Colonialism by Proxy (excerpt)

892019 Colonialism by Proxy (excerpt)

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullcolonialism-by-proxy-excerpt 113



Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction Understanding ldquoNative Alienrdquo

Subcolonialism and Its Legacies 983089

983089 Te Hausa-Caliphate Imaginary and Ideological

Foundations of Proxy Colonialism 983090983090

983090 Zazzau and Southern Kaduna in

Precolonial and Colonial imes 983092983093

983091 Emirate Maneuvers and ldquoPaganrdquo Resistance in

the Plateau-Nasarawa Basin 983095983095

983092 Hausa Colonial Agency in the Benue Valley 983089983088983094

983093 Fulani Expansion and Subcolonial Rule in

Early Colonial Adamawa Province 983089983090983097

983094 Non-Muslim Revolt against Fulani Rule in Adamawa 983089983093983095

983095 Middle Belt Self-Determination and Caliphate

Political Resurgence in the ransition to National Independence 983089983095983097

Conclusion Subcolonialism Ethnicity and Memory 983090983088983095

Chronology 983090983090983091

Glossary 983090983090983093

Notes 983090983090983095

Bibliography 983090983093983091

Index 983090983094983091



Te Hausa-Caliphate

Imaginary and IdeologicalFoundations o Proxy Colonialism

B983154983145983156983145983155983144-983155983157983152983141983154983158983145983155983141983140 Hausa-Fulani colonization in the Middle Belt has a long

scattered but recoverable ideological history Te reconstruction o this historyentails two interrelated quests One is a search or the origin and development o

a Hausa-caliphate colonial administrative imaginary in the osmotic interplay be-

tween caliphate and British narratives Te other is the sometimes subtle some-

times declared entry o the set o ideas that rationalized proxy caliphate rule into

official British colonial policy in Northern Nigeria983089

Te search or colonial administrative coherence and uniormity prompted

British officials to craf an administrative policy envisioned to normalize and

spread a Hausa-caliphate sociocultural and political model to the non-Muslim

areas o the Middle Belt983090 Te process by which this policy emerged in the realmo ideas and debate evolved and became a manual o colonial rule in the Middle

Belt was long and complex and requires a systematic analysis to unpack Scruti-

nizing subcolonialism to reveal its properties is necessary to provide a discursive

backdrop or narrative case studies that flesh out the operational vagaries o an

unusual inrastructure o colonization

Hausa-Fulani subcolonialism was a colonial template o Anglo-caliphate

rule It took shape against the backdrop o a canon o colonial and caliphate

knowledge that viewed the cultures religions and political traditions o theMiddle Belt as obstacles to be overcome in the interest o cheap uniorm colonial

rule in Northern Nigeria Te idea o supplanting Middle Belt cultures and insti-

tutions as a way o preparing the non-Muslim peoples o the region or indirect

rule through the instrumentality o Hausa-caliphate ideas institutions cultures

and personnel was a logical outgrowth o this prior ideological erment A key

enabler o this project was the auspicious meshing o British and caliphate ideas

British rule in the Middle Belt although encased in a belie that ldquobackwardrdquo

Middle Belt peoples should embrace the political and cultural attributes associat-

ed with the caliphate zone was not aimed at achieving sociopolitical uniormityor its own sake Rather this was a pragmatic administrative project inormed by

the practical and fiscal impossibility o implementing multiple colonial admin-

istrative systems in Northern Nigeria But i pragmatism dictated Hausa-Fulani

983089

983090983090



Hausa-Caliphate Imaginary | 983090983091

subcolonial rule the system needed quasi-intellectual justification It also needed

an invented narrative o Hausa-Fulani supremacy and Middle Belt ineriority

or only such a narrative could indemniy British colonial supervisors or violat-

ing indirect rule by empowering ldquooreignrdquo mediators over indigenous ones In

