Abstract
This article examines records from the Buea National Archives in Cameroon to illuminate our understanding of Shaykh Sa`id ibn Hayatu’s experience in exile after he was arrested for allegedly planning to overthrow the colonial regime in Northern Nigeria in 1923. Although previous studies have analyzed Sa`id’s activities and biography, this article is the first publication to present information from Buea, the site of his exile from 1924 to 1945. These documents provide details on Sa`id’s household in Buea, the family’s financial situation, Sa`id’s primary complaints while in exile, letters from Sa`id to the colonial administration and contacts in Northern Nigeria, as well as correspondence among colonial officials about Sa`id and Mahdism. Evidence from this new archival source helps to answer two questions that have puzzled historians of West Africa for several decades, namely why Sa`id’s detainment lasted so long and what conditions finally ended his and his dependents’ isolation. This article argues that British perceptions of Mahdist danger facing Northern Nigeria after 1924 significantly influenced the contours of Sa`id’s exile, as did their perceptions of him as a symbol of the potent history and legacy of Mahdism in the region. The article also suggests that tensions between, on the one hand, Northern Nigerian officials facing real and imagined Mahdist threats and, on the other hand, administrators in Buea who personally encountered Sa`id on a regular basis, framed colonial state policies regarding the length and termination of Sa`id’s exile.
Résumé
Cet article analyse des documents issus des Archives nationales du Cameroun à Buéa en vue d’éclairer notre compréhension de l’expérience vécue en exil par Shaykh Sa`id ibn Hayatu après son arrestation sous prétexte qu’il planifiait de renverser le régime colonial dans le Nord du Nigéra en 1923. Bien que plusieurs études aient précédemment examiné les activités et la biographie de Sa`id, cet article est le premier à faire état d’informations issues de Buéa, lieu de son exil de 1924 à 1945. Les documents pris en considération renseignent en détails sur le ménage de Sa`id à Buoa, la situation financière de sa famille et les premières plaintes adressées par Sa`id en exil; ils font état de lettres de Said envoyées à l’administration coloniale et à des contacts, ainsi que d’échanges de courrier entre des fonctionnaires de l’administration coloniale au sujet de Sa`id et du mahdisme. Les nouveaux éléments fournis par ces archives apportent une réponse à deux questions qui laissaient perplexes les historiens de l’Afrique de l’Ouest depuis plusieurs décennies, à savoir pourquoi la détention de Sa`id a duré si longtemps et quelles circonstances ont poussé les autorités à mettre fin à l’isolement de Sa`id et de ses proches. Le présent article fait valoir que la perception par les Britanniques du mahdisme comme une menace pour le Nord du Nigéria après 1924 a fortement influencé les modalités de l’exil de Sa`id qui incarnait à leurs yeux un symbole puissant de l’histoire et de l’héritage du mahdisme dans la région. L’article suggère également que les tensions entre, d’une part, les autorités du Nord du Nigéria confrontées aux menaces réelles et imaginaires posées par le mahdisme et, d’autre part, les fonctionnaires de Buéa qui rencontraient Sa`id de façon régulière, ont joué un rôle déterminant dans la politique étatique coloniale qui a encadré la durée et la levée des mesures d’exil imposées à Sa`id.
NOTES
The research for this article was funded by U.S. Department Education Fulbright-Hayes Doctoral Dissertation Research Award, the Harvard University Frederick K. Sheldon traveling fellowship, and faculty research awards from the University of Mississippi and Pitzer College. The authors thank Emmanuel Akyeampong, Paul E. Lovejoy, Walter Nkwi, Olorunfemi Dare, Ismael M. Montana, Jonathan Reynolds, the editors of this journal, and the anonymous reviewers for their critical comments and support.
