentalists and dancers and praise singers. 

Dar al-Kuti and the Outer Periphery

Cordell's history of the Dar al-Kuti Sultanate endeavors to explain the brief state's rise and fall in the context of greater integration of North Central Africa into the wider global, capitalist system of exchange. Beginning from c.1750 and ending with the French assassination of al-Sanussi, Cordell's study situates Dar al-Kuti's rise with an increase in the scale of trans-Saharan trade impacting the area where the Lake Chad, Nile, and Zaire basins intersect, specifically the Ubangi-Shari region. Although pre-1750 contacts certainly existed in some form, and evidence for a Barma or Bagirmi influence can be found in the early Muslim presence in what later became Dar al-Kuti, the Islamic presence and scale of slave raiding grew exponentially over the course of the 19th century. By the early 20th century, the slave trade was so central to the Sultanate that al-Sanussi had no other alternative in order to acquire the firearms, ammunitions and luxury imports to support his state and dependents. 

The expansion of slave raiding and trading for northern partners and the trans-Saharan routes led to unprecedented migrations, relocations, and, gradually, a larger Muslim presence as traders, settlers, and converts participated in this new, centralized state. According to Cordell, the origins of Dar al-Kuti began with a Runga (or someone of Bagirmi and Runga origins) appointed to oversee the region on behalf of the rulers of Dar Runga, itself a tributary to Wadai. Darfur's Sultanate had previously been a major player but lost control of southern trade routes leading to Central Africa while Wadai reaped the benefits. Over time, the region of Dar al-Kuti became more significant in the mid and late 19th century under Kobur and al-Sanussi, who promoted trade. The latter especially supported trans-Saharan trade through slave raiding. Once aligned with Sudanese warlord Rabeh, and massacring a French team in order to acquire firearms, al-Sanussi established an army replenished by slave recruits and imported guns. Cordell sees this as an example of secondary empire as al-Sanusi, like his former mentor, Rabih, used advanced military techniques and newer guns to build better equipped armies that preyed on various societies in North Central Africa for slaves, ivory, and new soldiers. 

However, given the origins of Dar al-Kuti in Dar Runga and Wadai, one can also see the state as inheriting a tradition that ultimately begins with Kanem, Bagirmi, and Borno in the Chad basin. In one sense, the state of Dar al-Kuti resembled those earlier, northern ones in its establishment of a centralized state which relied heavily on the slave trade and war. By preying on Banda, Kresh, Sara, and other groups who lacked centralized states, al-Sanussi was able to procure additional labor for local agriculture as well as exchange with Jellaba or other northern traders for cloth, guns, tea, sugar, beads, and other manufactured goods. In one sense, al-Sanussi accomplished on a smaller scale some of the same things Idris b. Ali of Borno did in the late 16th century. Like his more famous Borno counterpart, he incorporated firearms into his military and engaged in many population relocations or displacements while centralizing authority. Unlike Borno, Dar al-Kuti lacked a cavalry force and did not possess a large livestock, leather, salt or textile industry. Ecological and other factors contributed to this, as did Central Africa being more of a frontier in which Islam was largely restricted to the ruling group. Nevertheless, Dar al-Kuti was certainly also part of a pattern of Central Sudanic states that began long before in the north, one which gradually spread further south as more societies invested in trans-Saharan (and Sudanic) trade. Like its better known northern counterparts, Dar al-Kuti had its core, tributary and predatory zones but time and looming French conquest prevented the process from evolving into a larger state or empire.

So, Dar al-Kuti, despite its brief existence, represented a fascinating fusion of two separate developments that impacted the Central Sudan and Central Africa. One, the "secondary empire" effect, developed as soldiers with experience in the Egyptian conquest of Sudan brought military techniques and updated firearms to new regions. Their military superiority gave them an edge over various local populations, triggering migrations, displacement, and recruitment that reverberated across the vast region between Lake Chad and the Nile. Even centralized states did not always survive the challenge represented by Zubayr and Rabih. Indeed, Borno itself fell to Rabih in the 1890s. The second process was the gradual extension of the Central Sudanic state model further south into Central Africa as the frontier pushed south by the 18th and 19th centuries. The genius of al-Sanussi consisted of his decision to model his army and state on certain aspects of Rabih's destructive empire and build his own slave trading state. Even on the outer periphery of the trans-Saharan trade, itself a periphery of the Mediterranean and European-dominated commerce of his time, al-Sanussi created a large, centralized kingdom. Unfortunately for him, French colonialism and suppression of the slave trade meant his state was not long to last in the 20th century. 