this ideological enterprise preexisting British and caliphate theories about the

precolonial sociology and politics o Northern Nigeria and about prior indicators

o Middle Belt submission and resistance to caliphate ldquocivilizationrdquo proved par-

ticularly useul Tese theories contributed to the ormulation o subcolonialism

as an ideology o colonial rule and provided cultural alibis to justiy its imple-

mentation

Te two undamental prerequisites o indirect rulemdashethnic difference and

a preexisting centralized system o rulemdashnecessitated the creation o both di-erence and politico-cultural sameness across Northern Nigeria using the co-

lonially avored Hausa-caliphate model as a reerence Tis exercise was carried

out through the coalescing over a long period o caliphate narratives and claims

about itsel and its ldquoothersrdquo on the one hand and British imperial sociological

and historical writings on the other British colonial articulations o sociological

assumptions about subject peoples ofen preceded and guided their administra-

tive ideas It is what Sean Hawkins ollowing David Olson calls ldquothe world on

paperrdquo a colonial representational world ldquodivorced rom realityrdquo but possessing

the capacity to determine colonial administrative and economic policy1048627

British ideas about racial and civilizational hierarchies and caliphate images

o itsel and o the non-Muslim peoples on its vast rontier bled into each other

in complex ways and solidified into a colonial governing imaginary dependent

on the conscription o caliphate ideas and personnel Te most contested site

o this colonial administrative policy was the Middle Belt Colonial and caliph-

ate discourses highlighted the absence o the key raw material or indirect rule

political centralization in most Middle Belt communities and contrasted this

with the centralized political traditions o the caliphate zone Tis was a problemthat had to be solved Te caliphate influential colonial ideologues like Frederick

Lugard and Charles emple believed modeled the institutions and orms o so-

cial organization considered the oundations o indirect rule Te mobilization o

caliphate ideas administrative traditions and personnel to uplif and prepare the

peoples o the Middle Belt or indirect rule should thus be viewed as a pragmatic

project although British colonial writers and amateur anthropologists in North-

ern Nigeria also reerenced a set o sel-reflexive racial ideologies in ormulating

their administrative policies or the Middle Belt

Te analysis that ollows maps the historical processes through which Hau-sa-Fulani identity and its associative connotations emerged Te emergence o

the Sokoto Islamic Caliphate inaugurated an ideational revolution that trans-

ormed Hausa identity and conflated it with a notion o Islamic piety imperial



983090983092 | Colonialism by Proxy

citizenship and privilege Afer the colonial conquest a new set o ideas about

what Hausa-caliphate identity meant used with new subcolonial administrative

doctrines that affirmed the same claims and created a homogenized Middle Belt

Other ossilizing into concrete colonial administrative policy Tis policy then

acquired a separate elaborate lie o its own eeding on both conormity and

resistance to it among Middle Belt peoples

Hausa More Tan a Language

Hausa is not just a language it is a category synonymous with certain ways o act-

ing making a living and worshipping God As a descriptor and signifier Hausa

correlates with a vast system o meanings and connotations Hausa now carries

with it a variety o clear cultural economic and political associations As a lan-guage o trade and social contact in West Arica and as the language o an eth-

nic group known as Hausa it approaches what Ali Mazrui calls a cosmopolitan

language983092 Te presence throughout much o West Arica o people who speak

Hausa as a second language and the role o the Hausa language as a lingua ranca

in much o Northern Nigeria speaks to the utilitarian importance o a language

whose intertwinement with trade and itinerant Islamic practices dates back to a

remote Nigerian antiquity1048629

Te Hausa people inhabited the savannah grasslands o West Arica

hemmed between the Songhai and Bornu empires A receptacle o influences

rom both empires since perhaps the fifeenth century Hausaland then politi-

cally constituted into several Hausa city-states remained largely defined by the

linguistic primacy o various dialects o the Hausa language Afer the Fulani

jihad o 10486259830969830881048628ndash1048625983096983088983096 the variegated existence o the Hausa people was subsumed

