Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 92
increasingly under Wandala influence, as did the plain of Diamare (see Figure 4), leading to
the already mentioned foundation of Maroua 6. This was a result of the Wandala state having
become much more effective in its military operations after Islamisation. The latter
presumably also impacted an increased threat of slave raiding around the foothills and plains
of the Gwoza hills. The Mandara influence then reduced again with the expansion of the
Adamawa Emirate from the early 19th century onwards. The Fulbe also successfully crossed
the central plateau of the Mandara Mountains and established themselves in Maroua, while
the foothill of Disa in the northwest (see Figure 6 and Plate 7b) would become the boundary
between the late Wandala state and Madagali.
The late 19th century was also marked by Rabeh's raids. 7 Rabeh was killed by the French, just
before the establishment of German rule in Dikwa in 1902. Although he never entered the
Gwoza hills, he disempowered the Wandala by destroying Doulo, although the Wandala had
already been significantly weakened by the Fulbe jihad not long before. Towards the end of
pre-colonial times, Mora was the capital of Wandala, and Kirawa had long lost its function as
the centre. It is also important to acknowledge, that the Fulbe jihad did not directly impact the
Gwoza hills, but only further south, where the western Mandara Mountains connect with
Adamawa, in the area of Michika (see Figure 1). We have the late pre-colonial sources of
Denham, from 1823 (Bovill III 1966), which describe Mora and its surroundings before
Rabeh. At the time Mora was exercising tributary control over the Gwoza hills via Mozogo
(Figure 4) as a subregional centre. Mozogo is not only mentioned by Denham but also by my
Dghweɗe sources concerning their late pre-colonial tribute relationships with the Wandala.
The few oral accounts I collected on that subject suggest that the paying of tribute was closely
related to slave raiding. It seems that there were intermittent periods of either more or less
slave raiding by the Wandala, and that the Dghweɗe and other groups of the Gwoza hills paid
tribute to them to avoid it. We do not think that the Fulbe expansion led to slave raiding in the
hills before the raids of Hamman Yaji in the early 20th century.
The threat of late pre-colonial slave raiding according to Dghweɗe oral accounts
The few collective memories I hold about slave raiding in Dghweɗe, first of all tell us that its
intensity was linked to the paying of tribute. Doubt is also cast over the question of whether
there was ever much slave raiding by the Wandala in the Gwoza hills. In this late period of
slave raiding, we need to distinguish between a pre-colonial and a colonial period. In this
chapter about the pre-colonial history of tribute arrangments and slave raiding, we only need
refer to the pre-colonial relationship between the Dghweɗe and the Wandala. The Hamman
Yaji period of intense slave raiding in the hills had nothing to do with pre-colonial tribute
arrangements, but was just as brutal and invasive and left the Dghweɗe traumatised. We will
deal with that in a separate section in the next chapter about the unsettling colonial times.
What we should refer to at this point is the earlier mentioned division between the two parts
of Dghweɗe, Ghwa'a and Korana Basa. Ghwa'a is, according to oral history, the earlier
northern part, and Korana Basa the more recent southern part of Dghweɗe. The traditional
southern and northern division of pre-colonial Dghweɗe played a role during early colonial
times when Hamman Yaji's carried out his attacks and relates to how the Dghweɗe dealt with
it. We will address the late pre-colonial division of Dghweɗe in the southern and northern
parts from the perspective of our Dghweɗe oral sources in the following subsection, which we
Maroua was originally known as Marwa.
Rabeh was a declared Madhist who came originally from the area of Karthoum but had served in the
Egyptian army before he became a soldier of fortune and later turned westward with a few followers.
His forces subsequently grew by incorporating slaves in newly established regiments. He finally
managed to establish his own capital in Dikwa but was killed by the French shortly before the arrival of
the Germans in 1902. We will not go deeper into that here (see Barkindo 1989 for more).
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