The Arma people are an ethnic group of the middle
Niger River valley, descended from
Moroccan invaders of the 16th century . The name, applied by other groups, derives from the word ''ar-rumah'' ( ar, الرماة) "fusiliers".
[ N. Levtzion, "North-West Africa: from the Maghrib to the fringes of the forest" in]
The Cambridge history of Africa, Volume 4 : c.1600-c.1790
Ed. Cambridge University Press (1975), pp.154-155
The Arma ethnicity is distinct from (but sometimes confused with) the 3.6 million
Zarma people of western Niger, who predate the Moroccan invasion and speak the
Zarma language, also a member of the
Songhay languages.
As of 1986, there were some 20,000 self-identified Arma in
Mali, mostly around
Timbuktu, the middle Niger bend and the
Inner Niger Delta.
The Songhai expedition and aftermath
The
1590 expedition sent to conquer the
Songhai Empire
The Songhai Empire (also transliterated as Songhay) was a state that dominated the western Sahel/Sudan in the 15th and 16th century. At its peak, it was one of the largest states in African history. The state is known by its historiographical ...
trade routes by the
Saadi dynasty of Morocco was made up of four thousand
Moroccan,
Morisco refugees
A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution. and European renegades . They were armed with European-style
arquebuses. After the destruction of the Songhai Empire in 1591, the Moroccans settled into
Djenné
Djenné ( Bambara: ߘߖߋߣߣߋ tr. Djenne; also known as Djénné, Jenné and Jenne) is a Songhai people town and an urban commune in the Inland Niger Delta region of central Mali. The town is the administrative centre of the Djenné Cercle, on ...
,
Gao,
Timbuktu and the larger towns of the Niger River bend . Never able to exert control outside their large fortifications, within a decade the expedition's leaders were abandoned by Morocco . In cities like Timbuktu, the men of the 1591 expedition intermarried with the Songhai, became small scale independent rulers, and some of their descendants came to be identified as minor dynasties of their own right . By the end of the 17th century,
Bambara,
Tuareg,
Fula and other forces came to control empires and city-states in the region, leaving the Arma as a mere ethnicity.
See also
*
Judar Pasha: Commander of the Moroccan military Expedition of the 1590s.
*
Battle of Tondibi: Culmination of the Moroccan Expedition, destroying the Songhai Empire in 1591.
*
Pashalik of Timbuktu: Territory governed by the Arma on behalf of Morocco.
Notes
References
*Samuel Decalo. Historical Dictionary of Niger. Scarecrow Press, London and New Jersey (1979).
*James Stuart Olson. The Peoples of Africa: An Ethnohistorical Dictionary. "Arma", p. 37. Greenwood Press (1996)
*Michel Aitbol. Tombouctou et les Arma de la conquête marocaine du Soudan nigérien en 1591 à l'hégémonie de l'empire peul du Macina en 1833. Paris, (1979).
*Albrecht Hofheinz
Goths in the Lands of the Blacks. New Arabic manuscript finds from Timbuktu and their significance for the historiography of the Niger Bend. (2001)
*.
External links
Al-Andalus, Andalucía y España en Tombuctú y la frontera subsahariana (s. XVI-XXI). Universidad de Jaén (Spain), 19–20 February 2004.
Ethnic groups in Mali
Ethnic groups in Niger
Muslim communities in Africa
Moroccan diaspora in Africa
Spanish diaspora in Africa
{{Africa-ethno-group-stub