¹ The research for this paper was supported by the Canadian Social Science Research Council, a grant from the Ahmadu Bello University Research Board and the History Dept. A.B.U. The paper benefited from the comments of Isaacman, Allen, Wright, Marcia, Klein, Martin, Hogendorn, J. S., Egnal, Marc, Hopkins, A. G., Tambo, David, Duffill, M. B. and Law, R. C. C.. The maps were drawn by the cartography section of the Department of Geography, York University. Earlier versions of this paper were given at the American Historical Association Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., 1976Google Scholar, and at the Conference on ‘The Cultivator and the State in Pre-Colonial Africa’, University of Illinois, Urbana, 1977Google Scholar. This preliminary discussion is being expanded into a book-length study of plantation economy and society in the Sokoto Caliphate.

² For earlier discussions of the Central Sudan economy, see Lovejoy, P. E. and Baier, S., ‘The Desert-Side Economy of the Central Sudan’, Intern. J. Afr. Hist. Studies, XIII (1975). 551–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lovejoy, P. E., ‘Interregional Monetary Flows in the Precolonial Trade of Nigeria’, J. Afr. Hist. XV (1974), 563–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lovejoy, P. E., Caravans of Kola: Hausa Trade with Asante, 1700–1900 (Zaria, forthcoming)Google Scholar; Baier, S., ‘African Merchants in the Colonial Period: A History of Commerce in Damagaram (Central Niger), 1880–1960’, Ph.D. thesis, unpublished, University of Wisconsin, 1974Google Scholar; and Shea, Philip, ‘The Development of an Export Oriented Dyed Cloth Industry in Kano Emirate in the Nineteenth Century’, Ph.D. thesis, unpublished, University of Wisconsin, 1975Google Scholar. For a comparison with other savanna areas, see especially Johnson, Marion, ‘The Economic Foundations of an Islamic Theocracy—The Case of Masina’, J. Afr. Hist. XVII (1976), 481–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For interaction between the Sokoto Caliphate and Masina, see Stewart, C. C., ‘Frontier Disputes and Problems of Legitimation: Sokoto–Masina Relations, 1817–1837’, J. Afr. Hist. XVII (1976), 497–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³ Hopkins, A. G., An Economic History of West Africa (London, 1973), 124Google Scholar; Also see Hopkins, , ‘The Lagos Strike of 1897: An Exploration in Nigerian Labour History’, Past and Present, XXXV (1966), 133–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hopkins, , ‘Economic Imperialism in West Africa: Lagos, 1880–92’, Economic History Review, XXI (1968), 584–92.Google Scholar

⁴ For a general assessment of slave use, see Klein, M. and Lovejoy, P. E., ‘Slavery in West Africa’, in Gemery, H. and Hogendorn, J. S., The Uncommon Market: The Economics of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (New York, forthcoming)Google Scholar; Cooper, Frederick, ‘Studying Slavery in Africa: Some Criticisms and Comparisons’, unpublished paper presented to the African Studies Program, Northwestern University, 1976Google Scholar; Meillassoux, Claude (ed.), L'Esclauage en Afrique précoloniale (Paris, 1975)Google Scholar; Miers, Suzanne and Kopytoff, Igor (eds.), Slavery in Africa: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives (Madison, 1977Google Scholar); Johnson, , ‘Economic Foundations of Masina’, 488–9Google Scholar; and a number of the papers presented at the conference on Islamic Africa: Slavery and Related Institutions, Princeton University, 1977, especially Lovejoy, Paul E., ‘The Characteristics of Plantations in the Sokoto Caliphate’Google Scholar; Levtzion, Nehemia, ‘Slavery and Islamization in Africa: A Comparative Study’Google Scholar; Klein, Martin, ‘Domestic Slavery in the Muslim Societies of Western Sudan’Google Scholar; Willis, John Ralph, ‘The Servile Estate’Google Scholar; Milliard, Constance B., ‘Slave Status among the Futanke: A Preliminary View Derived from the Shaikh Mūsā Kamara Papers’Google Scholar; Conrad, David C., ‘Slavery in Bambara Society: Segou, 1660–1861’Google Scholar; O'Fahey, R. S., ‘Slavery and Society in Dār Fūr’Google Scholar; Hunwick, J. O., ‘Notes on Slavery in the Songhay Empire’Google Scholar; and Sanneh, L. O., ‘Islamic Slavery in the African Perspective’.Google Scholar

