Hausaland

Origins and rise

Hausa tradition describes the division of roles between the states, where Kano and Rano were centres of the textile industry (and thus called sarakuman babba; "kings of indigo"), Katsina and Daura were trade centres (called sarakuman kasuwa; "kings of the market"), Zazzau supplied slave labour to the other states (called sarkin bayi; "king of the slaves"), and Gobir, as the northernmost city, was tasked with the defence of Hausaland from foreign invaders (called sarkin yaki; "king of war"). Throughout its history there was lots of immigration from the Sahel and Sudan into Hausaland, including herdsmen, fishermen, agriculturalists, merchants and traders, and mallam, as well as some aristocrats. Migrations from Bornu are thought to have been more long-standing, and Tuareg (who displaced the Gobirawa from Asben) and Fulani migrated to the region from the 14th and 15th centuries respectively. As nomadic pastoralists they sometimes made incursions into Hausaland looking for grazing land. Another group was the Wangara, who migrated in the 14th/15th centuries and were key to the spread of Islam through Hausaland. Though Islam likely spread to Hausaland from the north through Gobir or the east from Bornu, the first ruler to convert to Islam is thought to have been Yaji I of Kano (r. 1349–85) due to invitation from Wangara. The Wangara, like Songhai immigrants, gradually integrated and became Hausa.