Examples of works on Muslims who experienced exile include: Isa A. Abba and Ahmed R. Mohammed, “The Emir of Kano in Exile: Aliyu Babba, 1903–1926,” in Northern Nigeria: A Century of Transformation, 1903–2003, ed. A. M. Yakubu et al. (Kaduna, Nigeria: Arewa House, Ahmadu Bello University, 2005); Cheikh Anta Babou, Fighting the Greater Jihad: Amadu Bamba and the Founding of the Muridiyya of Senegal, 1853–1913 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2007); Ahmed Bouyerdene, Emir Abd el-Kader: Hero and Saint of Islam (Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom, 2012); P. J. L. Frankl, “The Exile of Sayyid Khalid Bin Barghash Al-Busa’Idi: Born Zanzibar C. 1291 AH/AD 1874 Died Mombasa 1345 AH/AD 1927,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 33, no. 2 (2006): 161–77. Of exiled non-Muslim African leaders, the individual who has received the most scholarly attention is Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh I. See, for example, Emmanuel K. Akyeampong, “Christianity, Modernity and the Weight of Tradition in the Life of Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh I, c. 1888–1931,” Africa 69, no. 2 (1999): 279–311; A. Adu Boahen, “Prempeh I in Exile,” paper presented at the National Culture Center, Kumasi, August 19, 1972, http://archive.lib.msu.edu/DMC/African%20Journals/pdfs/Institue%20of%20African%20Studies%20Research%20Review/1972v8n3/asrv008003002.pdf, accessed August 6, 2014.
Works on Sa`id include works by Asma’u Garba Saeed, Sa`id ibn Hayatu’s grand-daughter: A Biographic Study of Shaykh Sa`id b. Hayat (1887 to 1978) and the British Policy towards the Mahdiyya in Northern Nigeria (1900–1960) (Kano, Nigeria: Bayero University, 1992); “The British Policy towards the Mahdiyya in Northern Nigeria: The Study of the Arrest, Detention and Deportation of Shaykh Sa`id b. Hayat 1923 to 1959: A Biographical Note,” in Kano Studies 2, no. 3 (1982/85): 95–119; The Biography of Shaykh Sa`id b. Hayat, “the Exiled Royal Prince, 1923–59” (Kano, Nigeria: Bayero University, 1983). See also C. N. Ubah, “British Measures against Mahdism at Dumbulwa in Northern Nigeria: A Case of Colonial Overreaction,” Islamic Culture 50, no. 3 (1976): 169–83.
The name “Sa`id” is spelled variously as “Saeed,” “Saïd,” “Said,” “Sayid,” or “Saeid.” Although in Asmau’s name it is spelled “Saeed,” the secondary sources and Buea records we consulted on her grandfather spell his name as “Sa`id” or “Said.” The spelling of “Said” can be problematic because those not familiar with Arabic or Hausa might pronounce the name in the same way they say the English word “said.” Partly for this reason we refer to our main subject in this article as “Sa`id.”
The two studies that intensively discuss relevant exile experiences are Bouyerdene, Emir Abd el-Kader, and Frankl, “The Exile of Sayyid Khalid Bin Barghash Al-Busa’Idi.”
Alois Maderspacher, “The National Archives of Cameroon in Yaoundé and Buea,” History in Africa 36, no. 1 (2009): 456.
For further discussion on Islamic resistance in Africa see, for instance, Raphael Danziger, Abd al-Qadir and the Algerians: Resistance to the French and Internal Consolidation (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1977); Christopher Harrison, France and Islam in West Africa, 1860–1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Jonathan Derrick, African’s “Agitators”: Militant Anti-Colonialism in Africa and the West, 1918–1939 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008); Timothy R. Furnish, Holiest Wars: Islamic Mahdis, their Jihads, and Osama bin Laden (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2005); Mervyn Hiskett, The Course of Islam in Africa (Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press, 1994); and John Obert Voll, Islam: Continuity and Change in the Modern World (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1982).
For further discussion on these and other Islamic resistance in Africa see, for instance, Danziger, Abd al-Qadir and the Algerians; Harrison, France and Islam in West Africa; Derrick, African’s “Agitators”; Furnish, Holiest Wars; Hiskett, The Course of Islam in Africa; Allan Christelow, Algerians without Borders: The Making of a Global Frontier Society (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2012), 84–87; and Voll, Islam, 120–1, 142–3.
Asma’u Garba Saeed, “The British Policy towards the Mahdiyya,” 95, and Christelow, Algerians without Borders, 87–88.
Christelow, Algerians without Borders, 90–91; and David Killingray, “The War in Africa,” in The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War: New Edition, ed. Hew Strachan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 92.
For further discussion on such strategies, see Furnish, Holiest Wars, 72–86.
Ibid., 44, 73, 77.
For more details on the resistance movement led by Abd al-Qadir, see, for instance, Danziger, Abd al-Qadir and the Algerians and Christelow, Algerians without Borders, 57–58.
The following discussion on the exile experience of Amr Abd al-Qadir is mainly based on Ahmed Bouyerdene, Emir Abd el-Kader.
Ibid., 73.
Ibid., 82–83.