Gult in Solomonic Ethiopia

Donald Crummey's Land and Society in the Christian Kingdom of Ethiopia: From the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Century has been on our reading list for quite some time. Crummey was one of those scholars interested in the larger "Sudanic" context for Christian Ethiopia, one that is often forgotten or neglected due to the religion and perceived isolation of the Ethiopian highland kingdom from other parts of Africa. For our purposes, Crummey's examination of gult is directly linked to the "fiefs" of Kanuri or Borno "feudalism" that appears in the works of Cohen, Palmer, Brenner, and other specialists. Additional parallels can be found with the Darfur Sultanate of the Keira dynasty and the land charters of the Funj. Where the Ethiopian case differs is in the much larger corpus of surviving written material and the role of the Church. 

Moreover, the case of Borno differs in that the mahrams collected and translated by Palmer do not appear to be represent the type of "fief" allocated to courtiers and the nobility from the central administration. In Borno's case, the recipients of "fiefs" received rights in tribute to the land in question, and were expected to reside in the capital while appointing representatives to maintain order and collect the tribute. A part of the collected tribute was also given to the Sayfawa administration (or that of the al-Kanemi dynasty which followed). The surviving mahrams of Borno, however, do not appear to represent cases like these but separate forms of land charters in which the recipient received tax-free land or territories. These were, presumably, usually distinct from the "fiefs" allocated by the mai to dependents and allies in the provinces.

Nonetheless, the Ethiopian institution of gult clearly resembled that of Kanem-Borno with regards to land grants in the rights of tribute from free peasant landholders. In Borno, the peasantry appeared to enjoy usufruct land rights and a certain mobility was in practice so they could migrate to other areas or fiefs if unhappy or overtaxed by the chima kura or his representatives. In Solomonic Ethiopia, free peasants benefited from rest to inherit land through an ambilineal descent system (at least among the Amhara). Both had to pay tribute, usually in kind, to an overlord (or the church in Ethiopia). While the antiquity of gult probably goes back to the Aksumite era of expansion and military colonies, some Borno mahrams purportedly date from the early centuries of Sayfawa conversion to Islam. Due to the obvious differences between Islam and Christianity, Borno mahrams granted to illustrious or pious mallams and settlements like Kalumbardo might represent the equivalent to Ethiopia's many monastic institutions which spread further across the region under the Solomonic dynasty. 

Additional parallels might be found in the role of elite marriages and class formation of a ruling class that enjoyed its higher status through the exploitation of tribute. Members of the Magumi ruling clan, for instance, sometimes received tax-free land grants and rights of exploitation, according to Muhammad Nur al-Kali. They also formed a distinct group that married among themselves and apparently resisted the alifa of Kanem due to his attempts to tax them. They were probably also distinguished by their sponsorship of Islamic scholars and holymen, such as the noble who paid Ali Eisami's father for his services. Unfortunately, their lives are not as well-documented as their Ethiopian counterparts, particularly during the Gondarine era. Crummey's study includes numerous details of the inheritance, sale, and gifting of gult lands and uses the surviving manuscripts, land charters, and edicts to illustrate how the Ethiopian ruling class did dominate a class-based society. Their lives of luxury and leisurely activity like chess, literacy, hunting elephants, consumption of mead, and the use of silks and expensive imported cloth certainly distinguished them from the average Ethiopian peasant or slaves. Their elite marriages connected them to the Solomonic dynasty and powerful provincial elites while patronage of the church demonstrated the close relations between church and state that was a cornerstone of Solomonic power for most of its 7 centuries of existence. 

Lamentably, we still know far too little about the peasantry exploited by gult. With some suggestive evidence that one Solomonic monarch, Za Dengal, actually tried to align himself with the free peasantry against the regional nobility, thereby threatening gult foundations of the empire, Crummey points to class conflict as a major factor in 16th and 17th century Ethiopia. Susenyos's conversion to Catholicism and religious conflict certainly contributed to this turmoil and instability until the early Gondarine period. Later moments of rural banditry, peasant revolts under Haile Selassie, or the formal end of gult under the Derg administration clearly attest to social conflict in the countryside. Modern Ethiopia's conquest of new territories in the late 19th century and land legislation favoring Amharic-speaking settlers over local inhabitants suggest an ethnic dimension that does not manifest itself in the earlier Gondar era. There is also too little information in the extant corpus on gult and the military in Solomonic history. What differences, if any, existed between military holders of gult and the ecclesiastical organizations who possessed gult lands? Did something akin to the influential mallams of Borno who appealed to the peasantry or the charismatic holymen of the Funj sultanate influence peasant resistance or negotiation of gult conditions? How did gender dynamics shape land ownership or rights in other parts of "Sudanic" Africa? Crummey definitely demonstrates how women could assert gult rights and, in some cases, effect policy on a "national" scale under Mentewab.