⁵ Hopkins, , Economic History, 124–66Google Scholar. The situation in the Senegambia region was characterized by a complex interaction between patterns discernible on the coast and in the savanna interior. On the one hand the peasant sector was stimulated by the growth of groundnut exports, especially in the early 1850s. On the other hand, Islamic revolution and social upheaval from the 1860s once again produced large numbers of slaves which were often used under plantation conditions; see Klein, Martin, ‘Social and Economic Factors in the Muslim Revolution in Senegambia’, J. Afr. Hist. XIII (1972), 419–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Klein, , ‘Domestic Slavery’.Google Scholar

⁶ The problem of using the term plantation is discussed in Lovejoy, ‘Characteristics of Plantations’. Also see Smith, M. G., The Economy of Hausa Communities of Zaria (London, 1955), 81–2, 102–8Google Scholar; Smith, , ‘Slavery and Emancipation in Two Societies’, in Smith, M. G., The Plural Society in the British West Indies (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1965), 116–61Google Scholar; Mason, Michael, ‘Captive and Client Labour and the Economy of the Bida Emirate, 1857–1901’, J. Afr. Hist. XIV (1973), 453–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mason, ‘Trade and State in Nineteenth Century Nupe’, unpublished paper presented at the Seminar on the Economic History of the Central Savanna of West Africa, Kano, 1976 (hereafter referred to as Kano Seminar, 1976); Hill, Polly, ‘From Slavery to Freedom: The Case of Farm-Slavery in Nigerian Hausaland’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, XVIII (1976), 395–426CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hogendorn, J. S., ‘The Economics of Slave Use on Two ‘Plantations’ in the Zaria Emirate of the Sokoto Caliphate’, Intern. J. Afr. Hist. Studies, X (1977), 369–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷ Lovejoy, and Baier, , ‘Desert-Side Economy’, 551–81Google Scholar; and Lovejoy, P. E., ‘The Salt Industry of the Central Sudan’, in Adamu, Mahdi, ed., The Economic History of the Central Savanna of West Africa (Zaria, forthcoming).Google Scholar

⁸ Lovejoy, Caravans of Kola; Shea, ‘Dyed-Cloth Industry’; Usman, Yusufu Bala, ‘The Transformation of Katsina; c. 1796–1903. The Overthrow of the Sarauta System and the Establishment and Evolution of the Emirate’, Ph.D. thesis, unpublished, Ahmadu Bello University, 1974Google Scholar; Ferguson, Douglas Edwin, ‘Nineteenth-Century Hausaland, being a description by Imam Imoru of the Land, Economy, and Society of his People’, Ph.D. thesis, unpublished, UCLA, 1973Google Scholar; Nadama, Garba, ‘A Struggle for Survival: Zamfara in the Eighteenth Century’, Ph.D. thesis, Ahmadu Bello University, forthcoming.Google Scholar

⁹ Abubakar, Saad, ‘A Survey of the Economy of the Eastern Emirates of the Sokoto Caliphate in the Nineteenth Century’, unpublished paper presented at the Sokoto Seminar, Departments of History, Ahmadu Bello University and Bayero University College, Sokoto, 1975.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Mason, , ‘Captive and Client Labour’, 453–71Google Scholar; Mason, , ‘Trade and State’Google Scholar; Gavin, R. J., ‘The Economy of Ilorin’, unpublished seminar paper, University of Birmingham, 1976Google Scholar; Balogun, S. A., ‘Economic Activities and Ties of Gwandu Emirates and Their Neighbours in the Nineteenth Century’, Kano Seminar, 1976Google Scholar; and Irwin, J., ‘An Emirate of the Niger Bend: A Political History of Liptako in the Nineteenth Century’, Ph.D. thesis, unpublished, University of Wisconsin, 1973, 18–19.Google Scholar

¹¹ Lovejoy, , ‘Interregional Monetary Flows’, 563–85Google Scholar; and Hogendorn, J. S., ‘Slave Acquisition and Delivery in Precolonial Hausaland’, in Dumett, R. and Schwartz, Ben K. (eds.), West African Culture Dynamics: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives (The Hague and Chicago, forthcoming).Google Scholar

