Southern Kaduna
Southern Kaduna is an area of the Nok Culture region inhabited by various related ethnic groups who do not identify as Hausa, living south of Zaria, Kaduna State. It is located in the Middle Belt region of Nigeria. According to the Southern Kaduna People's Union, Southern Kaduna consists of 12 Local Government Areas out of 23 in Kaduna State.
In September 2020, the SOKAPU national publicity secretary, Luka Binniyat, in a statement he signed said the region makes up 51.2% of the entire state's population as shown in the 2006 census figures, occupying 26,000 sq. km. of the state's 46,000 sq. km. total land mass, with 57 registered ethnic nationalities of the state's 67 identified ones. Angerbrandt views it as being less of a geographical identity and more of an ethnic identity concept.
History
Antiquity
Nok Culture
The Nok culture thrived in the area now known as Southern Kaduna as early as 1500 BC and lasted up until circa AD 500. This was an Iron Age civilization known to be the first to produce life-form terracotta sculptures in West Africa or possible the entire Sub-Saharan Africa. This civilization came to be known when in the spring of 1944, Bernard Fagg, a British government anthropologist, documented the discovery of a Nok figurine in the Jama'a area of the Southern Zaria division and directed excavations across the central area of Nigeria to discover more and the construction of museums to house them across Nigeria.Breunig and Rupp presented a hypothesis stating that the Nok culture region was colonized by people with unknown origins migrating during that period. They added that since the crops used by them, especially millet were originally from the Sahel region, it is possible they migrated from the north. They said the earlier settlers may have preferred to settle in the mountains due to the radiocarbon dates being older around such areas, and at the start, they were farmers of the pearl millet.
Middle Ages
Post-Nok
By circa AD 300, the population of Nok began to depreciate for no known reason. Later specimens excavated from Chado, around Godogodo, submitted by J.F. Jemkur were indicated to have been made around the 6th century AD. Hence, the founders of the Nok civilization existed up until this time.It is thought that Niger-Congo-speaking groups like the Yoruba, Jukun, C'Lela, among others could be offsprings of the ancient Nok peoples. It is also thought the Yoruba Ife Empire and the Edo kingdom of Benin could have inherited their art of making bronze figurines from the Nok culture due to the similarities in style with the Nok terracotta even though these latter civilizations are about 1,000 years apart from Nok. Art historians also opine that Igala, Nupe, Yoruba and Igbo, medieval sculpture tradition seem to have descended from the Nok tradition of plastic art. It was also noted that the Mande, Akan, Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo who existed between latitudes 11 degrees and 16 degrees North were the most active developing societies of West Africa in the early Iron Age period.
Kwararafa Confederacy
According to J.B. Webster, the Kwararafa confederacy was said to have undergone four phases in its history. The first phase started at Santolo, on the Hadejia River's southern banks at about AD 1000. An account from Katsina recalled Kwararafa waging a war with Korau, its king, in 1260. Kwararafa's capital was later moved north of the confluence of the Gongola-Hawal rivers precisely at Tagara, about the year 1380. Kwararafa was said to have been forced to pay 200 slaves to Kano under King Yaji and Kanageji. Likewise, Queen Amina of Zazzau was said to have conquered all the towns as far as Nupe and Kworarafa and both kings paid tributes to her with Nupe giving 40 eunuchs and 10,000 kolas annually for 34 years. The Kano Chronicle, testified by its English translator, H.R. Palmer, to be 'roughly accurate' in comparison with the Bornu Chronicles translated by Dr. Barth, presented her as a ruler who reigned at the same period Dauda Bakon Damisa reigned in Kano as Sarki. Kwararafa's defeat by the Bornu Empire will render her inactive for many years, with her capital moved to Byepi, south of the Benue River.Intensified wars would make Kwararafa a refuge for those fleeing Islam in the north. With the ascension of King Kinjo in 1610, Kwararafa’s population and abundance increased. Her prosperity in the Trans-Saharan and Trans-Atlantic trades would help her become more vigorous. She traded in salt—found in abundance in the Benue Valley, slaves, and other rare commodities in exchange for horses and European goods. For these trades across the Atlantic, Calabar became known as the Port of Kwararafa where her goods including slaves were shipped. Between 1610 and 1790, she remained independent and waged wars with the Hausa city-states and the Kanuri state in the north. Zazzau fell to Kwararafa within this period. Between 1582 and 1703, Kano suffered repeated attacks from Kwararafa.