The following discussion on Sayyid Khalid is mainly based on Frankl, “The Exile of Sayyid Khalid Bin Barghash Al-Busa’id.” The quote reference is PRO FO/107/57, Portal to Earl of Rosebery, Zanzibar 12:x: 1892.
Peter B. Clarke, Mahdism in West Africa: The Ijebu Mahdiyya Movement (London: Luzac Oriental, 1995), 35–36.
For further discussion on Hayatu ibn Sa`id’s attempt to establish a Mahdist state see, for instance, R. A. Adeleye, Power and Diplomacy in Northern Nigeria, 1804–1906: The Sokoto Caliphate and its Enemies (New York: Humanities Press, 1971), 103–8; and works by Martin Z. Njeuma, including Fulani Hegemony in Yola (Old Adamawa), 1809–1902 (Mankon, Bamenda: Langaa Research & Publishing, 2012), 155–78; and “Adamawa and Mahdism: The Career of Hayatu Ibn Sa`id in Adamawa, 1878–1898,” Journal of African History 12, no. 1 (1971): 61–77.
Adeleye, Power and Diplomacy in Northern Nigeria, 107–8, 323–6.
Jonathan Reynolds, “Good and Bad Muslims: Islam and Indirect Rule in Northern Nigeria,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 34, no. 3 (2001): 605–8.
For this view, see, for instance, Reynolds, “Good and Bad Muslims,” 607, as well as Paul E. Lovejoy and Jan S. Hogendorn, “Revolutionary Mahdism and Resistance to Colonial Rule in the Sokoto Caliphate, 1905–61,” Journal of African History 31, no. 2 (1990): 241.
For reference to the Mahdist movement in Madagali and Sa`id’s involvement in this movement, see, for instance, the Paul E. Lovejoy Collection of the Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on Africa and its Diasporas at York University, Canada, especially his interviews with Alhaji Hamman Gabdo, aged c. 80, imam of his own mosque in Madagali (n.d.), and Alhaji Garba Shaidu, son of Sa`id ibn Hayatu, 24 June 1992. See also James H. Vaughan and Anthony H. M. Kirk-Greene, The Diary of Hamman Yaji: Chronicle of a West African Muslim Ruler (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 16.
Reynolds, “Good and Bad Muslims,” 610–11.
National Archives, Buea, Cameroon (NAB), Tc/1924/3, 59–60, Letter from Mallam Saidu Bin Hayatu to His Excellency the Governor, through the Senior Resident of Cameroons Province, Buea, 8 November 1944.
NAB/Tc/1924/3, 44, “Mahdist and other Religious Revivals in the Northern Emirates of Nigeria: A precis and appreciation from recent correspondence on the subject by T. Heskyn Abrahall,” 8 April 1928.
Ibid.
NAB/Tc/1933/4, 1, “A Bill Entitled ‘An Ordinance to Make Further Provision for the Deportation and Detention of Mallam Said Bin Hayatu Late of Dumbulwa, Now Under Detention at Idah,’” 1924.
See Martin Z. Njeuma, “The Lamidates of Northern Cameroon, 1800–1894,” in Introduction to the History of Cameroon in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, ed. Martin Z. Njeuma (London: Macmillan, 1989), 1–31.
Mark W. DeLancey and Mark Dike DeLancey, Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Cameroon, 3rd ed. (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2000), 57, 144, 150, 152; Tambi Eyongetah and Robert Brain, A History of the Cameroon (London: Longman, 1974), 27–33. In 2008, Cameroon’s “provinces” were renamed “regions.”
Edwin Ardener, Kingdom on Mount Cameron: Studies in the History of the Cameroon Coast, 1500–1970 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2003).
See C. Courade, “The Urban Development of Buea: An Essay in Social Geography,” paper presented to the International Colloquium of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique-Social Science-on “Urban growth in Black Africa and Madagascar,” September 29 to 2 October 1970 at the Centre d’Etudes de Geographic Tropicale, Bordeaux, France, 7 13.
Ibid., 13.
Ibid.; Peter Geschiere, The Perils of Belonging: Autochthony, Citizenship, and Exclusion in Africa and Europe (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2009), 234–5, n30.
Geschiere, The Perils of Belonging, 234–235 n30.
NAB/Tc/1924/3, p. 27, Document No. C 23/1924/27, From Provincial Office, Buea, to Le Chef de Circonscription, Marroa, Cameroun sous Mandate Français, 26 October 1931.