by the Sokoto Caliphate which was largely constituted by the territories o the

old Hausa city-states

Te terms ldquoHausardquo ldquoHausawardquo and ldquoKasar Hausardquo denoting the language

people and land o the Hausa respectively are actually airly recent coinagesTese terms in their modern usage probably originated rom the writings o Oth-

man bin Fodio leader o the Fulani jihad who beore and during the jihad ho-

mogenized the Hausa-speaking but autonomous peoples o the different Hausa

states in what he defined as a collective o bad Muslim rulers and syncretistic

Muslim masses1048630 Te peoples o these states and ordinary Fulani migrants who

lived among them were more likely to reer to the Hausa statesrsquo citizens by their

state o origin ldquoKatsinawardquo or those rom Katsina ldquoKanawardquo or those rom

Kano ldquoGobirawardquo or those rom Gobir and others Following bin Fodio his

brother Mohammed Bello discursively ormalized ldquoHausardquo as a term o reer-ence or the inhabitants o the ormer Hausa states1048631

Te Fulani Islamic reorm movement or Fulani jihad superimposed a cen-

tral political and religious authority on the ragmented Hausa states o present-




day Northwestern Nigeria and through conquest and discourse disciplined

them into one politico-linguistic unit More importantly the jihad inscribed Is-

lamic piety as one o the most important markers o Hausa identity Tus as JohnPhilips argues to be Hausa gradually came to mean that one was a Muslim even

though not all Muslims in the caliphate were Hausa and not all Hausa were Mus-

lims1048632 Te jihad initiated the process o homogenization and the construction o

a politically useul concept o Hausa identity a narrative that was underwritten

by religious and cultural associations

Te religious content o the ldquoHausaizationrdquo process was coterminous with

the new ortune o Islam as the defining ideal o citizenship within the Sokoto

Caliphate whose core was Hausaland Te new Fulani rulers and their agents

adopted the language and culture o their Hausa subjects as well as the adminis-trative inrastructure o the conquered Hausa (Habe) kings By this process most

o the urbanized Fulani became Hausa in linguistic and cultural terms although

a quiet commingling o the two peoples had been taking place beore the jihad1048633




Tus despite the protest o many Hausa people today about the use o the term

ldquoHausa-Fulanirdquo to describe the Hausa-speaking peoples o todayrsquos Northern Ni-

geria it is a historically valid terminology and it seems that their protest rejects

the recent appropriations o the term by Southern Nigerian intellectuals more

than it does the termrsquos historicity In this and subsequent chapters however I

will use the terms ldquoHausardquo and ldquoHausa-Fulanirdquo interchangeably to denote this

compound ethnic category

Te Islamization o Hausa identity is perhaps best underscored by the act

that post-jihad Hausa identity became synonymous with assimilation into an Is-

lamic consciousness that was packaged consecrated and policed by the jihad

leaders and the inheritors o their authority Tus the maguzawa Hausa tradi-

tionalists who either managed to escape the Islamizing influence o the jihad orbecame dhimis who traded jizya tribute or caliphal protection under Islamic law

were excluded rom the post-jihad model o Hausa identity9830891048624 Te term maguzawa

has an etymology rooted in the Islamic distinction between Muslims and non-

Muslims and in a Hausaized rendering o this distinction983089983089 Although its use to

distinguish between Muslim and non-Muslim Hausa and between urban and

rural Hausa likely originated in pre-jihad times it acquired additional valence

in the post-jihad period as Islam and its shifing interpretive consensuses be-

came more central to the definition o Hausa identity Te cosmopolitan nature

o Islam in West Arica meant that being Hausa became more and more aboutIslamic piety and the ability to speak the language rather than about any original

connection with Kasar Hausa or Hausa ethnic ancestry983089983090

By expanding the rontiers o a cosmopolitan Islamic tradition the Sokoto

Caliphate enhanced the cosmopolitan and incorporative character o Hausa en-

abling non-Hausa members o the caliphal Islamic community to become Hausa

in geographical contexts that lacked Hausa ethnic heritage9830891048627 Indeed because