¹² Baier, Stephen, ‘Trans-Saharan Trade and the Sahil: Damerghou, 1870–1930’ (forthcoming)Google Scholar; Baier, , ‘Local Transport in the Economy of the Central Sudan, 1900–1930’, Kano Seminar, 1976Google Scholar; Lovejoy, , ‘Salt Industry’Google Scholar; Lovejoy, , Caravans of KolaGoogle Scholar; and Johnson, Marion, ‘Calico Caravans: The Tripoli-Kano Trade after 1880’, J. Afr. Hist. XVII (1976), 95–117CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹³ Lovejoy, and Baler, , ‘Desert-Side Economy’, 551–81.Google Scholar

¹⁴ For a discussion of jihad and its aftermath, see Last, Murray, The Sokoto Caliphate (London, 1967Google Scholar); Usman, , ‘Katsina’Google Scholar; and Nadama, , ‘Zamfara’Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Usman, , ‘Katsina’Google Scholar; and Aliyu, A. Y., ‘Aspects of Relations between Bornu and Bauchi from Early Times to the First Half of the 19th Century’, unpublished paper presented at the Borno Seminar, Zaria, 1973.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Last9, Sokoto Caliphate, 79–80Google Scholar; and Last, , ‘An Aspect of the Caliph Muhammad Bello's Social Policy’, Kano Studies, I (1966), 56–9.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Last, , Sokoto Caliphate, 74–80.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Clapperton, H., Journal of a Second Expedition into the Interior of Africa (London, 1829), 192.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Clapperton, , Journal, 192, 216–17, 220, 225, 243–5Google Scholar; and Balogun, , ‘Gwandu Economy’.Google Scholar

²⁰ Smith, , Zazzau, 89.Google Scholar

²¹ Smith, , Hausa Communities, 81Google Scholar. Also see Hogendorn, , ‘Two Plantations’.Google Scholar

²² Usman, , ‘Katsina’, 426.Google Scholar

²³ Lovejoy, , Caravans of Kola, chapter VGoogle Scholar; Baier, Stephen and Lovejoy, Paul E., ‘The Tuareg of the Central Sudan: Gradations in Servility at the Desert Edge (Niger and Nigeria’, in Miers, Suzanne and Kopytoff, Igor, eds., Slavery in Africa) (Madison, Wisconsin 1977), 407Google Scholar; Usman, , ‘Katsina’, 431Google Scholar; and Barth, Heinrich, Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa (New York, 1857–9), I. 456.Google Scholar

²⁴ Shea, , ‘Dyed Cloth Industry’Google Scholar; and Shea, , ‘Black Cloth: An Export Oriented Industry in Kano’, Kano Seminar, 1976Google Scholar; and, for northern Zaria, see the numerous interviews conducted in Kudan, Makarfi, Fatika, Hunkuyi, and Zaria in the Lovejoy-Maccido collection, which is being prepared for deposit with the Northern History Research Scheme, Department of History, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and with the Oral Data Center, Archives of Traditional Music, Indiana University, Bloomington, U.S.A. This collection is part of a larger economic history project which was conducted in 1975–6 and is described in Lovejoy, P. E. and Hogendorn, J. S., ‘Oral Data Collection and the Economic History of the Central Savanna’, Savanna, forthcoming.Google Scholar

²⁵ Shea, , ‘Black Cloth’Google Scholar, quoting C. W. J. Orr, Trade Prospects, 26 Oct. 1904, C.O. 446/43 (1907), no. 30132, Public Record Office, London.

