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Concubinage and the Status of Women Slaves in Early Colonial Northern Nigeria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Paul E. Lovejoy
Paul E. Lovejoy
Affiliation:
York University, Ontario
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Extract

Court records from 1905–6 offer a rare view of the status of women slaves in early colonial Northern Nigeria. It is shown that British officials found it easy to accommodate the aristocracy of the Sokoto Caliphate on the status of these women, despite British efforts to reform slavery. Those members of the aristocracy and merchant class who could afford to do so were able to acquire concubines through the courts, which allowed the transfer of women under the guise that they were being emancipated. British views of slave women attempted to blur the distinction between concubinage and marriage, thereby reaffirming patriarchal Islamic attitudes. The court records not only confirm this interpretation but also provide extensive information on the ethnic origins of slave women, the price of transfer, age at time of transfer, and other data. It is shown that the slave women of the 1905–6 sample came from over 100 different ethnic groups and the price of transfer, which ranged between 200,000 and 300,000 cowries, was roughly comparable to the price of females slaves in the years immediately preceding the conquest. Most of the slaves were in their teens or early twenties. The use of the courts to transfer women for purposes of concubinage continued until at least the early 1920s.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , July 1988 , pp. 245 - 266
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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References

1 This article arises from a joint research project into the impact of early colonial rule on slavery in which I am involved with J. S. Hogendorn. An earlier version was presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Association of African Studies, Edmonton, June 1987. I wish to thank Elspeth Cameron, Martin Klein, Thomas Lewin, Beverly Mack, Catherine Coles and Richard Roberts for their comments.Google Scholar

2 For a discussion of British policy toward slavery, see Hogendorn, J. S. and Lovejoy, Paul E., ‘The development and execution of Frederick Lugard's policies toward slavery in northern Nigeria’, paper presented at the annual meeting of the African Studies Association, Denver, November 1987,Google Scholar and Hogendorn, and Lovejoy, , ‘The reform of slavery in early colonial northern Nigeria’, in Miers, S. and Roberts, R. (eds), The End of Slavery in Africa (Madison, 1988).Google Scholar

3 Muhammadu Rabi'u, interviewed at Fanisau, Emirate, Kano, 13 July 1975Google Scholar by Yunusa, Yusufu; Gida, Garba Sarkin, interviewed at Gandun Nassarawa, Kano Emirate, 14 September 1975Google Scholar by Maccido, Ahmadu; Dawaki, Abdulwahbu, interviewed at Rano, Kano Emirate, 12 September 1975Google Scholar by Musa, Aliyu; and Bakoshi, interviewed at Hunkuyi, Zaria Emirate, 10 December 1975 by Ahmadu Maccido and Paul E. Lovejoy. All interviews, which are on deposit at the Northern History Research Scheme, Ahmadu Bello University, are on tape and have been transcribed. The interviews were conducted under the supervision of the author and/or J. S. Hogendorn.Google Scholar

4 Yakubu, Mahmood, ‘A century of warfare and slavery in Bauchi, C. 1805–1900: an analysis of a pre-colonial economy’ (B.A. dissertation, unpublished, University of Sokoto, 1985), 64;Google Scholar and Mack, Beverly B., ‘Service and status: slaves and concubines in Kano, Nigeria’, in Coles, Catherine and Mack, Beverly (eds), Hausa Women (Madison, forthcoming).Google Scholar

5 For a fuller discussion of concubines and their place in Caliphate society, see Lovejoy, Paul E., ‘Concubinage in the Sokoto Caliphate’, in Coles and Mack, Hausa Women.Google Scholar Also see Ferguson, Douglas Edwin, ‘Nineteenth-century Hausaland, being a description by Imam Imoru of the land, economy, and society of his people’ (Ph.D. thesis, unpublished, UCLA, 1973), 231–33;Google Scholar and Smith, M. G., ‘Introduction’, in Smith, Mary (ed.), Baba of Karo. A Woman of the Moslem Hausa (New York, 1954).Google Scholar It should be noted that Alan Christelow is wrong in stating that a concubine became free ‘once she had born her master children’; see ‘Slavery in Kano, 1913‐1914: evidence from the judicial records’, African Economic History, XIV (1985), 69.Google Scholar