Hausa identity was vested with sociopolitical importance by the jihad it became

at least within the Sokoto Caliphate a political identity denoting belonging andprivilege Islamic piety an acceptance o the religious orthodoxy o the caliphate

ounders and an ability to speak Hausa even as a second language granted one

entry into Hausahood It thus became an appealing identity rom a purely prag-

matic perspective Affiliation with the paradigmatic ethnic category o a regional

hegemony like Sokoto conerred a social currency with polyvalent profitability

Te title o ldquoHausardquo had purchase in multiple contexts Geographic proximity

to the Hausa heartland in todayrsquos northwestern Nigeria as well as Islamic piety

acilitated social and political access to an increasingly coveted Hausa identity

A plethora o cultural attitudinal and perormative indicators sprang up toreinorce the linguistic and religious indicators o Hausa identity It is this con-

stellation o cultural religious economic and political significations that I call

Hausa-caliphate imaginary Steven Pierce argues that this amplification o Hausa




identity as a total worldview and way o lie is underwritten by the belie among

the inheritors o the Sokoto Caliphate Islamic tradition that ldquoHausa identity

also encompassed particular ways o making a living notably Hausa peoplersquos

ame as traders and a particular approach to agriculture certain technologies

certain modes o labor mobilizationrdquo983089983092 As a result o these associative reification

o Hausa being Hausa or becoming Hausa gradually came to denote possessing

certain qualities Islamic conversion or reaffirmation was only the beginning

point as well as the undamental action on the path to becoming Hausa9830891048629

Te cumulative outcome o the transormation and elaboration o Hausa as

a category o identification was that Hausa became even more fluid and context-

determined than it had been prior to the jihad Tis fluidity that came to charac-

terize Hausa identity was crucial because proficiency in the Hausa language andin the vocabulary o Islam displaced autochthony as a criterion or belonging

Te spread o Hausa linguistic and religious influence made Hausa a category o

power since anyone whose claim to Hausa identity was consecrated by the in-

vocation o these attributes could potentially enjoy the privileges and status that

came with being regarded as Hausa in non-Hausa contexts like the Middle Belt

Because Islam was the seminal social marker o the caliphate and Hausa was its

unctional lingua ranca anyone possessing these traits was immediately associ-

ated with the might and privileges o the caliphate In the Middle Belt these attri-

butes unctioned as a metaphor or the Sokoto Caliphate and its emirate systemor as Alvin Magid calls it the Fulani system o political administration9830891048630

Jihad Social Change Relational Flux in the Middle Belt

As ambitious agents seeking to extend the sway o the caliphate to the non-Mus-

lim areas o Northern Nigeria attacked the sovereignty o states in the Middle

Belt the category o Hausa came to simultaneously assume the status o a eared

and awe-inspiring political presence Te various peoples o the Middle Belt de-

vised numerous strategies to either keep Hausa-Fulani caliphate slave raiders andstate-builders at bay or selectively bend to their sway in the interest o peace For

instance the Chamber-speaking peoples o the Upper Benue lowlands and high-

lands alternated between several strategies to both accommodate and contain

Fulani influence Tese inhabitants o the Middle Benue hills and plains man-

aged to coexist albeit uneasily with pockets o militant Fulani settlers and proto-

states through the careul deployment o strategies ranging rom hal-hearted

submission to quiet sel-assertion to outright resistance9830891048631

Te iv people kept Hausa-Fulani caliphate agents in check by careully

monitoring their activities on the rontiers o ivland attacking their isolatedoutposts and trade caravans strategically interacting with them and building

a eared warring inrastructure ounded on the inamous iv poisoned arrow9830891048632

