The Role of Kanem-Bornu

EARLY MODERN AFRICA and the WIDER WORLD HIST 1301 | History The Role of Kanem-Bornu An kingdom known as Kanem emerged in the Central Sudan around 900 CE; it was first restricted to the northeast of Lake Chad and lay to the east of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai. The Muslim Sefuwa dynasty began in 1087 with the ascension of Humai I to the throne of Kanem. A permanent capital was founded at Njimi, east of Lake Chad, at the same period. Throughout the following 150 years, the Kanem mais, or kings, solidified their rule over the area. Similar to Ghana, authority over the desert trade routes was essential to building and utilising this power. The thirteenth-century Kanem reached the pinnacle of its prominence and strength under Dunama Dibbalemi. Mai Dunama II established dominance over the Lake Chad region and expanded the state's authority over the trans-Saharan commerce northward to the Fezzan (southern Libya) with a cavalry army of around forty thousand. Prior to the end of his rule, he developed diplomatic ties with the North African rulers, particularly those in Tunis, which guaranteed the security of caravans travelling from the Mediterranean coast to the far south. This accomplishment ensured a rise in trans-Saharan travel. The Kanuri people of Kanem were mostly known for their exports of ivory and ostrich feathers, but they also had a speciality in selling captives to Muslims in North Africa and subsequently to Europeans, particularly the Portuguese, who paid in horses and firearms. The holy war, or jihad, against unbelievers was the justification for the attacks that resulted in these prisoners, and this practice caused tension between Kanem and its neighbours. Kanem ruled the Central Sudan by the middle of the thirteenth century. The empire reached the Sahara Desert in the north, the Wadai Sultanate in eastern Chad in the east, and the Niger River in the west. The bestknown accomplishment of the Kanuris during this time was the creation of a tributary state in Bornu, which is located southwest of Lake Chad. But during the following century, battles and disputes over succession—most notably, those between the reigning Muslim Sefuwa dynasty, its sons, and the non-Muslim Bulala pastoralists east of Lake Chad—stretched and weakened Kanem. Five of the six Sefuwa monarchs were assassinated between 1376 and 1400 by the insurgent Bulala, who resented the installation of severe Islamic authority under the Sefuwa. As a result of this conflict, the empire became unstable, forcing Mai Umar ibn Idris to completely evacuate the capital at Njimi. He moved a large number of the Kanuri people of the empire to Bornu, a permanent settlement located in the savanna area on the western coast of Lake Chad. Bornu already had important commercial connections with the Hausa kingdoms to the west, and it was in a better position to provide the Sefuwa dynasty's rulers with access to a broader trading network. The Sefuwa dynasty saw a rebirth in the first several decades of the sixteenth century. Mai Idris Katakarmabe, who ruled from 1507 until 1529, was able to vanquish the Bulala and lead the Sefuwa. As they solidified their control over the Bornu people, the Sefuwa also tightened their hold on them, inciting a number of internal uprisings by the non-Muslim peasant populace that they mercilessly put down. The Bornu dynasty imposed strict rule over the peasantry, who were safe from invasions when they converted to Islam. The trans-Saharan traffic in slaves bound for the marketplaces of North Africa and the Atlantic coast was a major contributor to Kanem-Bornu's wealth. Approximately five thousand captives were traded annually by Kanem-Bornu by the end of the fifteenth century. Mai Idris Aloma bolstered his army in the second part of the sixteenth century by bringing in weapons from North Africa. The Kanem-Bornu kings had close ties with the Ottoman Empire in North Africa, which allowed them access to Turkish mercenaries and advisors who were brought in to train their new force, while the Songhai army was unable to modernise. The empire was able to expand its slave-raiding operations against its non-Muslim neighbours as a result of these developments as well as its location in Central Sudan on the edge of Islam. Aloma, whose military and administrative reforms endured to support the empire for over a century, was the pinnacle of Kanem-Bornu. But the empire's influence started to wane by the end of the sixteenth century. One hundred years later, the state's ability to keep its borders intact had deteriorated to such an extent that the king's authority essentially only stretched westward, into Hausaland, or modern-day northern Nigeria. West African Fulani made great progress against Bornu in less than a century, and in 1808 they took control of Ngazargamu, the capital. Despite the death of the last Sefuwa monarch in 1846, the longest-surviving empire in Africa was able to endure until almost the end of the nineteenth century under new leaders.