Dar Sila

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The Sultanate of Dar Sila (Dār Sīla) was independent between the empire of Wadai and Dār Fur until it was finally incorporated into the colonial possession of French West Africa of Chad after 1916 , where a department of the same name existed from 1999-2002 . The geographic location was roughly between 11 ° 45˝ and 12 ° 15˝ north and 22 ° 15˝ and 22 ° 45˝ east. After the dominant tribe, the Dājū , the sultanate was occasionally referred to as Dār Dājū . The main town was Goz Beida ( Goz-Beïda ), about 180 km south of Abéché .

Residents and administration

The ruling family was made up of the sedentary Dājū, who made up about two thirds of the population. In the country lived, partly as nomads u. a., the mostly Arabic-speaking tribes of Sālamāt , Terjam, Ḥaymāt, Missiriyya, Banī Ḥalba. In addition, the Kara, Gula and Banda, of more southern origin , many of whom had been brought into the country as slaves. In the northern border region dominated Sayar , next to live there Masalit and Fur . The free ( masākīn ) were subject to (natural) taxation by the Sultan and were obliged to serve in arms.

The country was divided into four larger and several smaller districts, the latter often domains privately owned by members of the ruling family, which were administered by officials. Sultan Ishaq Abu risha divided areas in the four inner under a Kamkolak and four border provinces under a Maqdūm order. The real rulers resided in Goz-Beida. To provide for them, the surrounding villages were assigned tax-free. The sheikhs of the nomadic tribes in the border areas were assigned an official of the central government, often a house slave or relative of the sultan, who was also responsible for eviction in case of defense.

history

Note: The transliteration of place names and personal names follows that used in colonial times. Years in rulers' names refer to reigns.

Dār Sīla was the southernmost of a series of sultanates that lay between the realms of Wadai and Dār Fur.

Sons of the last sultan, Bakhit (presumably 1916)

Even before the arrival of the French colonial rulers in 1909, an oral historical tradition had developed that described the origin of the tribe. The Dājū were the first known civilization in the Marra massif. Then there was a kingdom (? 1417-1612) of the Dājū in the Hajar Kadjano region, until they were expelled from there by the Tunjur in the early 17th century . The center of the Dājū is said to have been Nyala . The correctness of this tradition is now recognized by historical research. However, the history of the tribe has only been documented since the reign of Sultan 'Anqarib (ruled approx. 1813–1851). At one time or another tribute ( dīwān ) was paid to the large neighboring states without becoming a vassal.

During the Turkish occupation of Dār Fur (1874-82 / 83), the smaller sultanates in the north submitted, but Dār Sīla was spared from Ottoman rule. They allied with Wadai. Under the leadership of the later Sultan Isḥāq Abu Rīsha, there were a few smaller skirmishes with advanced Turkish posts. Sultan Muḥammad Būlād used the disintegration of the Sultanate of Dār Fur to incorporate its districts Dār Fongoro (in the southeast) and then Dār Galfige and Dār Sinyār . At this time, refugees and slaves were also settled in the country, the latter especially in the area of Baḥr Azūm .

At first there were good relations with the state of the Mahdi , which deteriorated among his successors. Like the other smaller sultanates, Dār Sīla supported the rebellion of the charismatic Abū Jummayza , a faqih of Dār Fur. In November 1888, they first won a battle against the Mahdists, which, however, defeated the insurgents on February 22, 1889. The third "shadow sultan " of Dār Fur Abūl-Khayrāt Ibrāhim (1889-1891) received brief asylum in the country. However, he set up a rebel army made up of Arabic-speaking nomadic tribes. This was defeated by the Sultan in a single battle in 1891. A border war with Dār Māsālit was quickly ended upon intervention of the Wadai in 1895.

After the final defeat of the Mahdists in the catastrophic famine year of 1898, Dār Fur Alī Dīnār (1898-1916) ascended the throne in the still independent . Although he was an opponent of Dār Silas, he still accepted a daughter of the Sultan as his wife and left Dār Fongoro and Dār Sinyār to his new father-in-law. In the same year, after the death of Sultan Yūsuf, a four-year civil war began in Wadai.

Colonial demarcation (1922)

After 1905, relations with Alī Dīnār deteriorated rapidly, which is why Sultan Bakhīt Abū Rīsha began to hope for French support. After the French conquest of the Wadai was completed in 1909 , the Sultan also sent a letter to Fort Lamy in which he submitted. A military column advancing into Goz-Beida in November secured a protectorate treaty for the French. Furthermore, the Sultan undertook to pay 5000 riyals , which corresponds to 15,000 francs (or about 400–500 cows), in tax ( al-kharāj ). However, the Sultan was of the opinion that this would give him a similarly loosely dependent relationship with the French as he had previously with his powerful neighbors. The country was spared the fighting in the north for the next two years, but in 1912 the establishment of a garrison in their capital was accepted. This led to the sultan's loss of prestige and, due to the rapid introduction of hard cash, to upheavals in the economic system. The French soon demanded full recognition of their “civilizational” values, such as the abolition of the slave trade and the payment of all taxes in money, not, as before, partly in kind.

The French troops were withdrawn in August 1914 to fight the Germans in Cameroon . A last attempt to preserve independence failed in 1915/6. The sultan fled to Dār Fur. The sultan there had been driven out by the British at the same time, so that Bakhīt had to return to the frontiers of his empire, where he was captured by the French and permanently transferred to Ft. Lamy was exiled.

The boundary between British and French colonial possessions was drawn up by a commission in 1921-2, essentially following the watershed between the Nile and the Congo.

