External Trade

Apart from internal trade, the Nigerian people and their economy were linked with the
international community. This linkage was through two opposite ends, the trans-Saharan trade
and the trans-Atlantic trade. The trans-Saharan trade was the older of the two because it occurred
first. From these directions, trade and other forms of contact flowed from Nigeria to the wider
world.

The Trans-Saharan Trade

Trade across the Sahara is known as the trans-Sahara trade. The trade is of considerable antiquity
as it is claimed to have date back to 1000 B.C or even earlier. As at this period, the Sahara was
not a desert but grassland where Negroes and light skinned people known as the Hamites lived
and hunted games and later pastured their herds. It was later the desert emerged and by this time
the Sahara became one of the most formidable barriers to human movement, trade and
intercourse.

Movement in the Sahara

Originally, movement in the Sahara was through carts driven by Oxen and horses, but later the
Romans introduced the Camel and this became the most important development in this trade.
The camel was then called the Ship of the desert because it had and still has better freight
capacity than horses and oxen and it could go several days without water and water has always
been a very scarce commodity in the Sahara.

The Trade routes and the Shifting Trends

The Trans-Saharan trade over the years had been conducted along well known major routes.
Some of these routes flourished and then waned as a result of political vicissitudes in the Sudan
and security situation in the Sahara. Shifting of center of political gravity between the east and
west also ensured gradual shifting of trade as trade or commercial activities will always shift in
the direction of political stability. By the 19th century, the traffic had been concentrated in four
main routes namely Morocco-Taodeni-Timbuktu, Ghadames-Air-Kano, Tripoli-Fezzan-Borno
and the Cyrenaica-Kufra-Waday which was known as the Garamantian route. For the purpose of
this study, our focus will be on the two routes which terminated in northern Nigeria.

By 1591 when the Askias of Songhai had been overthrown and replaced by the Sultans of
Morocco, who proved to be politically incapable, a prolonged period of political instability and
insecurity followed and reduced drastically the flow of the trans-Saharan trade in that area.
While the Songhai Empire declined, the Borno kingdom waxed stronger up to the latter part of
the 18th century. Hence, Borno established its hegemony over the region of the Sahara stretching
northwards to the southern borders of Fezzan.

However, a shift in the political center of gravity to Borno activated a shift in the commercial
landscape from the Upper Niger to the Lake Chad area, that is from Gao and Timbuktu to Birnin
Ngazargarmu and later Kukawa and Ngorno . Hence, the Fezzan-Borno route became the most
active of all the routes up to the 1870s. Ngorno which was the terminus of the Fezzan-Borno
route became the largest town in Borno and its market was said to attract up to 800000-100000
people from diverse places. However, as war erupted between Borno and Baghirmi, the traders
were forced to relocate to Kukawa, the new capital of Borno founded by El-Kanemi in 1814.
Therefore, Kukawa became an entrepot and distributive centre of goods from the Mediterranean
to places such as Abinsi, Ibi, Wukari and Yola to the southwest as well as Baghirmi region to the
southeast. Kukawa also controlled the trade in natron with the Western Sudan until the
depredations of Rabeh in the 1890s scuttled the trade.

With the death of El-Kanemi in 1837, Borno degenerated again into troubled times. The
kingdom and invariably the Fezzan-Borno route became undermined by the jihad wars and wars
against the Wadai kingdom. The situation was complicated by the Awlad Sulayman who
resumed their practice of plundering and pillaging caravan traders. The combination of these
factors ensured that the caravan trade route terminating in Borno gradually faded into an annual
event.

Just as the Borno-fezzan route benefited from the misfortune of the western route, so also did
Ghadarmes-Air-Kano route benefited from the misfortunes of the Borno-Fezzan route. This is
because the establishment of the Caliphate which came as a sresult of the success of the Jihad of
Uthman Dan Fodio brought relative peace and tranquility to Hausaland especially the eastern
section. This made the center of political gravity to shift from Borno to Hausaland and with it the
shift in center of commerce to Hausaland with Kano as pre-eminently the nexus, followed by
Katsina and Zaria though both still remained in the shadows of Kano.

Organisation of the Trade

The trans-Saharan trade was organized in a way that minimised the dangers of crossing the
desert while at the same time ensuring the efficiency of the distributive system. The first sets
were located on or near the Barbary or North African coast and included Mogador, Fez, Algiers,
Tunis and Tripoli. Tunis and Tripoli were the termini of routes from northern Nigeria.
Merchandise from Europe and the Middle East were off-loaded there and prepared for shipment.
These centers harbour large scale financiers, brokers and bulk traders. The entrepreneurs were
mostly Arabs, Berbers and Jews.

The second were the rendez vous or points of departure to Sudan located immediately north of
the Sahara. These included Tenduf, Wargla and for the Sudan route Ghardames. They were the
assembly points of caravans heading south across the Sahara. At this point, travelers could hire
camels, guides and guards and raise loans with which to foot their travel bills. Ghardames
continue to flourish as the homes of most of the bankers and wholesalers as well as the
headquarters of most of the trading firms operating in the interiors and caravans from Tripoli,
southern Tunis and Algiers assembled at Ghardames.

