Niger

History

• Prehistory

  Considerable evidence indicates that about 60,000 years ago, humans inhabited what has since become the desolate Sahara Desert of northern Niger. Later, on what was then huge fertile grasslands, from at least 7,000 BCE there was pastoralism, herding of sheep and goats, large settlements and pottery. Cattle were introduced to the Central Sahara (Ahaggar) from 4,000 to 3,500 BCE. Remarkable rock paintings, many found in the Aïr Mountains, dated 3,500 to 2,500 BCE, portray vegetation and animal presence rather different from modern expectations. Archeologists in Niger have much work to do, with little known of the prehistory of the societies that inhabited the south, the home of the vast majority of modern Nigeriens.

  One recent find suggests what is now the Sahara of northeast Niger was home to a succession of Holocene era societies. One Saharan site illustrated how sedentary hunter-fisher-gatherers lived at the edge of shallow lakes around 7700–6200 BCE, but disappeared during a period of extreme drought that may have lasted for a millennium over 6200–5200 BCE. Several former northern villages and archaeological sites date from the Green Sahara period of 7500-7000 to 3500-3000 BCE. When the climate returned to savanna grasslands—wetter than today’s climate—and lakes reappeared in what is the modern Ténére desert, a population practicing hunting, fishing, and cattle husbandry. This last population survived until almost historical times, from 5200–2500 BCE, when the current arid period began.

  The deserts and the mountains of the north, though, have garnered attention for the ancient abandoned cities and pre-historic rock carvings found in the Aïr Mountains and the Ténéré deser. The Aïr is known for its rock art, dating from 6000 BC to around AD 1000. During the Neolithic Subpluvial, the region was a pastoral area, as is illustrated by images of cattle and large mammals. During the 3rd millennium BC, however, a process of desertification began and the Tuareg from further north migrated into the region. Later art indicated war, depicting horses and chariots. In particular, a five-meter-high carving of a giraffe at Dabous discovered in 1999 is internationally famous. Cave art in the region is predominantly stone carving, initially with a sharp rock, and from around 1200 BC perhaps with metal.

  As the Sahara dried after 2000 BCE, the north of Niger became the desert it is today, with settlements and trade routes clinging to the Air in the north, the Kaouar and shore of Lake Chad in the west, and (apart for a scattering of oases) most people living along what is now the southern border with Nigeria and the southwest of the country.

• The Hausa Kingdoms

  The first Hausa states began to develop in the Sahel around 500–700 AD. Gradually, seven principle city-states emerged—Biram, Daura, Gobir, Katsina, Kano, Rano, and Zaria—and they developed close trading relationships and economic cooperation. We know very little about these states or their cultures. Hausa legend claims that a man named Bayajidda, an Arab prince who traveled to the Sahel from Baghdad, was the forefather of the Hausa. He killed a monstrous snake that oppressed the people of Daura, and he married the queen. The queen had six sons already, and she produced another son with Bayajidda, and each of these sons ruled one of the seven Hausa city-states, becoming the first kings. The combined kingdoms of Hausaland were sometimes called the Daura since Daura is the place where Bayajidda supposedly founded the Hausa people.

  Islam was to become an important part of Hausa culture. The religion seems to have first appeared in the region around the eleventh century, brought by merchants and pilgrims, but the conversion was slow. Kings and rulers were attracted to the new religion, perhaps for the prestige, it granted them in the eyes of other great Islamic states. The common people only gradually adopted Islam, and generally practiced it along with ancient Hausa religious customs. Still, Arabic script was eventually adopted for writing the Hausa language. It was probably around this time that Islam became firmly integrated into Hausa society.

  Besides the Hausa, another ethnic group lived in their lands: the Fulani. The Fulani were generally treated as second-class citizens and grew to resent Hausa rule. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, a charismatic Islamic leader of Fulani background named Usman Dan Fodio, who lived in the state of Gobir, began a religious movement in the region. Supported in the holy war by masses of unhappy Fulani and poor Hausa, Dan Fodio’s “Fulani Jihad” first overwhelmed Gobir, and then the rest of the Hausa city-states. This was the beginning of the Sokoto Caliphate, called such because Dan Fodio made his capital at the city of Sokoto.