Ruler

The rulers of the dynasty, as far as it can be historically proven:

  • 'Anqarib (approx. 1813-1851)
  • Muḥammad Būlād (1851–1879)
  • Isḥāq Abu Rīsha (1879–1900)
  • Bakhīt Abū Rīsha (1900-1916)

National economy

In contrast to the sultanates further north, Dār Sila has sufficient annual precipitation with 600 to 800 mm and comparatively species-rich vegetation. Millet varieties and cotton are grown. Livestock farming is also common, but camels are rarely bred.

One of the most important trade goods were negro slaves. Some of them were kept in the country as house slaves, these were called Fertit and Kirdi . Purely traded goods, which had a lower social status, stayed only briefly in the sultanate before they were resold towards the coast. Fresh goods were mostly procured through armed attacks on the non-Muslim peoples in the marshes of the southern Wadai. The other important export item, ivory, was also obtained on such expeditions. All foreign trade was under the control of the sultan.

The free paid the Islamic zakah and fiṭra taxes on harvested grain and cattle. If the harvest failed, no taxes were due. A minimum amount was always tax-free. There were also special taxes on honey, ghee and cotton fabrics. In years of drought, grain from public stores was distributed to the needy. Only a small amount of money was paid for. The Sultan was entitled to property rights to runaway slaves. The taxes levied were shared between the Sultan, local officials and the Malik.

Deterred by the uncertain conditions in the west during the Mahdi uprising, significantly more caravans of pilgrims used the route via Goz-Beida from the late 1870s, which promoted the economic upturn. After the conquest and the Italian occupation of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica , which began in 1911 , the transport of slaves by caravans to Benghazi was stopped. In addition, there was the French policy of unhindered movement of goods along the roads, which abolished the road toll. As a result, increasingly from 1912 onwards, the Sultan was robbed of his most important sources of income, from which he had financed his private army. Rinderpest raged among the herds of the Banī Ḥalba at this time.

Within the next decade, the cash economy was introduced and the region was fully integrated into the capitalist colonial economic system. From 1917 all taxes, which were now based on the built-up land area, were to be paid in money, which inevitably led to the increased cultivation of cash crops and thus repeatedly caused famine in the region during times of drought or flooding. Many of the residents had to work as migrant workers. This happened on the one hand on the cotton plantations in the Nile Valley, but also in the French army. For the first time in 1932, in the third year of a catastrophic drought, the colonial rulers issued tax relief.

See also

literature

  • H. Carbou: La region du Tchad et du Ouadai . Paris 1912, vol. II
  • Mūsā al-Mūbārak al-Ḥasān: Tārīkh Dār Fur al-Sīyāsī, 1882–1898 . Khartoum 1970; 256S
  • J. Hilaire: L'occupation du Dār Sīla: rapport du colonel Hilaire sur les opérations du 13 au 17 may 1916 et la réoccupation de Goz Beida . In: Afrique française. Renseignements coloniaux XXVII (5-6), pp. 105-118
  • Lidwien Kapteijns: Mahdist Faith and Sudanic Tradition. The History of the Masalit Sultanate, 1870-1930 . Amsterdam 1982 (Uni Amsterdam, unpub. Diss.)
  • Lidwien Kapteijns: Dār Silā, the Sultanate in Precolonial Times, 1870-1916 (Le sultanat du Dār Silā à l'époque précoloniale, 1870-1916) . In: Cahiers d'Études Africaines , Vol. 23, Cahier 92 (1983), pp. 447-470
  • Lidwien Kapteijns, Jay Spaulding: Precolonial Trade between States in the Eastern Sudan, ca.1700 - ca.1900 . In: African Economic History , Vol. 11 (1982), pp. 29-62
  • Le Cheikh Mohammed Ebn-Omar el-Tounsy:
    • 1845: Voyage au Darfour, ex .: E. Perron (Paris: Duprat)
    • 1851: Voyage au Ouadây, ex .: E. Perron (Paris: Duprat)
Archives in
  • Archives nationales / section outre-mer (ANSOM), Paris
  • Service historique de l'armee de terre (SHAT), Paris
  • Central Records Office (CRO), Khartoum: Records left by the Mahdists
  • Sudan Archives , Durham University

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 1961 estimate
  2. ↑ 1961 estimate: 3000
  3. ↑ Kapteijns (1983), p. 448.
  4. ↑ Died of smallpox before the decisive battle. Lidwien Kapteijns: Mahdist Faith and the Legitimation of Popular Revolt in Western Sudan . In: Journal of the International African Institute , Vol. 55 (1985), No. 4, p. 393.
  5. ↑ J. Hilaire: L'occupation du Dār Sīla: rapport du colonel Hilaire sur les opérations du 13 au 17 may 1916 et la réoccupation de Goz Beida . In: Afrique française. Renseignements coloniaux XXVII (5-6): pp. 105-118
  6. ↑ J.-H. Grossard: Mission de delimitation de l'Afrique equatoriale française et du Soudan anglo-egyptia; Paris 1925, 347S
  7. ^ PK Boulnois: On the Western Frontier of the Sudan . In: The Geographical Journal , Vol. 63, No. 6 (Jun. 1924), pp. 465-477
  8. ↑ No statistics are available for other strains. It can be assumed that the CBPP, which has spread from Wadai since 1875, also attacked cattle. RT Wilson: The Incidence and Control of Livestock Diseases in Darfur, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, during the Period of the Condominium, 1916–1956 . In: International Journal of African Historical Studies , Vol. 12, No. 1 (1979), p. 65, 67
  9. ↑ Kapteijns (1962), pp. 262-264