The third staging stations were those found in the Sahara. They were the refreshment and resting
stations for caravans. Most of these stations usually had oases where caravans replenished their
provisions of food, water and camels. Some of these cooling stations included Ghat and Iferuan
on the Tunis-Kano route and Muzurk and Bilma on the route leading into Borno. Ghat in
particular was famous for its fresh water and was said to be the busiest cooling and market centre
in the Sahara in the 1840s.

The Arabs, Berbers and Sudanese were the leading traders in the Sahara. There was also a
vibrant colony of Katsina merchants in Ghat during the 19th century. Iferuan which had replaced
Agades by the 19th century owed its importance to its excellence water supply. Its strategic
location also ensured it served as the intersection of the old hajj route from Timbuktu and the
route from Tuat to Air and from Ghat to Kano. On the Borno route, Muzunk was until the 1840s
the main refreshment centre for caravans from Ghardames and Tripoli. Bilma was pre-eminent
for its salt.

The fourth routes were the southern termini of the routes. In Nigeria, they included Ngormo,
Kukawa and Kano. Caravans from across the Sahara ended their journeys there. Kano was the
most important trans-Saharan terminus not only in Nigeria in the 19th century but also in the
entire Sudan. Up to the 18th century, Katsina was the most important town on the Sudan route but
the Jihad of 1804 which was followed by guerrilla wars between the Goberewa and the Fulani
rendered the western part of the caliphate insecure which drove out traders from Katsina to
Kano. Hence, Kano grew at such a phenomenal pace that by the time it was visited by
Clapperton in 1824, it had already become the emporium of northern Nigeria.

Factors that made the Journeys across the Sahara dangerous

Crossing the Sahara desert was a terrible experience as the journey across the Sahara whether
from south to north or north to south was fraught with dangers as reflected in the thousands of
human and animal skeletons on the route as described by Arab and European travelers who plied
the routes. For instance, a caravan of 200 men and 1800 camels reportedly perished in 1805 on
their way to Tafilet from Timbuktu. This was due to certain factors among which were

The harsh weather condition with temperature which varied between sharply getting as high as
110 degree fahrenheight in the day and 20 degree fahrenheight at night ensured that a traveller
could be asphyxiated or dehydrated in the day and be hit by extreme cold at night.

Second was the issue of water which was in perpetual short supply. Oases which were prized
possession became essential commodities and even could be filled up by sand storms. Barth
explained that he had to drink his own blood when he briefly missed his way and ran out of
water while crossing the desert.

Third were sand storms which could last from a few hours to several days. They filled the air
with sand which inflated the eyes, smote the face and cracked the skin. Sand storms were so
serious that they sometimes built up huge pillars of sand which buried alive an entire caravan.

There were also other human factors such as the menace of road marauders and bandits who
constantly pillaged caravans especially during periods of political instability in the Sudan or in
North Africa. In particular were the Tuaregs who lived off plunder, hence the practice of
caravans travelling were designed basically to guard against banditry.

There were also the problems that were peculiar to the slaves. While the free men travelled
clothed and mounted on camels, slaves travelled unclothed and bare-foot. Hence, they were most
times exposed to the full wrath of the hostile elements. They therefore developed sores and
blisters which impeded their movements. They were sometimes heartlessly abandoned to perish.
They were the first to get exhausted and thirsty, yet, when a caravan ran short of food and water,
they were the first to be rationed out. Their predicament were not helped by the fact that they
were usually chained together by the neck and at the same time made to carry heavy loads.

The cumulative effects of these maltreatments of slaves were that many succumbed to death on
the way. Mortality rate was high though precise data were not available, nonetheless, it was
generally reported that those who survived the scourge arrived at the northern termini a repulsive
spectacle, emaciated to living skeleton.

Articles of Trade in the Trans-Sahara Trade

The articles involved in the trade were mostly non-perishable and high value in relation to their
bulk. This was as a result of two factors .One was that the time it took to cross the Sahara was
too long for perishable goods to remain in good state by the time they got to their final
destination. Second, the necessity to off-load and reload merchandise daily increased the risk of
spoilage and the cost of handling and transportation.

The most important exports going north from the southern termini were cloths, kolanuts (i.e cola
nitida) and slaves. There were also ivory, leather works and gold from Asante. Kano which was
the “Manchester of Western Sudan” had some of the finely embroidered cloths and these cloths
came from Nupeland and some from Borno. In terms of bulk goods, kolanuts were the largest
export. Kolanuts were produced in Asante and assembled in Kano, the nuts were in high demand
throughout muslim Western Sudan, the Sahara and parts of North Africa. Tagged “the coffee of
the Negroes’, the nuts were chewed as a stimulant, secondary as food and to some extent as an
antidote against thirsty.
Slaves nonetheless were the most important export from northern Nigeria in the 19th century,
however,abolitionist efforts of the British government in the mid to late nineteenth century
ensured that the trade in slaves waned towards the end of the 19th century.