Te Doma a branch o the Agatu Idoma adopted an ambivalent survival strat-




egy against the raids o Hausa-Fulani caliphate agents rom Keffi9830891048633 Tey like the

Chamba willully succumbed to some measure o Hausa-Fulani influence as a

gesture o political sel-preservation

What occurred in the precolonial period in terms o the Middle Beltrsquos en-

gagement with caliphal expansion was thus a series o complex stalemates fluid

accommodations and tense requently violated treaties o coexistence that John

Nengel calls the amana system9830901048624 Tese stalemates and negotiated tribute ar-

rangements were desirable not only to the Middle Belt polities but also to raiding

emirates as both groups sought to minimize the possibility o costly long-term

conflict Wars were difficult and expensive to execute because armies were di-

ficult to recruit and maintain repeated raids resulted in diminished booty and

endless war detracted rom other matters o statecraf983090983089

As such the emiratesespecially those on the caliphatersquos rontiers had a vested interest in some orm o

negotiated coexistence that ensured the supply o slaves and economic goods to

them as tribute Nonetheless outright military rebellion on the part o tribute-

paying semiautonomous communities ofen attracted fierce military retribution

Tese precolonial tensions and the steady i checkered expansion o the slave

raid rontier created resentment and ear-inspired accommodations among Mid-

dle Belt peoples Matthew Kukah sums it up this way ldquoAround the Middle Belt

the [Hausa-Fulani] Jihadists seemed more preoccupied with slavery economic

and political expansionism than the spread o the [Islam] As a result all ormso alliances came into being but economic considerations were paramountrdquo983090983090

Although as Kukah argues the winning o converts to Islam in the Middle Belt

gradually receded in importance the spread o Islamic and Hausa-Fulani cultur-

al influence did not Although this was truer or the rontier non-Muslim com-

munities o the Southern Kaduna Bauchi and Adamawa corridors than it was

or the Benue Valley the ate o Doma in the southernmost part o the Middle

Belt indicates that jihadist aggression and caliphate influence spread to all o the

Middle Belt in various degrees Doma an Agatu Idoma state one o the south-ernmost polities in Northern Nigeria would become at different intermittent

junctures a semiautonomous satellite vassal o Zazzau in the mid-nineteenth

century through a combination o military deeats and strategic sel-preservation

through the acceptance o caliphate influence and quasi-control Caliphate slave

raiding and the spread o caliphate culture was assured in the Middle Belt be-

cause o the influence and military might o the southern Fulani sub-emirates

and because o the presence o numerous other enclaves o garrisoned Hausa-

Fulani settlements in the Middle Belt9830901048627

Caliphal and British Origins o the Hausa Imaginary

Although much o the early British ethnological taxonomy was inspired by simi-

lar British classifications in India two important actors reinorced the British




preoccupation with the hierarchy o sociological and anthropological categories

in Northern Nigeria983090983092 Te first actor was caliphate imperial writings that repre-

sented the caliphate as a benign hegemony and the Middle Belt as its subordinate

Other Te second was the elaboration o these ideas by British travelers and

subsequently by colonial ethnographers a process that was not teleological but

is nonetheless discernible

Te first major effort to delineate the Sokoto Caliphate as an exclusive reli-

gious and political community and to define its Other was the Infakul Maisuri o Mohammed Bello Tis important piece o caliphate writing is best known or

its exposition o what one might call the caliphate mind Te document explored

the theological and political vision o the caliphate the case or and the course o

the jihad and the epistolary efforts to place the caliphate above Bornu in the hier-archy o state Islamic piety Much less known is the act that Mohammed Bellorsquos