6 For a general discussion of the place of concubines in Islamic society, see Schacht, Joseph, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford, 1964);Google ScholarSchacht, , ‘Umm-aI-Walad’, Encyclopedia of Islam (London, 1934), 1012–5;Google Scholar and Levy, Reuben, The Social Structure of Islam (London, 1957), 69, 771–81, 105.Google Scholar For a comparison with the status of concubines in other Muslim societies, see Strobel, Margaret, Muslim Women in Mombasa, 1890–1975 (New Haven, 1979);Google ScholarFisher, Allan G. B. and Fisher, Humphrey J., Slavery and Muslim Society in Africa. The Institution in Saharan and Sudanic Africa and the Trans-Saharan Slave Trade (London, 1970), 97–109;Google ScholarToledano, E. R., ‘Slave dealers, women, pregnancy and abortion’, Slavery and Abolition, II, i (1981), 53–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a further comparison with the status of women under slavery, see Robertson, Claire C. and Klein, Martin A. (eds), Women and Slavery in Africa (Madison, 1983).Google Scholar

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9 Hogendorn and Lovejoy, ‘Lugard's policies toward slavery’; and Hogendorn and Lovejoy, ‘Reform of slavery’.Google Scholar

10 Ibid.

11 Sa'idu, ‘Gandun Nassarawa’, 46–7, 131–2, 157;Google Scholar and Lugard, Frederick, Political Memoranda. Revision of Instructions to Political Officers on Subjects Chiefly Political and Administrative, 19131918 (London, Kirk-Greene, A. H. M. (ed.), 3rd edn, 1970), 228fn.Google Scholar

12 Webster, G. W., Report on Nassarawa Province, December 1904, SNP 7/5 346/1904. Unless otherwise noted, all archival references are to the Nigerian National Archive, Kaduna.Google Scholar

13 Marginal note to Webster's report of December 1904.Google Scholar

14 Sciortini, J. C., 10 March 1907, SNP 7/7 1648/1907.Google Scholar

15 Girouard, Percy to Crewe, Lord, 6 November 1908, CSO 1/27/8, Nigerian National Archives, Ibadan.Google Scholar

16 Sciortini, 10 March 1907.Google Scholar

17 Lovejoy, Paul E., ‘ugitive slaves: resistance to slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate’, in Okihiro, G. (ed.), In Resistance: Studies in African, Afro-American and Caribbean History (Amherst, Mass., 1986), 82–91; Hogendorn and Lovejoy, ‘Reform of slavery’.Google Scholar

18 Temple, C. L., Report on Bauchi Province, September 1902, SNP 15/1 Acc 42.Google Scholar

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20 See, for example, Harris, P. G., Kano City Assessment 1921–1922, SNP 7, where it is reported that the wealthy businessman, Mai Kano Agogo, owned a large lodging house in Fagge quarter which consisted of three quadrangles, each containing fifteen rooms. Some of the occupants were ‘women of the prostitute class’.Google Scholar For a study of Hausa ‘courtesanship’, see Barkow, Jerome, ‘The institution of courtesanship in the northern states of Nigeria’, Genève-Afrique, 10, 1 (1971), 116.Google Scholar Also see Cohen, Abner, Custom and Politics in Urban Africa: A Study of Hausa Migrants in Yoruba Towns (London, 1969).Google Scholar

21 Webster, Nassarawa Report, December 1904.Google Scholar

22 Register of Freed Slaves, Ilorin Province, 1906, SNP 15/1 Acc 121.Google Scholar

23 Register of Freed Slaves, Sokoto Province, 1905, SNP 15/1 Acc 90.Google Scholar

24 Larrymore, H. D., Province, Nupe, Report for Quarter ending 31 March 1907, SNP 7/8 2017/1907. Also see Stanley, Report on Sokoto Province, half year ending 30 June 1908, Sokprof 2/9 985/1908.Google Scholar

25 Register of Freed Slaves, Bauchi Province, May 1906, SNP 15/1 Acc 121.Google Scholar

26 Register of Freed Slaves, Kano Province, September 1906, SNP 15/1 Acc 121.Google Scholar

27 Temple, Bauchi Report, September 1902; Temple, Report on Bauchi Province, October 1902, SNP 15/1 Acc 43. Also see the case of Pattoo in Register of Freed Slaves, Kano Province, January 1905, SNP 15/1 Acc 90. In 1904, when Larrymore was Resident in Kabba Province, he instituted similar policies (Kabba Province Monthly Reports, March 1904, SNP 15/1 Acc 64): Freed Slave Women…[are] given to guardians in this place. One or two of them are a source of much trouble to the Resident at present. One [guardian, Mrs Williams] refused to do any work, has now commenced to refuse food, speaks no known language, and I am at a loss what to do with her. A police constable has apparently offered her marriage, by some means, and I am told that she is willing to marry the man. Will Your Excellency please sanction? [margin: ‘yes’] She will be on the Police books as laid down. I think the woman is most fortunate in having found a suitor. I have seen her. Another is a girl freed slave (guardian, Mrs Hesse) after having been treated apparently with every consideration, in fact, as Mr. Hesse assures me, ‘as one of the family’ this young woman now refuses to reside with the Hesse household she wants to marry Sergt Brown of the Police. I was assured however that she was too young to marry. I therefore offered to send her back to the [Freed Slaves'] home in Zungeru. She said, in Hausa, that if she were sent back she would cut her throat. She wants to live with the present Mrs Brown until old enough to marry Sergt Brown. Will Your Excellency sanction change of guardianship? [margin: ‘It is a very puzzling case. I see no way of dealing with it except as you suggest.’]Google Scholar