²⁶ Usman, , ‘Katsina’, 122–3.Google Scholar

²⁷ Usman, , ‘Katsina’, 453–4.Google Scholar

²⁸ Lovejoy-Maccido Collection; Ferguson, , ‘Imam Imoru’, 80.Google Scholar

²⁹ Ferguson, , ‘Imam Imor’, 80Google Scholar; Nadama, , ‘Zamfara’.Google Scholar

³⁰ This analysis conflicts with that of Polly Hill, who considers that Zaria is outside the core-region; ‘Slavery to Freedom’, 406–7.Google Scholar

³¹ For a discussion of the Agalawa, Tokarawa, Kambarin Beriberi, and other traders, see Lovejoy, and Baier, , ‘Desert-Side Econom’, 551–81Google Scholar; Lovejoy, , Caravans of Kola, chs. iii–viGoogle Scholar; Baier, and Lovejoy, , ‘Tuareg’, 406–7Google Scholar; and Lovejoy, , ‘The Kambarin Beriberi: The Formation of a Specialized Group of Hausa Kola Traders in the Nineteenth Century’, J. Afr. Hist. XIV (1973), 633–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³² Smith, , Zazzau, 157–8.Google Scholar

³³ Ferguson, , ‘Imam Imoru’, 60Google Scholar. Also see numerous interviews in the Yusufu Yunusa, Aliyu Bala Umar, and Aliyu Musa Collections, all largely on Kano Emirate and part of the Economic History Project.

³⁴ Ferguson, , ‘Imam Imoru’, 233.Google Scholar

³⁵ Hogendorn, , ‘Two Plantations’Google Scholar; Smith, Mary, Baba of Karo. A Woman of the Moslem Hausa (London, 1954), 37–40Google Scholar; Smith, , ‘Slavery and Emancipation’, 116–61Google Scholar; Smith, , Hausa Communities, 102–8Google Scholar; Lovejoy, , Caravans of Kola, ch. VGoogle Scholar; Hill, , ‘Slavery to Freedom’, 417–20Google Scholar; Usman, , ‘Katsina’; 124–5, 453–6, 473–4Google Scholar; Mason, , ‘Captive and Client Labour’, 453–71Google Scholar; Abubakar, , ‘Economy of the Eastern Emirates’Google Scholar; Gavin, , ‘Economy of Ilorin’Google Scholar; Barth, , Travels, ii. 159, 163, 174, 190–6Google Scholar; Abubakar, Saad, The Lamibe of Fombina (Zaria and London, forthcoming)Google Scholar; Lugard, Frederick D., Political Memoranda (London, 1906), 296–302Google Scholar. Extensive data on the plantation system are also contained in oral testimonies collected during the Economic History Project, Ahmadu Bello University, 1975–6. Relevant collections include those by J. S. Hogendorn (Zaria), P. E. Lovejoy and A. Maccido (Zaria), Aliyu Bala Umar (Kano), Yusufu Yunusa (Kano), O. S. Ahmed (Nassarawa), Aliyu Musa (Kano), A. Babangida (Hadejia), Musa Ahmed (Katagum), A. Maccido (Zaria), Yau Haruna (Kano), Abdulrahman Alfanda (Kano) and Otolirin Adesiyin (Ilorin). These collections total more than 100 hours of interviews and number several hundred sessions. A more detailed analysis of the material is forthcoming. Also relevant to a study of the plantation sector is data contained in the 1969–70 Lovejoy Collection, on deposit with the Northern History Research Scheme, ABU, Zaria.

³⁶ Hogendorn, , ‘Two Plantations’Google Scholar; Smith, , ‘Slavery and Emancipation’; 239–80Google Scholar; Shea, , ‘Dyed-Cloth Industry’Google Scholar; Lovejoy, , Caravans of Kola, chapter VGoogle Scholar; Lovejoy, and Baier, , ‘Desert-Side Economy’, 566, 568–9Google Scholar; Baier, and Lovejoy, , ‘Tuareg’, 401, 406–7Google Scholar; and interviews conducted at Kudan, , Makarfi, , Hunkuyi, and Zaria, , Lovejoy-Maccido Collection, 1976.Google Scholar

³⁷ Hill, , ‘Slavery to Freedom’, 417–20.Google Scholar

³⁸ Lovejoy, , Caravans of Kola, chapter V.Google Scholar

³⁹ Musa na Madabo, Tape 14, Lovejoy Collection, 1969–70, but also see Lovejoy, , Caravans of Kola.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Muhammadu Kasori, Tape 14; but also see Miko Hamshak'i, Tape 12, and Bako Madigawa and Audu Ba'are, Tape 12, Lovejoy Collection, 1969–70.