Infakul Maisuri was the first treatise to articulate a Sokoto imperial hegemony

over some areas o the Middle Belt

In the section o the text dealing with states kingdoms and peoples Mo-

hammed Bello brings within caliphate administrative jurisdiction several areas

o the Middle Belt that lay outside caliphate control Tis was a discursive an-

nexation that oreshadowed the caliphatersquos expansion into rontier Middle Belt

areas For instance Bello defines the emirate o Zazzau as encompassing ldquomany

places inhabited by barbariansrdquo9830901048629 Te use o the term ldquobarbariansrdquo here con-stitutes an imperial euphemism or the non-Muslim peoples o the Middle Belt

located on Zazzaursquos rontier He projects Zazzaursquos sway all the way to the entire

Gbagyi country the Bassa plains in the Lower Benue and as ar south as Attagara

(Idah) in Igala country9830901048630 Te oral traditions o the Bassa and the Igala do not

attest to these claims nor do any written non-caliphate sources9830901048631 Mohammed

Bello imagined his imperial sway to include the Niger-Benue confluence zone o

the Middle Belt telling British explorer Hugh Clapperton ldquoI will give the King

o England a place on the coast to build a town God has given me all the lando the Infidelsrdquo9830901048632

Tis imperial vision may not have been an accidental occurrence Tere ap-

pears to be a contradictory assertion o the caliphatersquos benign hegemony over the

Middle Belt and an affirmation o the Middle Beltrsquos alterity in the Infakul Mai-suri Te travel journal o Hugh Clapperton the first British traveler to visit the

caliph in Sokoto corroborates Mohammed Bellorsquos imperial vision9830901048633 It also shows

that Bellorsquos claims later repeated to Clapperton by other caliphate interlocutors

might not have been an idle imperial antasy but part o a strategic cartographic

discursive exercise by Clappertonrsquos aristocratic caliphate inormants Clapperton journeyed through the Sokoto Caliphate in the 10486259830961048626983088s reaching Sokoto in 10486259830961048626983093

and beriending Sultan Bello who had succeeded to the throne at the death o

Othman bin Fodio in 10486259830961048625983095 It was Clapperton who brought excerpts rom the




Infakul Maisuri back to England in 1048625983096104862698309310486271048624 Mohammed Bello was Clappertonrsquos

biggest source in his discussion o the non-caliphate world o the Middle Belt1048627983089

More importantly most o Clappertonrsquos maps o the caliphate and its Niger-

Benue rontier the first to be published in Britain were either drawn or him

by Mohammed Bello or given to him rom Mohammed Bellorsquos collection by a

member o the sultanrsquos household Clapperton made the rest o the maps on the

instructions o Mohammed Bello himsel1048627983090

Te maps and their accompanying narratives reveal a strategic but ahistori-

cal inclusion o the entire Niger-Benue zone in the sphere o influence and juris-

diction o the Sokoto Caliphate and a simultaneous ldquootheringrdquo o the communi-

ties in that zone Te Niger River or instance is presented as the ldquolargest river

in all o the territories o the Houssa [Hausa]rdquo10486271048627

At the time o this declarationseveral non-Hausa polities inhabited the banks o the Niger and most o them

had not yet encountered the caliphate Beyond its reinorcement o the caliphatersquos

sel-constructed Hausa image this narrative and the cartographic imagination

that it may have sought to establish amounted to a textual annexation o vast

non-Muslim territories in the Niger-Benue region to the Sokoto Caliphate realm

How much o this cartographic annexation comes rom Clapperton and how

much rom Mohammed Bello and his other caliphate inormants is not clear but

they were both invested in the text and its cooperative production illustrates the

intersection o caliphate and early British texts in advancing the myth o priorcaliphate imperial rule in the Middle Beltmdashin ormulating the narrative o ca-

liphate precolonial omnipotence and civilizational intervention and Middle Belt

helplessness and ineriority

Te trajectory o knowledge transer rom the caliphate to the British in the

early-nineteenth century seems airly clear thus ar as the caliphatersquos representa-

tion o both its values and those o the peoples in and around its rontiers became

part o a growing corpus o British knowledge regarding Northern Nigeria It

is unlikely that the British view o the Middle Belt as a land o barbarians wasshaped solely by Bellorsquos characterization o non-Muslim peoples since the British

