4.4.1. STORMS IN PREPARATION

 

COMPARING EXPLORERS' OBSERVATIONS OF BORNOU AND LOGONE (IN NORTHERN NIGERIA) OF 1825 AND 1826 SHOW GROWTH AND FAILURE TO CONTAIN IT

 -- Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa in 1821, 1822, 1823
by Captain Hugh Clapperton, 1826

-- Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa by Heinrich Barth,1855

In Bornu a revolution has overthrown the oldest authorities but remains archaic, and in Logone there is no political change at all. 

*     *

Background: Central Saharan trade routes lead to the kingdom of Kanem, which is much like that of Songhay. 

 Zoom

Saharan trade routes toward 1400

Zoom

The king is white: the map's creator invents, because he knows even less about the central route than that to the west, where the king holding the gold nugget is Black.  

Bornu is at the epicenter of Boko Haram now.

Trade routes through the central Sahara lead to Bornu, a kingdom that resembles those of western savannah in medieval times. 

 *    *

Bornu toward 1825:

(The shortened name used for Kanem-Bornu )

• The economy is comparable to that of 15th-century France. This horseman resembles a knight:

Zoom

Clapperton's narrative

• A theocratic ruler becomes head of the 1000-year-old kingdom. He is stronger than the former obese kings, but constraints still hem him in:

Shehu al-Hajj Muhammad al-Kânemi, Clapperton / zoom

White robes represent saintliness and being the representative of God strengthens authority...

Zoom

But the giant turban hampers movement and the barrier isolates.  

*     *

  

Logone, a state south of Bornu so farther from Saharan trade, changes more slowly, and in 1825 has kept traditional restraints on growth:

• To keep the mission from seeking supplies from local producers the king offers the mission far more supplies than it can consume.

• Clapperton sees an iron for the first time and gives it a rare illustration:

Zoom 

 

• Commerce expands and power grows. Weaving and dyeing appear at about the time that commercial people overthrow the king of Kong and open the routes to the south (toward 1800). Chieftaincies unite and the king becomes nominally Muslim, a sign of strength since it brings the claim that power comes from God. 

*     *

In Bornu a generation later...

• Barth finds that a revolution has defeated the oldest nobility, the descendants of the men with the huge turbans.

• Cowry use follows that revolution. 

While in Logone...

•  Commercial production expands:

Cotton is grown, "weaving and dyeing are here carried on to a considerable extent, new land is being cleared, a market is "fairly active," and "field-hand villages" grow up during the rainy season. (Bolding mine)

• Cotton bands have replaced the iron money : they are a divisible currency, though less so than as cowries (one band = eight cowries).   

• The government stays the same: The ruler receives Barth behind a curtain and provides him with enough supplies for a hundred people.

The economy is developing 
 but authority is unchanged:
For now.

*     *     *

Next,
4.4.2.
 An explorer is taken for the messiah