⁴¹ For the practices of murgu and self-purchase, see Hogendorn, , ‘Two Plantations’Google Scholar; Smith, , Hausa Communities, 102–3Google Scholar; Hill, , ‘Slavery to Freedom’, 399Google Scholar; Lugard, , Political Memoranda, 306–8Google Scholar; and various interviews in the Yunusa Collection, 1975; Maccido Collection, 1975.

⁴² Smith, M. G., ‘Hausa Inheritance and Succession’, in Derrett, J. D. M. (ed.), Studies in the Laws of Succession in Nigeria (London, 1965), 241–5Google Scholar; Smith, , Hausa Communities, 20–40Google Scholar; and Hill, Polly, Rural Hausa: A Village and a Setting (Cambridge, 1972), 38–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴³ Smith, , Baba of Karo, 39.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Ibid.

⁴⁵ This conclusion differs from that advanced by Hill, who considers Zaria and Kano distinctly different, the first being ‘Fulani’ and the second ‘Hausa’. This ethnic approach fails to account for class differences which are partially disguised in those terms and it suggests a geographical separation which did not exist; see ‘Slavery to Freedom’, 402, 406–7.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ See the forthcoming study of Stewart, C. C. on Bello's policies. The best published account remains Last, ‘Bello's Social Policy’, 56–9.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ For a summary of political events, see Adeleye, R. A., ‘The Sokoto Caliphate in the Nineteenth Century’, in Ajayi, J. F. A. and Crowder, M. (eds.), History of West Africa (London, 1974), II. 57–92.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Aliyu (‘Bornu and Bauchi’) lists fourteen rinji in the Bauchi area before the emirate capital was established. More were established later; see Lugard, , Political Memoranda, 302.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Low, Victor N., Three Nigerian Emirates. A Study in Oral History (Evanston, 1972), 36–7, 212.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ For a view of the situation in the early 1850s, see Barth, , Travels, ii. 159, 163, 174, 190–1, 194–5, 201Google Scholar. Also see Abubakar, , ‘Economy of Eastern Emirates’Google Scholar; and Abubakar, , Fombina.Google Scholar

⁵¹ There is no adequate study of plantations in Ilorin, but for a survey of the Ilorin economy at the end of the century see Gavin, , ‘Ilorin’Google Scholar; and interviews in the Adesiyin Collection, 1975. For Nupe, see Mason, , ‘Captive and Client Labour’, 453–71Google Scholar; Mason, , ‘Trade and State’Google Scholar; Nadel, S. F., A Black Byzantium. The Kingdom of Nupe in Nigeria (London, 1942), 36–7, 196–7Google Scholar, and Lugard, , Political Memoranda, 300–1.Google Scholar

⁵² Lugard, , Political Memoranda, 303.Google Scholar

⁵³ Irwin, , ‘Liptako’, 18–9.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ A full exploration of this theme is beyond the scope of this article, but attention should be drawn to the forthcoming work of David Tambo. But see Abubakar, Fombina; and Hogendorn, ‘Slave Acquisition’.

⁵⁵ Abubakar, , FombinaGoogle Scholar; and Abubakar, , ‘Economy of Eastern Emirates’.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Barth, , Travels, ii. 191.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Barth, , Travels, ii. 190–6Google Scholar. For a fuller analysis see Abubakar, , Fombina.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Duffill, M. B., ‘The Biography of Madugu Mohamman Mai Gashin Baki, from an account by E. R. Flegel’, Kano Seminar, 1976Google Scholar; Abubakar, , ‘Economy of Eastern Emirates’Google Scholar; and interviews conducted at Bakundi and Beli, Lovejoy Collection, Economic History Project, 1976. Also see Hogben, S. J. and Kirk-Greene, A. H. M., The Emirates of Northern Nigeria (London, 1966), 447, 449.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Mason, , ‘Trade and State’, cited in n. 6Google Scholar; and Mason, , ‘Captive and Client Labour’, 465.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Hogendorn, J. S., Northern Nigerian Groundnut Exports (Zaria, forthcoming).Google Scholar

⁶¹ Interviews in the Yunusa Collection, 1975.

⁶² Baier, , ‘Local Transport’.Google Scholar

⁶³ Hogendorn, , Groundnut Exports, explores the rise of peasant production in the export sectorGoogle Scholar. For a more general treatment, see Hill, , Rural Hausa.Google Scholar