  The Hausa aristocracy was replaced by a Fulani aristocracy, but these new rulers quickly adopted much of Hausa culture. In some places, such as Kano, they began speaking the Hausa language instead of their native Fula language. The Hausa and Fulani mixed freely, and today the ethnic group is generally termed the “Hausa-Fulani.” Under the Sokoto Caliphate, the region was truly converted to Islam on a massive scale. The empire, ruled by theocratic caliphs at Sokoto, expanded throughout the nineteenth century. The rule of the Sokoto Caliphate lasted for about a century until the British colonizers took over the region in the early twentieth century. The Hausa are to this day a major ethnic group, chiefly in Nigeria and Niger.

• Early Settlers of Gao

  Among the first people to settle around Niger bank and in the region of Gao were the Sorko people, who established small settlements on the banks of the Niger River. The Sorko fashioned boats and canoes from the wood of the cailcedrat tree and fished and hunted from their boats and provided water-borne transport for goods and people. Another group of people that moved into the area to exploit the Niger’s resources were the Gow people. The Gow were hunters and specialized in hunting river animals such as crocodile and hippopotamus.

  The other group of people known to have inhabited the area were the Do people. They were farmers who raised crops in the fertile lands bordering the river. Sometime before the 10th century, these early settlers were subjugated by more powerful, horse-riding Songhai speakers, who established control over the area. All these groups of people gradually began to speak the same language and they and their country eventually became known as the Songhai.

  The earliest dynasty of kings is obscure and most of the information about this dynasty comes from an ancient cemetery near a village called Saney, close to Gao. Inscriptions on a few of the tombstones in the cemetery indicate that this dynasty ruled in the late 11th and early 12th centuries and that the rulers from this dynasty bore the title of Malik. Other tombstones mention a second dynasty, whose rulers bore the title Zuwa. There is only myth and legend to describe Zuwa origins. The Tarikh al-Sudan (the History of Sudan), written in Arabic around 1655, provides an early history of the Songhai as handed down through oral tradition. TheChroniclee reports that the legendary founder of the Za or the Zuwa dynasty was called Za Alayaman, who originally came from Yemen and settled in the town of Kukiya. What happened to the Zuwa rulers is not recorded.

  The camel-riding Sanhaja tribes were among the early people of the Niger bend region. They were locally known as the Tuareg. These tribes rode out of the great Sahara Desert and established trading settlements near the Niger. As time passed, North African traders crossed the Sahara and joined the Tuaregs in their Niger bend settlements. They all conducted business with the people living near the river. As trade in the region increased, the Songhai chiefs took control of the profitable commerce around what was to later become Gao. Between 750 and 950, as the Ghana Empire prospered as the “land of gold” far to the west, the trading center at Gao became an increasingly important terminus for trade across the Sahara.

• The Gao Empire

  The archaeological evidence suggests that there were two settlements on the eastern bank of the Niger Gao Ancien situated within the modern town, to the east of the Tomb of Askia, and the archaeological site of Gao-Saney (Sané in French) situated around 4 km to the east. The bed of the Wadi Gangaber passes to the south of the Gao-Saney occupation mound (tell) but to the north of Gao Ancien. The imported pottery and glass recovered from Gao-Saney suggest that the site was occupied between the 8th and 12th centuries. It is possible that Gao-Saney corresponds to Sarnāh of al-Muhallabi. Al-Bakri writing in 1068 also records the existence of two towns, but al-Idrisi writing in around 1154 does not. Both al-Muhallabi (see quote above) and al-Bakri situate Gao on the west (or right bank) of the Niger. A large sand dune, La Dune Rose, lies on the west bank opposite Gao, but at Koima, on the edge of the dune at a site 4 km north of Gao, surface deposits indicate a pre-9th-century settlement.

  Al-Sadi in his Tarikh al-Sudan gives a slightly later date for the introduction of Islam. He lists 32 rulers of the Zuwa dynasty and states that in 1009-1010 A.D. the 15th ruler, Zuwa Kusoy, was the first to convert to Islam. He does not actually specify where they lived except for the legendary founder of the dynasty, Zuwa Alayman who he claims came from Yemen to Kukiya.

  The discovery of the tombstones of Gao-Saney in 1939 has provided the historians of the Gao Empire with new evidence. The three great Muslim rulers belonging to the Zaghe dynasty who died successively in 1100, 1110 and 1120 can be identified with the kings of the Zuwa dynasty. The Islamization of the dynasty took therefore not place at the beginning but at the end of the eleventh century in the time of the Almoravids. The role of the Almoravids in this process has been hotly debated. Earlier the kings of Gao-Saney were considered to be offshoots of the Almoravids (John Hunwick, 1980), but it has recently been argued that they were converted rulers of a great African dynasty, possibly originating from ancient Ghana.

