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Gerhard Rohlfs in Yorubaland1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Elisabeth de Veer  and
Ann O'Hear
Elisabeth de Veer
Affiliation:
Niagara University
Ann O'Hear
Affiliation:
Niagara University
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Extract

Gerhard Rohlfs was born in Vegesack near Bremen in 1831. He was a frequent traveler in Africa, and in 1865-67 he became the first European to travel from north Africa across the Sahara to the west African coast, from Tripoli to Borno, then through Bauchi and Keffi to Loko, thence down the Benue to its confluence with the Niger at Lokoja, which he reached on 28 March 1867. From there, he proceeded upstream along the Niger to Raba, delivering presents to Masaba of Nupe. From Raba, he traveled overland through Yorubaland to Lagos. In 1868 he published an account of the first half of this journey, from north Africa to Borno, in Petermann's Mitteilungen. In 1872 his account of the second half, “Gerhard Rohlfs' Reise durch Nord-Afrika vom Mittelländischen Meere bis zum Busen von Guinea, 1865 bis 1867, 2. Hälfte: von Kuka nach Lagos (Bornu, Bautschi, Saria, Nupe, Yoruba),” also appeared in Petermann's. A later publication, Quer durch Afrika, which appeared in 1874-75, covered the entire journey.

Rohlfs' accounts of his travels in west Africa south of the Sahara have up to now been greatly neglected. The works mentioned above have never been published in English translation, which no doubt goes some way to explain this neglect. Rohlfs' information on his stay in Kuka (the capital of Borno) and his visits to Bauchi and Nupe have been cited by some scholars, at least. Very few, however, appear to have consulted his description of the last leg of his 1866-67 journey, in which he proceeded from the Niger south through Yorubaland to Lagos, visiting Share, Ilorin, Iwo, Ibadan, and parts of Ijebuland on the way.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 21 , 1994 , pp. 251 - 268
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1994

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Footnotes

1.

We would like to express our gratitude to Niagara University Library for help with interlibrary loans; E.B. Bolaji for organizing an interview with the Magajin Gari of Ilorin on our behalf; Yakubu Adeyemi Jimoh for providing a copy of his dissertation and much other information on Share/Tsaragi; Stefan Reichmuth for supplying information on oral data he has collected in Ilorin, and for details of a nineteenth-century Sokoto poem; Stefan Reichmuth and Toyin Falola for comments on a previous draft of this paper; and Dennis Cordell, Toyin Falola, and Adam Jones for information and advice. In particular, we acknowledge our debt to the late Marion Johnson for first bringing the work of Gerhard Rohlfs to our attention.

References

Notes

2. “Gerhard Rohlfs' Reise durch Nord-Afrika von Tripoli nach Kuka,” Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen, Ergänzungsheft [Supplement] no. 25 (Gotha, 1868).Google Scholar

3. Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen, Ergänzungsheft no. 34 (Gotha, 1872).Google Scholar

4. Rohlfs, Gerhard, Quer durch Afrika (2 vols.: Leipzig 1874–1875).Google Scholar For the foregoing details of Rohlfs' publications, see especially Fisher, Allan G.B. and Fisher, Humphrey J. in Nachtigal, Gustav, Sahara and Sudan, trans, and ed. by A.G.B., and Fisher, H.J. (3 vols: London, 1987), 3:xiv–xv.Google Scholar For details of Rohlfs' journey of 1865-67, see Schmokel, Wolfe W., “Gerhard Rohlfs: The Lonely Explorer” in Rotberg, Robert I., ed., Africa and its Explorers (Cambridge, Mass., 1970), 176-77, 189–95.Google Scholar

5. An English translation by Johanna E. Moody of Rohlfs' two-part account of his 1865-67 journey is, however, now in preparation.

6. Brenner, Louis, The Shehus of Kukawa: A History of the Al-Kanemi Dynasty of Bornu (Oxford, 1973), 75n13, 82nn40, 42, 83n47, 137Google Scholar; Johnson, Marion, “Cowrie Currencies of West Africa, I,” JAH 11 (1970), 42n154Google Scholar; Adeleye, R.A., Power and Diplomacy in Northern Nigeria 1804-1906 (London, 1971), 32n46Google Scholar; Mason, Michael, Foundations of the Bida Kingdom (Zaria, 1981), 65, 90, 96nn65, 68, 96-97n79, 99n143.Google Scholar

7. For those who have used Rohlfs on Ilorin see note 14 below. Rohlfs is not mentioned by Smith, R.S. in his Kingdoms of the Yoruba (3d. ed.: Madison, 1988)Google Scholar; nor by Falola, Toyin in his “Research Agenda on the Yoruba in the Nineteenth Century,” HA 15 (1988), 211–27.Google Scholar Falola points out (ibid., 224n4) that a comprehensive bibliography of sources for nineteenth-century Yoruba history is needed.

