Sultanate of Bagirmi

Bagirmi was a kingdom in the savanna south-east of Lake Chad, governed from the town of Massenya, north of the Chari River in what is now Chad. Its rulers, who held the title mbang, traditionally dated the state to 1522, and their court later adopted Islam. Squeezed between larger neighbours, Bagirmi spent much of its history paying tribute to one of them, and it lost its independence to France in 1897, though the monarchy still exists in a ceremonial form.

According to Bagirmi tradition, the kingdom grew out of a cluster of chiefdoms around 1522. King lists disagree on the founder: some name Birni Besse, who reigned from 1522, while others name Abd al-Mahmud Begli, placed between 1493 and 1503. The early rulers built a palace and courthouse at Massenya, with the palace and mosque in stone and ordinary houses in clay. During the sixteenth century the mbangs secured their core lands and made a ring of small neighbouring states into tributaries. A Bornu chronicle of 1578 contains the first written mention of the state, as "Bakarmi".

Bagirmi was one of several small states that appeared on the southern edge of the Kanem–Bornu Empire at this time. Bornu's ruler Idris Alooma, who reigned from 1571, set out to subdue them and brought Bagirmi under his authority. Mbang Abdullah, who ruled from 1568 to 1608, converted the court to Islam, but most of his subjects kept their traditional religions. He also rebelled, and Alooma died during the resulting campaign in 1602 or 1603, reportedly killed by an assassin. Under Mbang Burkumanda, between 1635 and 1665, Bagirmi pushed its influence north to Lake Chad and raided into Bornu itself. The rise of the Wadai Sultanate to the east in the seventeenth century put limits on this growth. Muhammad al-Amin, who ruled from 1751 to 1785, finally won full independence from Bornu.

The state's prosperity rested heavily on enslaved people, who were seized in raids to the south and sent north into the trans-Saharan trade. In the eighteenth century Bagirmi was a major centre for the castration of boys to be sold as eunuchs; a German doctor who visited around 1870 reported that fewer than a third survived. Some reached Mecca, Medina and the Ottoman palace in Istanbul. Ivory, hides and cotton were also exported, while copper and cowrie shells, which served as money, came in. Subject peoples paid tribute in slaves, were governed by officials called ngars, and often sent young nobles to be educated at Massenya, which had about 15,000 inhabitants in 1850.

By about 1800 Bagirmi had lost most of its tributaries. Wadai invaded in 1805, sacked Massenya, killed the mbang and his family and took 20,000 people captive to be sold. A son of the dead king was placed on the throne as a Wadai vassal. Wadai attacked again in 1870, and internal quarrels sapped the kingdom further. In 1893 the Sudanese warlord Rabih az-Zubayr conquered Bagirmi and burned Massenya. Mbang Abd ar-Rahman Gaourang II turned to France, signing a protectorate treaty in 1897; French and Bagirmi forces killed Rabih in 1900, and the protectorate became a colony in 1902.

After Chad's independence in 1960, the government of François Tombalbaye abolished the traditional monarchies. They were restored in 1970, though the mbang's powers were reduced again later. In 2010 the Chadian interior ministry formally reinstated Mbang Hadji Woli Mahamat, who had held the title since 2003.

Our maps show Bagirmi in 1530, 1600, 1650, 1783 and 1800, next to Kanem–Bornu and, on the earlier three, Wadai. The 1783 and 1800 outlines sit further south than the earlier ones.