Kwararafa was most powerful around 1680. She launched attacks across Hausaland and when her armies got to the Borno Empire, the king was killed and the capital, Ngazargamu, was destroyed. The Jukun dynasty came to power about this time and became Kwararafa’s major ethnic group. Internal strife, attacks from invading groups, and possibly drought, weakened Kwararafa’s strength. Her last king, Adi Matswen, was said to have fled the capital, Uka, to create a new capital at Wase. By 1820, the new Jukun dynasty was established in Wukari. This became a more religious and less warlike state.
Abah and Okoye-Ugwu posited that Kwararafa was inhabited by several ethnic groups and due to the mass exit of people in its northern portions, a new capital was established at Apa where power struggles occurred between the Jukun, Idoma and Abakwariga. The capital was then moved to Kororofa, then to Puje, and then to Wukari. They further argued from the point of view of the ‘’Idoma-Alekwu oral epic’’, that the term Apa may not only refer to the Jukun but to the groups which trace their origins to Apa like the Idoma, Alago, Igbira, and Igala. They went further to cite the possibility of the Jukun being a later migrant into the confederacy from the Ogoja and Calabar axis. They replaced the Abakwariga in power to become a majority only later on. It was cited, too, that Idu, the perceived Idoma patriarch was said to be king of Apa at the period of Jukun entry, which forced Idoma’s later southwestern migration. The Jukun, however, have another story to their migration. According to C.K. Meek, however, the Jukun were said to have migrated from the east, possibly Yemen, alongside the Kanuri and Yoruba peoples. By 1250 AD, the Jukun Kwona had settled in the Gongola River basin according to H.R. Palmer.
The 16th century was said to be characterized by many migrations by the progenitors of the ethnic groups that occupy the central region of Nigeria today. Smaller groups also moved out of it. These factors were said to have contributed to the disintegration of the Kwararafa multiethnic confederacy towards the end of the 17th and early 18th centuries.
A version of many ethnic groups' place of origin in today's Southern Kaduna point to the Jos-Bauchi Plateau. A narrative of the migration of the Ham people stated that the Ham broke away from related groups on the plateau and began journeying westwards until they got to a place called Shike Ham around the Gurara River. The word Ham was translated as "break-away" in the Hyam language, which coincidentally has a similar meaning as the word Tyap which means "to cut-off" in the Tyap language. However, there also exist clans among these groups that claim to come from no where but where they presently are. Among the Atyap, while the Agbaat and Aminyam clans claim origins from waves of migration, the Aku and Ashokwa clans have lost memories of where they came from.
Caravan trade, Fulani Jihad, and slave-raids
Around the Jos Plateau in the northwestern flank of Kwararafa, Achi mentioned that the itinerary settlement of Zangon Katab was established circa AD 1650 for the itinerant Hausa and Borno traders by the Atyap people, and became important in the region. This settlement was said to have been consolidated by c. 1750. The earliest Muslim settlement in Zangon Katab was called Angwan Tudu build around a place known as the Mabatado which served as the meeting place of the Atyap elders and center of Atyap festivities, occupied by Mele and his countrymen from Borno who were into long-distance or caravan trade and Islamic teaching. The land was granted to the settlers by the Atyap with certain terms attached. Hausa settlers from Kauru soon came and settled at Dorgozo. They, too, were traders. The settlers had a market chief who collected tributes from the traders to compensate the Atyap landlords. Later in the late 19th century, a Fulani ward was created in the Zangon Katab market due to the raids of Ningi in the Atyap area. Baba argued that the alliance between the Fulani of Zangon Katab, the Muslim groups of Kauru, and Zazzau against the Atyap had only resulted to the Atyap's hostility against their settlers, and should not be mistaken for control of the Atyap by the former, as the British made it seem.After the attacks on those against the jihadist views in Kano, Zaria, and Yakoba, some Hausas migrated to Zangon Katab. Jihadist flags bearers also tagged along to fight and gain wealth. They waged wars of expansion on surrounding settlements. By 1820, the Amala, Arumaruma and others around Kauru, Lere and Kajuru on the western foot of the Jos Plateau became as vassals of Zaria. It was from their settlements that attacks were launched by the Zazzau Emirate against the Atyap and their neighbours. In the 1830s, Hausa traders in Zangon Katab began to ally more with Zazzau and demanded complete control of the trade routes from Atyap. Zazzau soon imposed a dhimmi status on the Atyap in the 1840s wherein the Atyap will pay Zazzau jizya tributes including 15 slaves, 20 raffia mats, tins of honey and raffia frond bundles per clan, to avoid attack from the jihadist state. The Atyap refused to oblige since they saw themselves as an independent entity. They began to attack the jekada who were messengers from Zazzau out to collect those items. While some may get killed, others, including Hausa traders and herders got captured and sold to the Irigwe middlemen on the Jos Plateau who sold them off as slaves. Mamman Sani of Zazzau on assumption of power began to wage wars on those who resist the emirate’s control. The Aniragu, Atumi, Kono, Anu, Avono, Agbiri, Avori, and Rishuwa-Kuzamani in the Kauru axis got attacked first for refusing to partner with Kauru, a vassal of Zazzau. At Dibyyi in 1847, Sani launched an offensive attack on the Bajju to clear the caravan trade routes. The Bajju then launched a defensive by making hostages of Hausa and Fulani people in their territory, and forced Jama’a and Zazzau pay tribute to them for some years.