8. Rohlfs points out that “here we came upon Yoruba people for the first time,” and the houses he describes are clearly Yoruba in style. See Notes to Narrative 9.

9. According to Elphinstone's account (which is closely based on a history compiled as part of a 1918 assessment report): “About 1850, the Sarikin Fulani Masaba came from Lade…and drove the Nupes from Sharagi. Amadu Saba, the Ndakpoto [head of the Nupe section of the town], and about half the Nupes fled to Zambufu and resided there a short time, when they were driven to Kusoko…and thence to Dumagi. After three years (about 1853) Masaba allowed them to return to Sharagi. The other half of the Nupes had fled to near Jebba (Ilorin side of river)—a very few only had remained at Sharagi. Dada, the Olupako [head of the Yoruba in Share] and the Igbonas had not fled from Share (probably they paid a bribe to Masaba to desist from attacking them). On Amadu Saba's return to Sharagi with the Nupes, the Fulani no longer recognized him as the chief man of the town…but in his place they set up Dada, the Olupako, as the chief.” Elphinstone, K.V., Gazetteer of Ilorin Province (London, 1921), 25–26Google Scholar; also “History of Sharagi District” by V.F. Biscoe, attached to his Re-Assessment Report on Sharagi District, 1918, Nigerian National Archives, Kaduna (NNAK), Ilorinprof 6282. We are grateful to Yakubu Adeyemi Jimoh for providing us with a copy of this document.

Samuel Crowther, who visited Share/Tsaragi in 1871/72, may well be referring to the same flight of the Nupes when he reports that “Saregi was deserted some years ago, from a suspicion that Masaba was going to invade it and carry the inhabitants away captives; they fled to Ilorin farms for refuge; however, the King [Masaba] has been making efforts through Da-Isa, his faithful messenger, to induce them to return and rebuild their houses, with all assurance of their being safe; he is succeeding.” Niger Mission: Bishop Crowther's Report of the Overland Journey from Lokoja to Bida, on the River Niger, and Thence to Lagos, on the Sea Coast, From November 10th, 1871, to February 8th, 1872 (London, 1872), 16.Google Scholar

10. A.F. Mockler-Ferryman, who visited Share/Tsaragi in 1889, remarked that “[o]ur arrival created immense excitement, the natives lining the road in dense throngs, for few white men have hitherto visited this part of the country” (Up the Niger [London, 1892], 177Google Scholar). For information on Share provided by Mockler-Ferryman, Milum, and Clarke, see Notes to Narrative 6, 9, 10, 13, 14, 17. For Samuel Crowther's visit see note 9 above.

11. Falola, , “Research Agenda,” 216-17, 218.Google Scholar See also Falola, Toyin, “Contemporary Chronicles: Igbomina in Print,” in Falola, Toyin, ed., Yoruba Historiography (Madison, 1991), 183–206.Google Scholar

12. To the best of our knowledge the only academic work on Share is Yakubu, Jimoh Adeyemi, “Share and Tsaragi Relations from 19th and 20th Centuries” (B.A. dissertation, University of Ilorin, 1987).Google Scholar

13. For these dates see Notes to Narrative 27.

14. O'Hear, Ann, “The Economic History of Ilorin in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: The Rise and Fall of a Middleman Society” (Ph.D., University of Birmingham, 1984)Google Scholar; and Reichmuth, Stefan, “ʿIlur und Adab. Islamische Bildung und sociale Integration in Ilorin, Nigeria, seit ca. 1800” (Habilitation thesis, University of Bayreuth, 1991).Google Scholar

15. See Notes to Narrative 24.

16. See Notes to Narrative 28, 36.

17. The only other reference to Ilorin pottery in the nineteenth-century sources, as far as we know, is in the records of the Carter Expedition of 1893. See Carter, G.T., Despatch from Sir Gilbert Carter (London, 1893), 22.Google Scholar But also see Notes to Narrative 38, on major Ilorin crafts not mentioned by Rohlfs.

18. See Notes to Narrative 20.

19. Mockler-Ferryman, , Up the Niger, 187Google Scholar; Milum, J., “Notes of a Journey from Lagos to Bida, etc (1879-80),” Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society 3/2 (1881), 356.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20. See Notes to Narrative 52, 53.

21. As pointed out by Schmokel, , “Rohlfs,” 215.Google Scholar