28 Lugard, Frederick, Instructions to Political and Other Officers, on Subjects Chiefly Political and Administrative (London, 1906), 144.Google Scholar

29 Lugard, Instructions, 144.Google Scholar

30 Lugard, Instructions, 146. Also see Lugard, Political Memoranda, 228.Google Scholar

31 Lugard, Political Memoranda, 233.Google Scholar

32 Lugard, Political Memoranda, 229, based on a report by Arnett.Google Scholar

33 Smith (ed.), Baba of Karo.Google Scholar

34 These registers are contained in two files, SNP 15/1 Acc 90, and SNP Acc 121.Google Scholar

35 Lovejoy, Paul E., ‘Slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate’, in Lovejoy, (ed.), The Ideology of Slavery in Africa (Beverly Hills, 1981), 233–5;Google ScholarLovejoy, , ‘Problems of slave control in the Sokoto Caliphate’, in Lovejoy, (ed.), Africans in Bondage. Studies in Slavery and the Slave Trade (Madison, 1986), 251–2;Google ScholarHogendorn and Lovejoy, ‘Reform of slavery’, 1988.Google Scholar

36 Lovejoy, ‘Problems of slave control’, 251.Google Scholar

37 Lugard, Frederick, Annual Reports, Northern Nigeria, 1905–1906, 411.Google Scholar

38 See Klein, Martin A., ‘Women in slavery in the Western Sudan’, in Robertson, Claire C. and Klein, (eds), Women and Slavery in Africa (Madison, 1983), 67–92.Google Scholar

39 Examples of court cases, taken from Register of Freed Slaves, Zaria Province, August 1906, SNP 15/1 Acc 90, include the following: Mahabauta, 10, Nruma [ethnic group], recently purchases, restored to relatives; Aliba, 30, Hausa, ‘Freed by Emir of his own free will, having fallen to him as his share of Gado [inheritance]’; Kamahu, 25, Kedara, ‘ransomed by Audu from Magaji for 220,000 [cowries] and married to him’.Google Scholar

40 Smith (ed.), Baba of Karo, 166.Google Scholar

41 For one of the clearest statements of this policy of enforced dependency, see H. R. P. Hillary, Sokoto Province Monthly Reports, January 1905, Sokprof 2/2 401/1905. Christelow, ‘Women and the Law’, also notes how important it was for males to speak on behalf of slave women who were seeking their freedom.Google Scholar

42 See, for example, the case of Yaganah, aged sixteen, Kanuri: ‘Enslaved by some unknown man at Kukawa in 1903; exchanged in Bauchi shortly afterwards. Claimed by her brother. Freed to return with her brother to Bornu’ (Register of Freed Slaves, Bauchi Province, August 1906, SNP 15/1 Acc 121). Also see the case of Pattoo, aged twenty-six from Bebeji in Kano Emirate: ‘Freeborn Hausa woman, enslaved at Ningi, fled on the occasion of the 1904 Expedition [against Ningi]. Left to follow her own inclinations. A grown up woman well able to look after herself. She has been informed as the Regulations remarriage with govt servants’ (Register of Freed Slaves, Kano Province, January 1905, SNP 15/1 Acc 90).Google Scholar

43 Lovejoy, ‘Slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate’, 23–6.Google Scholar

44 Yunusa, Yusufu, ‘Slavery in the 19th century Kano’ (B.A. dissertation, unpublished, Ahmadu Bello University, 1976), 32–3.Google Scholar

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48 Cowrie-sterling exchange rates varied, but in 1906 a shilling was worth 1,200 cowries (Annual Report, Northern Nigeria, 1906–07, 522).Google Scholar At this rate, £4 was worth 96,000 cowries but probably was meant to be the equivalent of 100,000 cowries. If this rate is correct, then sterling values were extremely low. Because of the problem of converting these values, the analysis here ignores these cases.

