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Niger - Early History

Considerable evidence indicates that about 600,000 years ago, humans inhabited what has since become the desolate Sahara of northern Niger. Long before the arrival of French influence and control in the area, Niger was an important economic crossroads and the empires of Songhai, Mali, Gao, Kanem, and Bornu, as well as a number of Hausa states, claimed control over portions of the area. During recent centuries, the nomadic Tuareg formed large confederations, pushed southward, and, siding with various Hausa states, clashed with the Fulani Empire of Sokoto, which had gained control of much of the Hausa territory in the late 18th century.

Early human settlement in Niger is evidenced by numerous archaeological remains. In prehistoric times, the climate of the Sahara (Tenere desert in Niger) was wet and provided favorable conditions for agriculture and livestock herding in a fertile grassland environment five thousand years ago. In the beginning of Africa’s time, Niger flourished with grasslands and wildlife. Eventually the Sahara Desert spread south and pushed most life southward. It is believed that progressive desertification around 5000 BC pushed sedentary populations to the south and south-east (Lake Chad).

The Eghazzer basin in Niger has provided wide ranging evidence attesting to the mastery of copper and iron metallurgy. Grebenart partitioned these traditions into an Early Copper I, dating from 2200 to 1500 BC, Copper II, from c. 850 to 100 BC, overlapping with an Early Iron I period. The copper exploited in the Eghazzer basin, found generally along fault lines, was sedimentary in origin. The exploitation of the Eghazzer basin copper ore did not result in the formation of long lasting mine shafts or pits which could be mapped in the landscape. Instead, the shallow (25–30 cm deep) depres- sions were rapidly eroded and leveled or filled up with redeposited sediments. The recorded archaeological evidence includes habitation sites, metal-smelting workshops and cemeteries.

By at least the 5th century BC, Niger became an area of trans-Saharan trade, led by the Berber tribes from the north, using camels as an adapted mean of transportation through the desert. This trade has made Agadez a pivotal place of the trans-Saharan trade. This mobility, which would continue in waves for several centuries, was accompanied with further migration to the south and interbreeding between southern black and northern white populations. It was also aided by the introduction of Islam to the region at the end of the 7th century.

Historically, what is now Niger has been on the fringes of several large states. In AD 1000, the Tuareg people came to Niger. They controlled trade routes running from across the desert to the ocean.

Western Africa has been home to many civilizations over the centuries. One of the largest and most successful of these was the Songhai Empire. The Songhai Empire rose out of all this, and they controlled all across Niger, from the middle to the west. They controlled until 1591. This kingdom expanded out of the Sahara around the time of the Middle Ages. It became very rich through trading with African and European nations. Ruins still stand in the ancient town of Djado in Niger, once a station on a slave-trading route.

Known as the gateway to the desert, Agadez, on the southern edge of the Sahara desert, developed in the 15th and 16th centuries when the Sultanate of Aïr was established and Touareg tribes were sedentarized in the city, respecting the boundaries of old encampments, which gave rise to a street pattern still in place today. The historic centre of the city, an important crossroads of the caravan trade, was divided into 11 quarters with irregular shapes. They contain numerous earthen dwellings and a well-preserved group of palatial and religious buildings including a 27m high minaret made entirely of mud brick, the highest such structure in the world. The site is marked by ancestral cultural, commercial and handicraft traditions still practiced today and presents exceptional and sophisticated examples of earthen architecture.

Following the decline of Songhai, the Mali, Dendi, Gao, Kanem-Bornu, and Hausa empires claimed key areas of Niger until contact with Europeans began during the 19th century. Before the colonial conquest, the area occupied by present day Niger may broadly be subdivided into four more or less homogeneous zones based on the people, customs and lifestyles.

1. In the east from the banks of the Lake Chad to Zinder, capital of Damagaram, the area was mainly occupied by Mangas, a Kanouri sub-group. This area was under the influence of the Mai of Bornou. The people were converted to Islam and lived by agriculture, cattle rearing, fishing and trading.
2. The Hausa who engaged in hunting, agriculture, trading and cattle rearing predominantly populated the south. The accelerated Islamisation of the Hausa states was a result of the Jihad of Ousman Dan Fodio who subjugated all the Hausa states within the Caliphate whose capital was Sokoto in present-day Nigeria. However, two Hausa states were not subjugated. They were Katsina (capital Maradi) and Gobir (capital Tibiri), which maintained their old animist beliefs. Another area occupied by people of Hausa origin was Arewa, which was not affected by Islamic influences from either the east or west.
3. The Zarma-Songhay people who share the same social structure and language occupied the West. These people engaged in hunting, agriculture, cattle breeding and fishing. Islam was not dominant in spite of the conversion of the Songhay sovereigns.
4. The Hausa and Tuareg peopled the North. The Hausa living in the region of Tahoua were hunters and farmers. The Tuareg were nomads and caravan traders in part, and sedentary farmers for those who lived around the massif of Aïr. Throughout Niger’s early history, the Tuareg bred livestock and operated trade routes across the desert.

The different regions had unstable relations of alliances, opposition, war and peace. In any case, their history is marked by both periods of conflict and peace. Certain regions built cities whose influence extended far beyond the borders of present day Niger.

Soumaworo Kanta, the King of Sosso tried, and failed, to mobilize the Malinkes against the slave trade that was practised by the Soninkes and the Moors. Secondly, Sundiata Keita, after having defeated the same Soumaworo in Kirina in 1235, adopted the “Charter of Kurukanfuga”, which included a clause prohibiting slavery. Slavery was widespread in the Sahelian kingdoms and emirates of pre-colonial Niger and Nigerien nomads operated one of the trans-Saharan slave trade's major routes. During French colonialism and the first four decades of independence, only the open slave trade was properly addressed.

Dosso is the seat of the Dosso kingdom, a Zarma chieftaincy which rose to dominate the entire Zarma region in Niger in pre-colonial Niger. The traditional ruler was called Zarmakoy or Djermakoy of Dosso, an autochthonous title meaning literally "King of Djermas". The reign of the Zarrmakoye began in the 15th century, when Boukar son of Tagur Gana settled in the Zigui. It was in 1902, under the Zermakoye Aoûta, that Dosso was erected in the provinces like Maradi. Zinder was a very important commercial city in the 19th century. During that time, the magnificence of the Sultan’s Palace and its harem were coexisting side by side with the brutality and savagery of the slave traders.

On the eve of the colonial conquest, the Damagaram was a vassal of Bornou and in conflict with the neighbouring Hausa states. The Sultan of Aïr (capital Agadez) conquered a large part of the region of Tahoua. But he himself had sworn allegiance to the Caliphate of Sokoto. Gobir and Katsina remained politically and religiously opposed to the Caliphate of Sokoto. In the West, the warlords had consolidated the balance of power around certain major centres and organized their defence against the raids of the Tuareg in particular.

In "Desert-Side Economy of the Central Sahel", Lovejoy and Baier (1976) described pre-colonial Niger with connections between pastoralist and agriculturalist groups. These production systems meant that farmers and herders each had a stake in the well-being of the other group. The interconnectedness of these two modes of production was a common occurrence in pre-colonial West Africa.