NAB/Tc/1924/3, 13A, Doc. No. S.P.5900/180, Confidential Memorandum from Secretary, Southern Provinces, Enugu, to the Resident, Cameroons Province, Buea, containing a forwarded message from Secretary, Northern Provinces in Nigeria, 14 November 1929.
NAB/Tc/1933/4, 6, Doc No. 143/24, Memorandum from Commissioner of Police, Buea to The Resident, Cameroons Province, Buea, 9 May 1924; NAB/Tc/1933/4, 5, Doc. No. 666/1187/1924, Memorandum from The Resident of Cameroons Province, Buea, to The Commissioner of Police, Cameroons Province, Buea, 9 May 1924; and NAB/Tc/1933/4, 89, Letter from Mallam Saidu, Exile from Dumbulwa, to The Chief Commissioner, Eastern Provinces, Nigeria, on tour at Buea, 24 June 1939.
NAB/Tc/1933/4, 7 Doc. No. 181/24, Memorandum from Commissioner of Police, Cameroons Province, to The Resident, Cameroons Province, 14 May 1924.
See the following documents in the Buea National Archives: Tc/1933/4, Doc. No. 438/11, “Mallam Said Bin Hayatu of Dumbulwa, Now at Buea” From Resident, Cameroons Province, to Secretary, Southern Provinces, Enugu, 15 March, 1935; Tc/1933/4, Doc. No. 438/66, “Payment of Water Rate and Conservancy Fees at Buea by Mallam Said,” From Resident, Cameroons Province, to Secretary, Southern provinces, Enugu, 23 October 1936; Tc/1933/4, 89, Letter from Mallam Saidu, Exile from Dumbulwa, to The Chief Commissioner, Eastern Provinces, Nigeria, on tour at Buea, 24 June 1939; Tc/1941/4, 132, “Mallam Saidu’s Household, July 1944; and Tc/1941/4, 163, Doc. No. 438/163A, Note from R. J. Hook, Resident, Cameroons Province, 28 December 1945. See also Asma’u Garba Saeed, “A Biographical Study,” 452.
BNA/Tc/1941/4, 134, Communication from Assistant District Officer to Resident, Cameroons Province, Buea, 31 July 1944. On repairing timepieces, see Saeed, “A Biographical Study,” 475 n20.
NAB/Tc/1933/4, 23, Memorandum from the Assistant District Office, Buea, to The Divisional Officer, Victoria, No. 42/S.18/1925, 7 February 1928.
NAB/Tc/1933/4, Document No. 438/11, “Mallam Said Bin Hayatu of Dumbulwa, Now at Buea,” From Provincial Office, Buea, to the Secretary, Southern Provinces, Enugu, 15 March 1935.
NAB/Tc/1933/4, Letter from Mallam Said to the Resident, Cameroon Province, Buea, 6 June 1935.
See for example, NAB/Tc/1933/4, 91–92, including Document No. 438/92, from Acting Resident, Cameroons Province, to the Secretary of the Eastern Provinces, Enugu, 24 July 1939.
NAB/Tc/1933/4, 46, From Malam Saidu, Bismark [sic] Square, Buea, Cameroons Province, through the Senior Resident, Cameroons Province, Buea, to The Governor and Cammander-in- Chief [sic], Nigeria, 14 September 1936; BNA/ Tc/1941/4, 116, No. 23/24/40, Confidential letter from Provincial Office, Cameroons Province, Buea, to Secretary, Eastern Provinces, Enugu, 23 September 1943.
In Saeed, “A Biographical Study,” 449.
NAB/Tc/1924/3, 66, Confidential correspondence from Acting Resident, Cameroons Province, Buea, to Secretary, Eastern Provinces, Enugu, 23 August 1945.
NAB/Tc/1941/4, 101–3, Letter from Malam Saidu to Senior Resident, Buea, 20 January 1941, letter includes handwritten notes made by colonial officials in response to the letter.
NAB/Tc/1941/4, 129–31, Confidential Correspondences between The Resident and Assistant District Officer of Buea, on or about 5 July 1944.
BNA/Tc/1924/3, 6, Document No. C/22/27, handwritten letter from Chief of Police, Buea, to the Senior Resident, 2 November 1927. Reply from Resident to Chief of Police is a handwritten letter titled “Madhism.”