49 Summary of interviews with Alhaji Mahmadu K'ok'i of Kano by A. N. Skinner. Besides his career as a judge and scholar, Ahaji Mahmudu was also Bargery's principal collaborator in the compilation of the 1934 Hausa-English dictionary. I wish to thank Professor Skinner for a copy of these summaries. For a biography of Mahmadu K'ok'i, see Skinner, (ed), Aihaji Mahmudu K'ok'i (Zaria, 1977).Google Scholar

50 Register of Freed Slaves, SNP 15/1 Acc 90.Google Scholar

51 On the basis of ethnic identification, the upper limit of the percentage of female slaves who could have been Muslim, however defined, was 20 per cent.Google Scholar

52 Hogendorn, Jan S., ‘Slave acquisition and delivery in precolonial Hausaland’, in Dumett, R. and Schwartz, Ben K. (eds), West African Culture Dynamics: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives (The Hague, 1980), 477–93;Google Scholar and Mason, Michael, ‘Population density and “Slave raiding’ The case of the Middle Belt of Nigeria,’ Journal of African History, x, 4 (1969), 55 164.Google Scholar For the debate on the drain of population from the Middle Belt of Nigeria as a result of enslavement, see Gleave, M. B. and Prothero, R. M., ‘Population density and slave raiding: a comment’, Journal of African History, xii, 2 (1971), 319–24;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Mason's, reply, ‘Population density and slave-raiding: a reply’, Journal of African History, xii, 2 (1971), 324–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53 Meillassoux, Claude, Anthropologie de l'esclavage. Le ventre defer et d'argent (Paris, 1986), 68–9;Google Scholar and Lovejoy, Paul E., Transformations in Slavery. A History of Slavery in Africa (Cambridge, 1983), 88.Google Scholar

54 For additional information on Hausa women, see Barkow, Jermone H., ‘Hausa Women and Islam’, Canadian Journal of African Studies, vi, 2 (1972), 317–28;Google Scholar Mack, ‘Slaves and concubines and Kano’; Christelow, ‘Women and the law’; Cohen, Custom and Politics; Coles, Catherine, ‘Muslim women in town: social change among the Hausa of northern Nigeria’ (Ph.D. thesis, unpublished, University of Wisconsin, 1983);Google Scholar and Smith, Baba of Karo;Google Scholar and Abba, Isa A., ‘Kulle (Purdah) among the Muslims in the northern states of Nigeria: some classification’, Kano Studies, 11, 1 (1980), 42–50.Google Scholar

55 On bori, see Jeogwu, Michael Onwue, ‘The cult of the Bori spirits among the Hausa’, in Douglas, Mary and Kaberry, Phyllis M. (eds), Man in Africa (London, 1969), 279–305Google Scholar and Christelow, ‘Women and the law’.

56 Mahmudu K'ok'i, Summary of Interviews.Google Scholar

57 In 1906–7, at least 53 slave women were redeemed for purposes of ‘marriage’ in Kano Province; see F. Cargill, Kano Province Annual Report, 1907, SNP 7/9 1538/1908.Google Scholar

58 Christelow, ‘Women and the law’. Christelow suggests that the main reason males ransomed unrelated women was because they acquired rights of wilaya (guardianship) over the women and thereby could give them away in marriage, receiving in return the economic and social benefits which accrue to one who offers a bride. He does not consider the possibility that men obtained such women for purposes of concubinage. Any subsequent benefit acquired through marriage arrangements with other men must have been a secondary consideration, if it was a factor at all.Google Scholar

59 Ubah, Chinedu Nwafor, ‘Administration of Kano Emirate under the British, 1900–1930’ (Ph.D. thesis, unpublished, University of Ibadan, 1973), 371.Google Scholar

60 Mahmudu K'ok'i, Summary of Interviews.Google Scholar

61 Edwardes, Sokoto Province Half Year Report, 30 September 1921, Mss. Afr. s. 769, Rhodes House.Google Scholar

62 Edwardes, Sokoto Report, 1921.Google Scholar

63 Edwardes, Sokoto Report, 1921.Google Scholar

64 Mack, ‘Slaves and concubines’; Sa'idu, ‘Gandun Nassarawa’, 46–7, 131–2, 157.Google Scholar

65 By 1921, colonial officials had begun to expect that concubinage would be dealt with informally outside the courts. The alkali of Kano, Mohammadu Aminu, was removed from office in February as the result of ‘a slave ransom case, in which he permitted a girl born in and brought from Ngaundare in the Cameroons to be treated as a slave, for purposes of ransom, thus contravening the code’. He received a jail term of three years. The alkali of Gwarzo, Kano Emirate, was likewise removed ‘for permitting children born free, to be ransomed before him’. He received a similar sentence. See A. C. G. Hastings, Kano Province Report for 15 Months ending 31 March 1921, SNP 10/9 120p/1921.Google Scholar