Kingdom of Mandara
The Kingdom of Mandara (more rarely referred to as Wandala ) was a West African kingdom in what is now Cameroon in the area of the Mandara Mountains . Today's Mandara people descend from the people of the kingdom.
history
The kingdom, which still exists today as a traditional state, was founded shortly before 1500 by the female ruler Soukda and the non-Mandara-born hunter Gaya. The kingdom has already had visits from Fra Mauro (in 1459) and Leo Africanus (in 1526) who brought detailed information about the kingdom to Europe.
As early as the first century in the history of the kingdom, its rulers were waging war against neighboring states in order to expand their territory. After the Dulo (also called Duolo ) were conquered and the capital was established near Dulo in 1580 , the dynasty of the Sankre , a warrior family, began. When the Dulo tried to claim the throne for themselves, the Kanem-Bornu Empire supported the claim of Aldawa Nanda , a member of the House of Sankre. Emperor Idris Alaoma von Borno personally appointed Nanda as king in 1614. Bornu thereby achieved an influential position over Mandara.
Mai Bukar Aji , the 25th king, converted Mandara into a sultanate in 1715 , which would remain so for nearly 200 years. Muslim visitors forced King Bukar to convert to Islam , and the Islamization of the kingdom continued for much of the next century. The kingdom experienced a golden age under Bukar and his successor Bukar Guiana (1773-1828). In 1781 Mandara defeated the Bornu Empire in a decisive battle and allowed its control area in the region to expand further. At the height of its power at the turn of the century, a total of 15 tribal principalities were tributary to the Mandara Empire. However, the heyday of the empire ended in 1809 when Modibo Adama , a Fulani student of Usman dan Fodio , led a jihad against Mandara. Adama quickly took possession of the capital Dulo during the Fulani jihad , but the counterattack by Mandara soon pushed his troops back beyond the borders of the kingdom. Adama's defeat drove Borno to reunite with Mandara against the Fulani conquerors.
The British explorer Dixon Denham accompanied a slave-assisted military expedition from Borno to the Kingdom of Mandara in February 1823; although he barely escaped with his life after the attackers were defeated, he brought back one of the first depictions and descriptions of the kingdom to Europe.
Until the death of the ruler Bukai Dgjiama , the non-Muslim satellite states regained power and the Fulani attacked the kingdom again. In 1850 Bornu doubted the reliability of the ally and then attacked the weakened kingdom himself. This renewed conflict began to drain the kingdom's strength, paving the way for the invasion of Muhammad Ahmad's forces in the 1880s. From 1895 to 1896, the army destroyed Muhammad Ahmad's Dulo, another decline in Mandara's power. Nevertheless, the kingdom continued to exist, pushing back the constant invasion of the Fulani until it was finally incumbent in 1893.
In 1902 the kingdom was conquered by troops of the German Empire , who integrated the kingdom into the German colony of Cameroon . The Germans nonetheless allowed the kingdom to exist and only exercised indirect rule over its territory by means of a protection treaty . But when Germany was defeated in Cameroon during World War I , the kingdom was occupied by France in 1918. The French administration now exercised direct rule over the area, incorporated it into French Cameroon and abolished the autonomy of the kingdom. France worked to stamp out the traditions and language of mandaras in favor of French civilization . In 1960, the Mandara Kingdom finally became part of the newly independent Cameroon.
List of rulers of Mandara
| Term of office | Official | annotation |
|---|---|---|
| around 1500 | Establishment of the Mandara Kingdom | |
| Sultanate of Mandara | ||
| 1715 to 1757 | ||
| 1757 to 1773 | T'Kse Bldi , Sultan | |
| 1773 to 1828 | Bukar D'Gjiama , Sultan | |
| 1828 to 1842 | Hiassae , sultan | |
| 1842 to 1894 | Bukar Narbanha , Sultan | |
| 1894 to 1902 | Umar Adjara , Sultan | |
| 1902 | Integrated into the German colony of Cameroon | |
| 1902 to 1911 | Umar Adjara , Sultan | (continued) |
| 1911 to 1915 | Bukar Afade , Sultan | |
| 1915 to 1922 | Umar Adjara , Sultan | |
| 1922 to May 1924 | Amada , sultan | |
| May 1924 to March 18, 1942 | Kola Adama , Sultan | |
| March 18, 1942 to date | Hamidu Umar , Sultan | |
swell
- Bawuro Mubi Barkindo: The Sultanate of Mandara to 1902 . Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1989.
- Mark W. DeLancey, Mark Dike DeLancey: Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Cameroon . 3rd ed. 2000
- VG Fanso: Cameroon History for Secondary Schools and Colleges: Volume 1: Prehistoric Times to the Nineteenth Century . Macmillan Education Ltd., London 1989