had their own elaborate distinctions between the centralized Islamic caliphate

and its non-Muslim politically ragmented Others What is clear is that there

was a coincidental and instrumental convergence o Mohammed Bellorsquos and

British travelersrsquo characterizations o the caliphateMiddle Belt dichotomy Te

two narratives reinorced each other and sustained British and caliphal imperial

imaginings o the Middle Belt and its peoples

Much o Clappertonrsquos materials made it to London afer his death in 10486259830961048626983095

delivered by Richard and John Lander the next British travelers to travel to So-koto to meet the caliph Clapperton had lef instructions beore his death that

Richard Lander who was his servant take possession o all his materials and

deliver them to the Colonial Office which sponsored the Sokoto expedition Te




Lander brothers would later depend on Clappertonrsquos connections to the caliph-

ate leadership or sustenance logistical help inormation and investigative and

cartographic guidance1048627983092

By constructing the first known British map o the Sokoto Caliphate based

on inormation provided to him by Mohammed Bello Clapperton initiated the

tradition o equating the Sokoto Caliphate and its rontiers with what he called

ldquoHoussa [Hausa] erritoryrdquo10486271048629 Tis cartographic and descriptive convention

seems to have impacted subsequent British travel writing on the caliphate as trav-

elers relied on the pioneering work o Clapperton and the Lander brothers Te

British were subtly investing the Middle Belt with a Hausa-emirate imaginary

connecting the Middle Belt to the caliphate as its culturally inerior subordinate

Tis comparative conflation carried immense political import Te reification oa growing notion o precolonial Hausa-Caliphate hegemony was important or

the subsequent prevalence o Hausa as a viable sociolinguistic category o colo-

nial rule in Northern Nigeria

Future British travelers relied on earlier depictions and accounts o the So-

koto Caliphatersquos symbolic and physical relationships with the Middle Belt to re-

inorce impressions o Hausa-caliphate primacy An accumulated body o Brit-

ish-produced knowledge emerged rom a succession o European explorers who

traversed the Benue Valley the Jos Plateau the hills o Southern Kaduna and

the Adamawa hinterland Te pronouncements o these explorer-travelers rein-orced initial British insights into the sociological makeup o Northern Nigeria

Te travelers either submitted their findings to the Colonial Office or published

them in Britain sometimes doing both

Te most well known o these explorers was Dr William Baikie whose ob-

servations about the people o the Middle Belt ofen bordered on racist contempt

In 10486259830969830931048628 he described the iv ethnic group who along with the Idoma Bassa

Jukun Igala and other groups occupied the lower Benue Valley as an ldquounortu-

nate tribe [whose] being against everyone and everyone against it has renderedit extremely suspicious o any visitors their crude minds being unable to compre-

hend anything beyond war and raping Te Mitshis as ar as we could judge

are wilder and less intelligent than any o the Arican races with whom we had

intercourse except Baibai and Djukunsrdquo10486271048630 Baikiersquos words represent the articula-

tion however crudely o a certain negative perception o the peoples o the Benue

Valley and Niger-Benue confluence region in general with a particular ocus on

the iv Te evolutionary insinuations in Baikiersquos description o the iv the Mid-

dle Beltrsquos largest ethnic group and the largest non-Hausa ethnic group in North-

ern Nigeria are symptomatic o a larger perception in which people outside theHausa zone were labeled as definitive ldquoOthersrdquo Baikiersquos representational universe

and his allusions must be understood as part o a subtle process o inscribing

the Sokoto Caliphatersquos geographical and sociological space as the administrative




core o Northern Nigeria Tis characterization could emerge convincingly only

through the simultaneous and contrapuntal characterization o its assumed pe-

ripherymdashthe Middle Belt

Baikiersquos use o the derogatory Hausa epithet mitshis to describe the iv as a

people conveys his immersion in the Hausa world o the caliphate and his ond-

ness or the caliphatersquos narratives on the peoples o the Middle Belt It is possible