European travellers in the 19th century like Heinrich Barth in his “Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa” appendix, narrated the story of his co-traveller, Eduard Vogel, who visited Yakoba from Kano and Katab in 1855. He had reached Kano earlier in 1851. According to Barth, the Katab route passes through the western flank of the Jos Plateau where most of the people of the region live. He noted that the people of Mbutu village paid no tributes either to the Fulani of Zaria or Yakoba, and constantly cut off communication .
From Yakoba, he travelled to Adamawa and Zaria—passing through the hilly eastern portions of the Plateau, and came up with a general conclusion about the entire southern region of Bauchi thus:
About the slave-raiding practices of the emirates against the people of the Plateau, he noted:
In an interview with an elderly woman in a Ham village, Gadzama narrated that the piercing of the lips of daughters back then by families was to remember family members that were taken by the raiders who come from the far north and south and to give the raiders the impression that their target belonged to someone else. Those with pierced upper lips had lesser market value in the slave market, and would not be purchased by major slavers who viewed them as already-used. Hence, parents used this as an advantage to protect their daughters from being captured. Years after the complete stoppage of Fulani slave-raiding activities by the British empire, upper lip-piercing will go on to become a fashionable practice for some time.
In 1862, Karl Moritz von Beurmann visited this region and could not proceed to Hammarua and Yola due to what was noted as 'rebellions in the southern part of the emirate'.
In his "Notes of a Journey from Bida in Nupe, to Kano in Haussa, Performed in 1862", Dr. W.B. Baikie described the region as "a country devastated by war". He noted that on 15 June 1862, amidst confusion, the king with about 3,000 horses, men, women, and beasts of burden on a wet ground, moved his camp to the Kaduna and at long last, made camp between 14° and 16° west near the river. He then described the town of Zangon Katab which he passed through on 18 June 1862, as He labelled the town as "Kuttub” in his map.
In 1866, Gerhard Rohlfs noted something similar while passing through Bauchi, claiming that there was a complete halt in the trade between Adamawa and Nupe. He then proceeded through the Katab western route. Rohlfs warned in his notes saying,
Due to continuous attacks from the west on Zazzau from the Mai-Sudan of Kontagora, Umaru Nagwamatse who raided the region south of Zazzau, especially areas like Kagarko, Kachia, Kajuru and Chikun while attempting to get to Zazzau, the Sarkin Zazzau, Abdullahi in 1871 picked a Bekulu Muslim convert, Tatumare, and titled him Kuyambana and his role was to forcefully collect tributes from his Bekulu people and the Anghan people. A second person, Yawa, was picked in the 1880s by the emir, Sambo of Zazzau, and titled, Sarkin Yamma to patrol against Ibrahim Nagwamatse of Kontagora from the western flanks of Zazzau. From Chikun, Fatika, Kachia, Kagarko and Kajuru, Yawa raided the Gbagyi, Koro, Adara, Atyap, Bekulu and the Anghan. Tatumare and Yawa became Zazzau’s first agents in the Zangon Katab area. At Kudaru and Kachia, Zazzau stationed fighters to respond to invasions from Ningi and Abuja, respectively.
It was noted by European travellers that the retreat to the mountains as refugees, their hostility towards the Muslim emirates, and the so-called archaic customs of the peoples of this region were a direct result of the slave-raiding policies of the Fulani-led emirates.