Saeed, “A Biographical Study,” 453–4. According to one of the anonymous reviewers of this article, Garba Sa`id named his daughter Asma’u after Nana Asma’u, the nineteenth-century Northern Nigerian female scholar and poet who believed women should be educated in Qur’anic teachings. See Beverly B. Mack and Jean Boyd, One Woman’s Jihad: Nana Asma’u, Scholar and Scribe (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000).
NAB/Tc/1924/3, 8, Document No. C. 23/24, Confidential Memorandum titled “Mahdism” from the Resident, Cameroons Province, Buea, to the Secretary of Southern Provinces, Lagos, 23 February 1929.
NAB/Tc/1924/3, 13A, Doc. No. S.P.5900/180, Confidential Memorandum from Secretary, Southern Provinces, Enugu, to the Resident, Cameroons Province, Buea, containing a forwarded message from Secretary, Northern Provinces in Nigeria, 14 November 1929.
NAB/Tc/1924/3, 7a–c, Letter from Mallam Said to the Senior Resident of Cameroon Province, Buea, 27 February 1929.
G. J. F. Tomlinson and G. J. Lethem, History of Islamic Propaganda in Nigeria (London: Waterlow & Sons, 1927).
NAB/Tc/1924/3, 4, Document No. C. 281, Confidential Copy of the memorandum titled “Mahdism” from the Secretary of Northern Provinces to the Secretary of Southern Provinces in Lagos, copied to the Inspector-General of Police and the Senior Resident of the Cameroons Province in Buea, 23 July 1927.
Ibid.
NAB/Tc/1924/3, 14, Confidential Memorandum C/23/24, from the Resident of the Cameroons Province, Buea, to the Secretary of the Southern Provinces, Enugu, 31 December 1929.
NAB/Tc/1924/3, 13B, Doc. No. S.P.5900/180, Confidential Memorandum from Secretary, Southern Provinces, Enugu, to the Resident, Cameroons Province, Buea, containing a forwarded message from Secretary, Northern Provinces in Nigeria, 14 November 1929.
NAB/Tc/1924/3, 13c, “Mallam Said,” Memorandum No. S.P.5900/180, Copied from the Secretary of the Northern Provinces and forwarded from Secretary of the Southern Provinces, Enugu, to the Senior Resident, Cameroons, Buea, 14 November 1929.
NAB/Tc/1941/4, 133, 6 July 1944.
Reynolds, “Good and Bad Muslims,” 610.
NAB/Tc/1924/3, 14, Doc. No. C/23/24, Confidential Correspondence from the Resident, Cameroons Province, Buea, to Secretary, Southern Provinces, Enugu, 31 December 1929.
NAB/Tc/1933/4, 75–76, Letter attached to Doc. No. 438/75, From Resident, Cameroons Province, to Resident, Bornu Province, Maiduguri, 27 July 1937.
NAB/Tc/1933/4, 73, Letter from Malam Saidu to the Senior Resident, Buea, through the Assistant District Officer, Buea, 28 June 1937.
NAB/Tc/1933/4, 43, Letter from Malam Saidu to Mohamadu, Son of Idrisa, 30 August 1936; NAB/Tc/1933/4, 44, Letter from emir of Fika-Mohamadu, to Malam Saidu, 18 August 1936.
NAB/Tc/1924/3, 61–62, “Mallam Said bin Hayatu: Your confidential endorsement No. E.P. 5900/259A of the 15th April, 1939,” Document No. C.23/61, From Provincial Office, Buea to Secretary, Eastern Provinces, Enugu, 14 December 1944.
John N. Paden, Religion and Political Culture in Kano (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1973), 147–212.
According to John N. Paden, “In 1946, the colonial government approached the Sokoto and Bornu native authorities regarding the possible return of Saʼid to either of those areas. Allegedly, both sets of authorities refused. The emir of Kano, however, agreed to the return of Saʼid and offered to give him land.” See Religion and Political Culture, 176.
Alois Maderspacher has pointed out that the files in the Cameroon National Archive in Buea reveal the intricacies of the colonial system on the ground and contain potential answers to the following questions: “How did one introduce European legal tender in a territory never touched by Europeans before? How did one cope with the colonial rivals, who were couching at the frontiers to take over the territory? How did one attempt to win peoples’ hearts day in and day out? What happened when the new colonial power took over a territory with an already developed administration from another colonial power, as it took place in Cameroon in 1911 and 1916/1919?” Maderspacher, “The National Archives,” 454.
Saeed, “British Policy Towards the Mahdiyya.”
