Borgu

Borgu was a confederation of kingdoms in West Africa, in what is now northern Benin and north-western Nigeria. Its ruling class, the Wasangari, traced their power to a legendary founder named Kisra, and the main kingdoms were Bussa, Nikki and Illo. Borgu held its own against powerful neighbours for centuries before Britain and France divided it in 1898. Its people are known as the Bariba or Borgawa.

A tradition told throughout Borgu holds that the country's kingdoms were founded by Kisra, a hero said to have come from a town called Birnin Kisra in Arabia, though the legend also claims a link with Kanem-Bornu. Kisra's sons are said to have founded Bussa, Illo and Nikki. Before this, according to the tradition, Borgu had no central organisation, and villages were run by lineages. Historians are unsure how much of the story is true, but it probably remembers an invasion by mounted warriors in the fifteenth century. The legend gave their descendants, the Wasangari, a shared identity and justified their rule.

From the late fifteenth century the rising Nupe were a serious threat. When the Nupe overran the Oyo Empire, an exiled Oyo king took refuge in Borgu, and the two peoples formed an alliance against the Nupe. The Songhai Empire attacked in the 1490s under Sunni Ali, and again in 1505 under Askia Mohammed I, a hard campaign in which Songhai briefly held Bussa. Askia Daoud renewed the assault in 1558 and 1563, devastating the region. After Songhai collapsed in 1591, Oyo turned on its old ally and made much of Borgu a vassal. Borgu won full independence by defeating Oyo at Gberegburu in 1783, though it paid tribute until 1818. An attack by Dahomey in the mid-eighteenth century was driven off.

Borgu was not a single kingdom but a defensive alliance of Wasangari-ruled states. Bussa was regarded as the spiritual centre and as the "older brother" of the others, Nikki as the seat of political power, and Illo as the main market. Other members included Parakou, Kaiama, Kouande and Kandi. What held the confederation together was a common Kisra legend and the Gaani harvest festival, with its displays of horsemanship. Farming of yams and sorghum was the base of the economy, but from the sixteenth century Borgu lay on trade routes carrying kola nuts from Gonja and Asante to Hausaland. Long-distance trade was dominated by Muslim Wangara merchants. The Wasangari themselves long kept to their own religion and gave Muslims no political power; the first Wasangari prince to convert to Islam was the Emir of Bussa, in 1920.

By the 1820s Fulani jihadists had taken Ilorin, and Borgu, also suffering raids, joined Oyo in an effort to push them back. In 1837 the joint army met disaster; Siru Kpera, king of Nikki, was killed along with the Oyo king Oluewu and the rulers of Wawa and Kaiama. Borgu was never conquered by the Fulani, but the defeat weakened the unity of the Wasangari princes. Outlying chiefdoms grew stronger, caravans were raided, and foreign merchants took over trade routes.

By the late nineteenth century Britain and France both saw Borgu as strategically important for control of the Niger trade. In the "Race for Nikki" of 1894 both sought treaties with Nikki's ruler, while French forces occupied Illo and British troops of the West African Frontier Force were stationed at Yashikera. The Anglo-French Convention of 1898 drew the border through Borgu. The eastern part went to the Northern Nigeria Protectorate, the western part to French Dahomey. Its lands now lie in Benin and Nigeria.

Our maps label the territory "Borgu States" and draw it in 1878, 1880 and 1900. The 1900 map still draws a Borgu territory, although the 1898 convention had already divided it between Britain and France. Our 1815 map draws much of the area inside the Fulani Empire, the Sokoto Caliphate, although Borgu was never conquered by the Fulani; on our 1914 map the larger, western part lies within French West Africa.