Kaabu
Kaabu Empire Kaabu | |||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1537–1867 | |||||||||||||
Capital | Kansala | ||||||||||||
Common languages | Mandinka | ||||||||||||
Religion | Traditional African Religion | ||||||||||||
Government | Monarchy | ||||||||||||
Kaabu Mansaba | |||||||||||||
• 13th century | Sama Koli (first) | ||||||||||||
• 1867 | Janke Waali (last) | ||||||||||||
History | |||||||||||||
• Kaabu Tinkuru Founded | 1230s | ||||||||||||
• Independence from the Mali Empire | 1537 | ||||||||||||
1867 | |||||||||||||
Currency | iron bars, cloth | ||||||||||||
|
Kaabu (1537–1867), also written Gabu, Ngabou, and N'Gabu, was a federation of Mandinka kingdoms in the Senegambia region centered within modern northeastern Guinea-Bissau, large parts of today's Gambia, and extending into Koussanar, Koumpentoum, and the Casamance in Senegal.
It rose to prominence as an imperial military province of the
Etymology
Scholars and oral historians have proposed various etymologies for the name Kaabu. These include it being derived from Kaba or
History
Kambutchi
The region that would become Kaabu, stretching from the banks of the
Bainuk legends describe a cruel king named Gana Sira Bana or Masopti Biaye, whose tyranny caused a general rebellion, and the kingdom split apart.[6] These decentralized societies were ultimately unable to resist Mande expansion.[7]
Tinkuru
According to Senegambian oral histories, the Mandinka arrived in the region around the year 1230CE. One of the generals of Sundiata Keita, Tiramakhan Traore, conquered the area, founding many new towns and making Kaabu one of Mali's western tinkuru, or provinces. He, or perhaps his sons by his Bainuk wife, defeated Kikikor, the king of the Bainuks and captured Mampatim.[8][9] His son or grandson Sama Coli became the first mansa of Kaabu.[10]
The savannah areas were mostly conquered and ruled by Mandinka vassals to the Mali Empire. Meanwhile the swampy areas near the coast were still dominated by the natives.[11] As in many places that saw Mandinka migrations, much of the native population was dominated or assimilated, with slaves either eventually being integrated into Mandinka society or sold via the trans-Sahara trade routes to Arab buyers. Although the rulers of Kaabu were Mandinka, many of their subjects were from ethnic groups who had resided in the region before the Mandinka invasion. Mandinka became a lingua franca used for trade.
Mansa Sala Sane founded the city of Kansala to replace the old capital of Mampatim. It was more centrally located, and the location of the sacred wood where the new mansaba was crowned.[12]
Independence
After the middle of the 14th century, Mali saw a steep decline due to raids by the Mossi to their south, the growth of the new Songhai Empire in the north, and succession disputes. Even its historically secure possessions in what is now Senegal, the Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau were cut off by the expanding power of Koli Tenguella in the early 16th century.[13]
As Mali's authority collapsed, the Mandinka states of the region formed a federation.
Kaabu's many wars of expansion produced up to half of the African people sold into slavery during the 17th and 18th centuries.[14]
According to Mandinka tradition, Kaabu remained unconquered for eight hundred and seven years. There were 47 Mansas in successions.[citation needed]
Decline
The power of Kaabu began to wane during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In 1776, militant Islamic
Up until the 1860s Kaabu had successfully repulsed on numerous occasions various Fula armies at the fort of Berekolong.In 1865, however, the Kaabu capital at Kansala came under siege from an army led by Alfa Molo Balde . At the climax of the eleven-day Battle of Kansala, Mansaba Janke Waali Sanneh (also called Mansaba Dianke Walli) ordered the city's gunpowder stores to be set afire. The resulting explosion killed the Mandinka defenders and many of the attackers. With Kansala obliterated, Mandinka hegemony in the region came to an end. The remains of the Kaabu Empire were under Fula control until the Portuguese suppression of the kingdom around the turn of the 20th century.[citation needed]
Some of Kaabu's constituent kingdoms, however, continued to thrive. Among these were Nyambai,
Government
Scholars disagree on whether Kaabu was a kingdom, an empire, a federation, or some mix of these. Although there was an emperor, known as the mansaba, power was decentralized and people generally were more responsive to local leaders than the distant, almost mythical, mansaba. The component kingdoms of the empire expanded, contracted, merged, split, appeared and disappeared over time.[16]
The Nyancho
The Mansa of Kaabu was selected from among the leaders of the provinces of Jimara, Sama, and Pachana.
