Internal diasporas and the state in African history

The Wangara chronicle, one of West Africa's oldest surviving historical texts composed around 1650, contains an interesting account explaining the migration of a group of scholars from medieval Malī against the wishes of its ruler:

“When he and his community wanted to leave Malī, the Sultan of Malī implored them in the name of God to stay. But Shaikh Zagaiti said we must go because our intention is to perform the pilgrimage to the sacred House of God in the year 835 A.H [1431 CE]. He emigrated together with the descendants of the tribes that were connected with his great-grand-father.”

The chronicle describes the company of the Wangara pilgrims as 3,636 erudite scholars and mentions that Shaikh Zagaiti was accompanied by his wives; Sise and Kebe, his seven children, and three brothers. He took up residence in the Hausa city-state of Kano (in northern Nigeria), then ruled by Muhammad Rumfa (r. 1463–1499). King Rumfa interceded with the shaikh to abandon his pilgrimage vows and stay in Kano under royal patronage, which the latter agreed to do, thus becoming the progenitor of the Wangara diaspora of Kano.¹

According to the historian Lamin Sanneh, the scale of the mobilization, the scholarly nature of the migrating party, and the fact that they tarried in Kano indicate that the Mecca pilgrimage was a ruse. The ruler of Mali likely saw through this ruse, as the chronicle mentions that he arranged for a barrier at the river crossing to prevent the group from proceeding, even though he was ultimately unsuccessful.²

The historians Andreas Massing and Paul Lovejoy argue that this Wangara community was displaced from their homeland during a time of great insecurity due to Mossi incursions, and they moved to greater Songhay protection in what is today eastern Mali. (the Mossi attacked the cities of Timbuktu and Walata in 1343, 1430, 1477, and 1480, where many Wangara lived³). The Wangara thereafter adopted the Songhay language and intensified the commercial contacts between Songhay empire and the Hausa cities.⁴

Street scene in Kano, Nigeria, ca. 1900. Library of Congress

In my previous essays on African explorers of the Old World and their associated diasporas, I outlined how the international activities of pre-colonial African travelers were often facilitated by the expansion of African states’ diplomatic and commercial interests.

This was especially true for the envoys and scholars who traveled from; ancient and medieval Nubia; Aksum and Ethiopia; the empires of West Africa; and the kingdoms of Kongo and Ndongo, whose diasporas could be found anywhere between western Europe and China. Similarly, the merchant-sailors and princes of the Swahili cities and the Mutapa kingdom who traveled across the Indian Ocean world often acted as political and commercial agents of their countries.

Portrait of Antonius Emanuel, Kongo’s ambassador to Rome, ca. 1608. engraving at the British Museum.

While these intrepid African explorers were supported by their states, the history of the continent is replete with examples of African diasporic communities whose journeys and migration were independent of their states and were at times undertaken in opposition to royal interests or during times of social upheaval, as indicated by the abovementioned case of the Wangara from Mali.

The initial expansion of the Swahili diaspora across East-Central Africa for example, was driven as much by the displacement of pre-existing Swahili elites by incoming Omani-Arab rulers at Zanzibar, as it was by the opportunities for economic growth from the burgeoning ivory trade.

After their conquest in the early 19th century, the former rulers of the Swahili city-states of Pate (Nabahany), Mombasa (Mazrui), and Pemba (Tangana) moved to the Kenyan mainland with their allies and subjects. They established rural settlements in the hinterland, eg at Takaungu, populated by diasporic communities of Swahili merchants who were extensively engaged in short-distance trade in grain, gum-copal, and ivory, resulting in the acculturation of neighboring communities such as the Mijikenda and Pokomo.⁵

Ruined structure in the 19th-century town of Takaungu, Kenya. the town was established by exiled Mazrui elites and their Swahili allies from Mombasa.

Similarly, the expansion of the Hausa diaspora from their homeland in northern Nigeria during the 19th century was also partially driven by the ascendancy of the Fulbe-led Sokoto state which displaced most of the Hausa elites, including rulers and scholars, some of whom moved beyond the borders of the new state, where they formed diasporic communities. While the long-distance travel and migration of Hausa merchant-scholars across West Africa is fairly well documented, few accounts explain the motivations that drove these initial migrations, beyond the commercial factors.

One exceptional account of the Hausa migrations is provided by the Hausa scholar Imam Umaru in a 19th-century text titled ‘Kano Wars and Emigration’ which describes the journey of a group of Malams (scholars) who were protesting the harsh tax regime of the Kano Emirate —then a province of Sokoto. The Hausa malams, their families, and their followers moved southward to the Ningi hills (in Bauchi, Nigeria), where they established a kingdom and created a formidable cavalry force that repelled several incursions from Kano's armies for nearly half a century, creating a large diasporic community of Hausa Muslims within a predominantly non-Muslim society.⁶

‘The Emir of Kano on the march.’ ca. 1911, Kano, Nigeria. NYPL

The above accounts on the migration of Wangara, Swahili, and Hausa elites indicate that the growth of ‘internal diasporas’ across Africa wasn't solely driven by the political and commercial interests of their states, but also by opposition to state expansion especially when it occurred at the expense of pre-existing elites.

The complex processes in which Africa's internal diasporas were created are best exemplified by the expansion of the 'Rwandan' diaspora across east-Africa during the pre-colonial and early colonial periods.

Extending from the shores of Lake Victoria in Tanzania and Uganda to the eastern D.R.Congo, the Rwandan diaspora was one of the most widely dispersed communities in the region and left a deep cultural imprint across many societies. Their migration was driven by multiple factors including opportunities for economic advancement in pre-colonial Unyamwezi and colonial Buganda, as well as displacement of local elites by the expansion of the Rwanda kingdom.

While the traditional historiography of the region emphasizes sedentarism and autochthony, a more detailed analysis reveals that East Africans in the 19th century were often more mobile than standard histories suggest and that their movements were complex and multidirectional.

The history of the Rwandan diaspora in East Africa from 1800-1960 is the subject of my latest Patreon article, please subscribe to read more about it here:

1. Beyond Jihad: The Pacifist Tradition in West African Islam by Lamin Sanneh pg 103-106)

2. Beyond Jihad: The Pacifist Tradition in West African Islam by Lamin Sanneh pg 104)

3. Timbuktu and the Songhay empire by John Hunwick and ʻAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʻAbd Allāh Saʻdī pg 11-12, 38 n.4, 39, 97-99, 106-107, 146,

4. The Wangara, an Old Soninke Diaspora in West Africa? by by AW Massing pg 293-294)

5. The History of Islam in Africa by Nehemia Levtzion pg 277-280)

6. A Geography of Jihad: Sokoto Jihadism and the Islamic Frontier in West Africa by Stephanie Zehnle pg 343-346)