  Sometime in the 14th century, Ali Kulun, the first ruler of the Sunni dynasty, rebelled against Mali hegemony and was defeated. It was not until the first half of the 15th century that Sunni Sulayman Dama was able to throw off the Mali yoke. His successor, Sunni Ali Ber (1464–1492), greatly expanded the territory under Songhay control and established the Songhay Empire.

• The Songhai Empire

  During the second half of the 13th century, Gao and the surrounding region had grown into an important trading center and attracted the interest of the expanding Mali Empire. Mali conquered Gao towards the end of the 13th century. Gao would remain under Malian hegemony until the late 14th century. As the Mali Empire started to disintegrate, the Songhai reasserted control of Gao. Songhai rulers subsequently took advantage of the weakened Mali Empire to expand Songhai rule.

  Under the rule of Sonni Ali, the Songhai surpassed the Malian Empire in area, wealth, and power, absorbing vast areas of the Mali Empire and reached its greatest extent. His son and successor, Sonni Bāru (1492–1493), was a less successful ruler of the empire, and as such was overthrown by Muhammad Ture (1493–1528; called Askia), one of his father’s generals, who instituted political and economic reforms throughout the empire.

  A series of plots and coups by Askia’s successors forced the empire into a period of decline and instability. Askia’s relatives attempted to govern the empire, but political chaos and several civil wars within the empire ensured the empire’s continued decline, particularly during the brutal rule of Askia Ishaq I (1539–1549). The empire experienced a period of stability and a string of military successes during the reign of Askia Daoud (1549–1582). Ahmad al-Mansur, the Moroccan sultan at the time, demanded tax revenues from the empire’s salt mines.

  Askia Daoud responded by sending a large quantity of gold as a gift in an attempt to appease the sultan. Askia Ishaq II (1588–1591) ascended to power in a long dynastic struggle following the death of Askia Daoud. He would be the last ruler of the empire. In 1590, al-Mansur took advantage of the recent civil strife in the empire and sent an army under the command of Judar Pasha to conquer the Songhai and to gain control of the Trans-Saharan trade routes. After the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Tondibi (1591), the Songhai Empire collapsed. The Dendi Kingdom succeeded the empire as the continuation of Songhai culture and society.

• The Dendi kingdom

  Under the Songhai empire, Dendi had been the eastern-most province, governed by the prestigious Dendi-fari (“governor of the eastern front”). Askia Ishaq II fled to here after he was defeated by the invading Saadi dynasty of Morocco at the Battle of Tondibi and at another battle seven months later. In Dendi, he was deposed by his brother Muhammad Gao, who was in turn murdered on the order of the Moroccan pasha. The Moroccans then appointed Sulayman as puppet king ruling the Niger between Djenné and Gao. South of Tillaberi, the Songhai resistance against Morocco continued under Askia Nuh, a son of Askia Dawud. He established his capital at the yet unlocalized town of Lulami.

  After the Moroccans had Askia Sulayman appointed as their puppet the pasha, Mahmud ibn Zarqun attempted to conquer Dendi. Askia Nuh resisted the invasion by a costly guerilla warfare lasting two years. In 1594 Mahmud was forced to discontinue the war and retreated, just to be killed in the same year by Dogon, with whom Nuh was probably allied. The new pasha called Mansur continued the war against Dendi and again Nuh resorted to guerrilla warfare. This situation lasted until 1599 when Nuh’s followers became tired of the war and deposed him in favor of his brother Harun. In 1609, the Malian city of Djenné revolted against the Saadi pashas (governors) with Dendi support. The Saadi were eventually able to regain the city, but with a lack of support from their homeland, they soon abandoned the area, leaving it to Tuareg and Fulbe nomads.

  In 1612, Askiya al-Amin came to power in Dendi. His short reign of six years was followed by the rule of Askiya Dawud. Dawud killed many people during his reign including relatives and members of the military. His brother, Isma’il, fled to Timbuktu and sought Saadi support to overthrow al-Amin. Isma’il returned into Dendi and deposed his brother in 1639. Upon attempting to send the foreign army back, he was deposed and replaced by a ruler that the pashas felt would be easier to deal with. This ruler was eventually removed by the Songhai people.