The ruling class was composed of warrior-elites made rich by slaves captured in war. These ruling nobles were from two distinctive sets of clans Koring and Nyancho (or Nyantio). The Korings were from the Sanyang and Sonko clans, whilst the Nyanchos were Manneh and Sanneh. The Korings ruled the non-royal provinces, while only those descended from Nyancho bloodlines on both sides could be elected mansa.[18] They claimed patrilineal descent from Tiramakhan Traore, founder of Kaabu, and matrilineal descent from a powerful pre-Mandinka indigenous sorceress. Thus the Nyancho claimed legitimacy through conquest, traditional Mandinka patrilineal inheritance, and local matrilineal traditions.[19]: 2
The principal tax, collected in cloth or pagnes, was known as the kabunko.[20] Slaves worked large-scale cotton plantations to produce this form of currency. The nyancho warrior aristocracy used increasing tax revenue to fund more wars, thereby capturing more slaves, who produced more cloth, which financed still more wars.[2]: 321
Culture
Language
Kaabu was a multicultural state hosting several languages, namely:
. Mandinka, however, was the language of the ruling class and of trade.Music
Mandinka oral tradition holds that Kaabu was the actual birthplace of the Mande musical instrument, known as the
Religion
Kaabu was explicitly a non-Islamic state. The most important shrine was that of the snake Tamba Dibi, set in a sacred forest of tabo trees whose fruit could supposedly protect warriors from harm.[2]: 319
See also
- Mali Empire
- Battle of Kansala
- Imamate of Futa Jallon
- Portuguese Guinea
- History of Guinea-Bissau
- Guelowar
References
- ^ Mane 2021, pp. 240.
- ^ a b c d Green, Toby (2020). A Fistful of Shells. UK: Penguin Books.
- ^ Mane 2021, pp. 263.
- ^ Mane 2021, pp. 264.
- ^ Mane 2021, pp. 252.
- ^ Mane 2021, pp. 267–9.
- ^ Niane 1989, pp. 37.
- ^ Niane 1989, pp. 22.
- ^ Mane 2021, pp. 277.
- ^ a b c Page, Willie F. (2005). Davis, R. Hunt (ed.). Encyclopedia of African History and Culture. Vol. II (Illustrated, revised ed.). Facts On File. p. 79.
- ^ a b c d e WESTERN AFRICA TO c1860 A.D. A PROVISIONAL HISTORICAL SCHEMA BASED ON CLIMATE PERIODS by George E. Brooks, Indiana University African Studies Program, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, August, 1985.[1]
- ^ a b Mane 2021, pp. 279.
- ^ Barry 1998, pp. 21.
- ^ a b c Page, Willie F. (2005). Davis, R. Hunt (ed.). Encyclopedia of African History and Culture. Vol. III (Illustrated, revised ed.). Facts On File. p. 92.
- ^ Glovsky 2020, pp. 75.
- ^ Glovsky 2020, pp. 68–70.
- ^ Glovsky 2020, pp. 70.
- ^ Barry 1998, pp. 22.
- ^ "Kaabu Oral History Project Proposal" (PDF). African Union Common Repository. 1980. Retrieved 24 November 2022.
- ^ Mane 2021, pp. 274.
- ^ "KNIGHTSYSTEM". 2.oberlin.edu. Retrieved 10 August 2019.
Bibliography
- Barry, Boubacar (1998). Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave Trade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 388 Pages. ISBN 0-521-59226-7.
- Clark, Andrew F. & Lucie Colvin Phillips (1994). Historical Dictionary of Senegal. Metuchen: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. pp. 370 Pages. ISBN 0-8108-2747-6.
- Glovsky, David (2020). Belonging beyond boundaries : constructing a transnational community in a West African borderland (PhD). Michigan State University. . Retrieved 28 July 2023.
- Lobban, Richard (1979). Historical dictionary of the Republics of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde. Metuchen: The Scarecrow Press. pp. 193 Pages. ISBN 0-8108-1240-1.
- Mane, Daouda (2021). "La Question des Origines et de l'Emergence de l'Etat de Kaabu". In Fall, Mamadou; Fall, Rokhaya; Mane, Mamadou (eds.). Bipolarisation du Senegal du XVIe - XVIIe siecle (in French). Dakar: HGS Editions. pp. 237–283.
- Ogot, Bethwell A. (1999). General History of Africa V: Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 512 Pages. ISBN 0-520-06700-2.
- Niane, Djibril Tamsir (1989). Histoire des Mandingues de l'Ouest: le royaume du Gabou. KARTHALA Editions. pp. 221 Pages. ISBN 9782865372362.
External links
- Batellings Crowns Sibi Karang Mansa
- Standard Newspaper, The Gambia
- Ethiopiques[permanent dead link]
- Spatio-Temporal Boundaries of African Civilization Reconsidered
- Encyclopedia of World History
- Guinea-Bissau Fact File Archived 2006-09-23 at the Wayback Machine
- Worldstatesmen.org
- ECCO
- African Epics Resource Page Archived 2008-03-23 at the Wayback Machine