Hausaland lay on a crossroads. Caravans from North Africa crossed the Sahara through Agadez and Bilma carrying salt, copper goods, books and cloth, and returned with leather, indigo-dyed fabric, kola nuts from the south and, in earlier centuries, gold and enslaved people. The Hausa cities were not only stopping places: they produced goods to sell, and their merchants travelled.
Historians such as Paul Lovejoy have emphasized the part played by the Wangara, Mande-speaking merchants and scholars from the west whose long-distance networks linked the Niger bend to Hausaland from the 15th and 16th centuries. Tradition also credits them with bringing Islam to Kano (see the chapter on Islam).
It is important to be honest about the darker side. The commerce of the central Sudan included the sale of captives, and some Hausa states, notably Zazzau, were known for raiding. Later, the Sokoto Caliphate also relied on enslaved labour on large estates. This history is part of the record and is treated fully in later chapters.
Sources for this article
- Lovejoy 1978, whole article
- Last 1967, introduction
- Unsigned overview (n.d.), section “Trans-Saharan Trade and Indigenous Industries” (outline)