that in the mid-nineteenth century when most ethnic groups were named by

their more powerul neighbors or by regional hegemons Baikie was using mit-

shis a corruption o the Hausa epithet munci as a purely descriptive term It is

thereore possible that his use o the term is not implicated in the demeaning

associations inherent in the Hausa term ldquomuncirdquo or ldquomunchirdquo Baikiersquos affirma-

tive amplification o the meanings associated with the HausaFulani name orthe iv however reads like a conscious effort to flesh out and give evidentiary

credence to what was essentially a nomenclature connoting aggression cattle-

snatching and xenophobia10486271048631 Baikiersquos detailed description o the iv as a ldquowildrdquo

uncivilized and unintelligent people definitively rules out the possibility that he

was a neutral repeater o an existing clicheacute Te uncanny congruence between his

descriptions and the anecdotal associations surrounding the Hausa word ldquomun-

chirdquo is too careully constructed to be a mere rhetorical coincidence

Te preoccupation of Dr Baikiersquos narrative with comparison and devia-

tion should inform any critical understanding of his and other British explor-ersrsquo thinking Tis cultural narrative served to erect a hierarchy of evolutionary

maturity (or lack thereof) and operated on two levels it utilized both absence and

presence First by casting the iv as the wildest and least intelligent of the peoples

of Northern Nigeria Baikiersquos observations indict the entire non-caliphate sector

of the region for a supposed racial and cultural inferiority for the iv were the

most populous of the Middle Belt peoples a demographic representative sample

if you will Te fact that he singles out the iv perhaps indicates his desire to find

a representative community for his idea of the non-caliphate as his itinerary tookhim through Middle Belt communities on the Benue River His specific reference

to the iv does little to diminish the larger indictment handed to the Middle Belt

Second Dr Baikiersquos absent referent in this elaborate collage of cultural backward-

ness is clearly the Sokoto Caliphate described by most nineteenth-century British

explorers as the exemplary cultural and political metropole of Northern Nigeria

In its multiple connotations the caliphate represented the unspoken para-

digmatic cultural ormation in the evolutionary hierarchy that was slowly emerg-

ing through British pronouncements and writings about the Northern Nigerian

area Tese ideas presented civilization as ar as its possibility in Northern Nige-ria was concerned as being synonymous with Hausa acculturation Te Sokoto

Caliphate occupied the upper perch o an emerging sociopolitical evolutionary

ladder with the iv and other non-Muslim groups in the Middle at the bottom



Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction Understanding ldquoNative Alienrdquo

Subcolonialism and Its Legacies 983089

983089 Te Hausa-Caliphate Imaginary and Ideological

Foundations of Proxy Colonialism 983090983090

983090 Zazzau and Southern Kaduna in

Precolonial and Colonial imes 983092983093

983091 Emirate Maneuvers and ldquoPaganrdquo Resistance in

the Plateau-Nasarawa Basin 983095983095

983092 Hausa Colonial Agency in the Benue Valley 983089983088983094

983093 Fulani Expansion and Subcolonial Rule in

Early Colonial Adamawa Province 983089983090983097

983094 Non-Muslim Revolt against Fulani Rule in Adamawa 983089983093983095

983095 Middle Belt Self-Determination and Caliphate

Political Resurgence in the ransition to National Independence 983089983095983097

Conclusion Subcolonialism Ethnicity and Memory 983090983088983095

Chronology 983090983090983091

Glossary 983090983090983093

Notes 983090983090983095

Bibliography 983090983093983091

Index 983090983094983091



Te Hausa-Caliphate





























983089

983090983090













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Te Hausa-Caliphate





























983089

983090983090













mentation
























































































































































































































































































































































































mentation












































































































































































































































































































































































Colonialism by Proxy (excerpt)

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Transcript of Colonialism by Proxy (excerpt)