• Colonial France

  While French booty took control of some of the areas of modern Niger began in the 1890s, a formal Zinder Military Territory was formed on 23 July 1900. This military territory only governed what is modern southern Niger, with only nominal rule east of Zinder or north of Tanout. Its Commandant was based at the village of Sorbo-Haoussa near Niamey, where the headquarters was moved in 1903. Administratively, it was part of the Senegambia and Niger Colony from 1900 to 1904 and Upper Senegal and Niger colony from 1904 to 1911. While commanded by officers of the French Troupes de marine, its budget and administration were dependent on the Lieutenant Governor at Kayes (latter Bamako), and military decision making—as well as contact with authorities in the Metropole or other colonies was through the Governor General in Dakar.

  The area also appears on French maps as the “Third Military Territory”. On 22 June 1910, the territory was renamed Niger Military Territory and included parts of modern northeast Mali (Gao Cercle) and Northern Chad (Tibesti Cercle). On 21 June 1911 the Cercle of Gao ceded to French Sudan, and throughout the late nineteen-teens, efforts were made to establish permanent French posts in the north and east, in Bilma, N’guigmi and elsewhere. In 1911, the headquarters of the territory was moved to Zinder, reflecting both the relative peacefulness of the west of the territory and the fear of incursion from the British to the South and the Italians from Libya. Despite this, French control of the northern and eastern areas remained minimal. Along with Mauritania, Niger remained the only part of French West Africa to remain under military rule.

  On 13 October 1922, the civilian Colony of Niger took control of most of the southern and western areas, with a lieutenant governor reporting to the Governor General of French West Africa. The 1919 creation of French Upper Volta as a civil colony removed the areas of modern Niger west of the Niger River. In 1926, the capital was moved again to Niamey from Zinder. In 1930, Tibesti Cercle ceded to Chad Colony in French Equatorial Africa, and in 1932, the colony of French Upper Volta was divided amongst its neighbors, with the Circles of Dori and Fada N’gourma ceded to Niger Colony.

  The end of the colonial era was characterized by a transformation of the political environment in French West Africa and Niger. The Nigerien Progressive Party, the Nigerien section of the African Democratic Rally Party, founded in May 1946, United various tendencies of Nigerien people in the movement for national independence. In alliance with progressive French elements and other independence African movements, the movements acquired the suppression of forced labor and arbitrary requisitions as well as legal equality between the African and the French citizens.

• Independent Niger

  Following the Overseas Reform Act (Loi Cadre) of 23 July 1956 and the establishment of the Fifth French Republic on 4 December 1958, Niger became an autonomous state within the French Community. On 18 December 1958, the Republic of Niger was officially created with Hamani Diori as the head of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Niger. On 11 July 1960, Niger decided to leave the French Community and acquired full independence on 3 August 1960 with Diori as its first president.

  Col. Seyni Kountché and a small military group under the name of Supreme Military Council deposed Diori in April 1974, following a military coup, the first of many in the post-colonial history of Niger. President Kountché ruled the country until his death in 1987. The first action of the Kountché military government was to address the food crisis which was one of the catalysts of the military coup. The 1989 referendum led to the adoption a new constitution and the creation of the Second Republic of Niger. General Saibou became the first president of the Second Republic after winning the presidential election on 10 December 1989. His presidency started during the Second Republic largely following his efforts at the end of the previous military regime with attempts at normalizing the political situation in the country with the release of political prisoners, liberalization of laws and policies.

  The National Sovereign Conference of 1991 marked a turning point in the post-independence era of Niger and brought about multi-party democracy. From 29 July to 3 November, a national conference gathered all fringes of society to examine the political, economic and social situation of the country and make recommendations for the future direction of the country. The conference was presided over by Prof. André Salifou and developed a plan for a transitional government. This transitional government was installed in November 1991 to manage the affairs of state until the institutions of the Third Republic were put into place in April 1993.

  In a February 2010 coup d’état, a military junta led by captain Salou Djibo was established in response to Tandja’s attempted extension of his political term by modifying the constitution. The Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy led by General Salou Djibo carried out a one-year transition plan, drafted a new constitution and held elections in 2011 that were judged internationally as free and fair. Following the adoption of the newest constitution of 2010 and the presidential elections, Mahamadou Issoufou was elected as the first president of the Seventh Republic.

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