An Atlantic revolution

In the early 1800s, a society of people found themselves in conflict with their rulers. They were unhappy that their taxes supported a wealthy minority. Those same people were also exchanging new ideas and beliefs about politics, the world, and how to live. This new way of thinking offered the possibility of freedom from their oppression. Not surprisingly, the rulers of that society felt threatened by the new ideas and tried to outlaw them. However, the people found a leader who brought them together as an army, one that overthrew the old rulers and built a new form of government based on the ideas and beliefs they shared.

The paragraph above could be about the French, American, Haitian, or Latin American revolutions. In 1789, the French Revolution overthrew the monarchy, ending the aristocracy and setting up a government similar to a democracy. The American Revolution of 1776 was an uprising against British colonial rule. It could also be about the Haiti Revolution, which began with a mass uprising of enslaved Haitians in 1791. It ended with the abolishment of slavery in 1793 and Haiti’s independence from France in 1804.

However, the story above isn’t about any of these places. It actually describes a revolution in West Africa. These events above took place in the region of northern Nigeria between 1804 and 1811, under the leadership of ‘Uthman dan Fodio. Yet historians hardly every mention it when they talk about the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as an age of revolution.

I’m here to suggest that this should change—but you should decide for yourself. I’ll describe some revolutions that happened in West Africa and compare them to similar revolutions in the Americas and Europe. I believe that events in West Africa were as much a part of the changes sweeping across the Atlantic Ocean region as the Haitian and French Revolution were. Read on and see if you agree with me!

The Atlantic economy — West African wing

Let’s start by talking about the economic connections between West Africa, the Americas, and Europe. The economy refers to how much money is in one place and how it is spent there. The growth of trade across the Atlantic created a wealthy merchant class and a poor working class in both Europe and the Americas. This social divide led to revolution in those regions. In France, for example, merchants demanded more power as their wealth grew. In the Spanish Americas, wealthy settlers wanted more say in how their colonies were run. Meanwhile, European peasants and enslaved Africans in the Americas participated in revolutions because they were denied the wealth others were getting. In Haiti, for example, the poverty and mistreatment experienced by enslaved people was a big reason for the successful revolution.

In West Africa, Atlantic trade had also enriched some and impoverished others. Rulers and merchants in coastal regions like Benin grew wealthy by trading with Europeans. The wealthy sold gold, gum from acacia trees,¹ and enslaved people to Europeans in exchange for luxury goods. Such groups were less powerful in the West African interior, although they emerged there as well.

West African rulers also collected taxes to fund wars. These wars helped them expand their territory and capture people to sell to European slavers. This system, which is sometimes called the “fiscal-military” state, looks a lot like Europe at this time. Money was needed to support large armed forces. Throughout the eighteenth century, France, Britain, and other European states were also increasing taxes to wage war on each other. This matters to our study of revolution. Remember, it was increased taxation that helped spark both the French and American Revolutions.

The fiscal-military state system caused deeper problems in West Africa than in Europe. That’s because this kind of trade and taxation were particularly bad for the economies of West African countries. You see, West Africans tended to export goods like gold and copper. These resources were important for keeping economies strong. West Africa ended up with fewer of those goods, while Europe was building up their supply of them. West African societies were also losing people, their most important resource, to the transatlantic slave trade. In exchange, wealthy West African rulers and aristocrats imported luxuries such as alcohol. These luxury items were not good for growing the local economy. So, West African economies were losing strength against European economies, which caused even more suffering.

Jihad as revolution

As in other parts of the Atlantic, many West Africans looked for a unifying force to help them confront oppression. Europeans were inspired by the Enlightenment. It was a cultural movement that began in the late 1700s. It emphasized individualism and reason over tradition. However, Enlightenment ideas didn’t spread widely in West Africa.² Instead, West Africans turned to another set of ideas that were increasingly powerful as a force of freedom— the religion of Islam. Rulers and traders had brought the religion to West Africa from North Africa as early as the eleventh century. Over time, West African intellectuals developed a form of Islam that appealed to everyday people.

Islam became a revolutionary force in West Africa because it helped those who were not part of the wealthy and elite. First, although Islam technically allows slavery, it forbids the sale of Muslims as enslaved people. Many believed converting to Islam would protect them from becoming enslaved. Second, Islamic laws in West Africa restricted the power of rulers over their people. Third, the pattern of Islam followed in West Africa promoted education and learning for everyone. This model of Islam also respected some older beliefs, which made it easier for locals to adopt. Finally, Islam forbids the consumption of alcohol. This was one of the main goods imported by (and almost exclusively consumed by) their harsh rulers.

People found they could use Islamic ideas to overturn the rule of wealthy groups involved in the slave trade and high taxation. They launched military campaigns to overthrow their rulers. These were revolutions, and they were also referred to as jihad. That’s an Arabic word meaning “struggle” or “effort.”

The first of these jihad-revolutions was launched in Senegal in the 1670s. Rulers of then-states like Waalo and Jolof were raiding their own and each other’s communities to enslave people. A Muslim man named Naṣīr al-Dīn led an uprising of peasants and herders who overthrew their rulers.

In 1727, a similar revolt broke out in the highlands of modern-day Guinea. Herders overthrew the military and merchant elite and created the Muslim state of Fuuta Jalon. In the 1790s, another revolutionary Muslim state emerged in Senegal called Fuuta Toro. In both the revolutions in Fuuta Jalon and Fuuta Toro, the leaders were mostly cattle herders. They had been among the most highly taxed and enslaved people of their regions.

One of the last great revolutionary jihads broke out in 1804. The transatlantic slave trade was expanding during this period. Europeans were trying to buy captives in the Benin and Biafra regions in modern-day Nigeria. Many of these people were herders and farmers who were enslaved in the West African interior as the result of a series of wars. A number of the communities suffering from these wars and enslavement turned to Islam which, as mentioned earlier, forbade the sale of Muslims as slaves. One leader of these communities was ‘Uthman dan Fodio. He criticized the local rulers. He spoke out against them for extreme taxation of the people, for corruption, and for enslaving and selling Muslims. He rallied many other vulnerable communities and launched a revolution that created one of the largest states in West African history. Known as the Sokoto Caliphate, it existed between 1804 and 1903.

How revolutionary were these West African states? Well, many did increase access to education among the population. And in many regions the ruling powers were restricted by Islamic law and a growing system of Islamic courts. In general, these states also lowered or even stopped participation in the transatlantic slave trade, protecting at least free-born Muslims from enslavement. Still, as in Europe and the Americas, there were limits to the revolution. In reality, the new governments often still taxed at a very high rate and often they continued to allow some form of slavery.

Nevertheless, in the opinion of this historian, the new West African states were revolutionary in a similar way to the Americas and Europe at that time. Across the Atlantic, a class engaged in trade was gaining wealth and people laboring for little or no pay were growing angrier and more resentful. The West African revolutionaries were driven by a belief system that promised change and freedom. Even though the actual results of the revolution were limited, they were similar to other Atlantic revolutions. What does your inner historian say? Should ‘Uthman dan Fodio’s revolution make the list?

1 An important raw material for printing patterns on textiles.

2 In part, this was because of the language barrier—few West Africans spoke French or English. In part, it was because those ideas weren’t really that attractive or familiar to West Africans.