Prisons existed in the Sokoto Caliphate before the British conquest, but little attention has been devoted to examining pre-colonial imprisonment. Nevertheless, it is clear from extant sources that the inmates in Sokoto Caliphate prisons could be classified into three major groups: war prisoners, freeborn people imprisoned for political or other crimes, and slaves.Generally, most inmates could be ransomed, executed, enslaved or exchanged. Although many of those enslaved (from all three groups of prisoners) were used as domestic servants, others were sent to ribats (frontier fortresses) where they served as soldiers and/or in other roles such as plantation labourers, builders, concubines and weavers.

There is evidence that convicts based within Sokoto Caliphate prisons (including those war prisoners who were yet to be ransomed, executed, enslaved or exchanged) often worked under close supervision on state fields “the entire day before returning to their cells”. Inmates, like many Sokoto Caliphate slaves, frequently experienced physical cruelty and starvation.24 Even though slave owners mostly punished their own slaves outside the prison, there is evidence that the slaves within Sokoto Caliphate prisons were often sent there by private estate owners or administrators of state holdings.

In the Kano area, the major prison to which recalcitrant slaves were banished was Gidan Ma’ajin Watari. Situated less than a kilometre northeast of the Emir’s palace in Kano city, it was owned by the state and managed by the state official called Ma’ajin Watari. Masters sent defiant slaves, including those whom they did not want to sell or otherwise dispose of, to this prison for reform or, as Yusuf Yunusa puts it, “to be punished and preached to”. On a slave’s arrival at the prison, the master was expected to declare the specific offence the slave had committed and the type of punishment to be meted out. Thereafter, the erring slave was admitted to the facility through two doors, being severely beaten in the process.

The conditions at Gidan Ma’ajin Watari were terrible, as an early colonial record indicates:
A small doorway 2 ft. 6 in. by 18 in. gives access into it; the interior is divided by a thick mud wall (with a smaller hole in it) into two compartments, each 17 ft. by 7 ft. and 11 ft. high. This wall was pierced with holes at its base, through which the legs of those sentenced to death were thrust up to the thigh, and they were left to be trodden on by the mass of other prisoners till they died of thirst and starvation. The place is entirely air-tight and unventilated, except for one small doorway or rather hole in the wall through which you creep. The total space inside is 2,618 cu. ft., and at the time we took Kano [1903] 135 human beings were confined here each night, being let out during the day to cook their food, etc., in a small adjoining area. Recently as many as 200 have been interned at one time. As the superficial ground area was only 238 square feet, there was not, of course, even standing room. Victims were crushed to death every night — their corpses were hauled out each morning.

While in prison, a slave was usually subjected to torture by fellow inmates as well as by guards. Masters could occasionally pay a visit to the prison to determine whether or not their slaves should be released. During such visits, the masters often presented their slaves with cowries or food, while the slaves, in turn, would plead for forgiveness. Ultimately, it was the master who decided how many days the slave would spend in the facility.

Whether or not it was standard practice for masters in all parts of the Sokoto Caliphate to send slaves to various state prisons for reform, three facts are clear from the pre-colonial era. First, a prison system existed prior to British conquest in pre-colonial Muslim Nigeria. Second, convicts were sometimes made to work on state fields. Third, for all the physical punishment of convicts, the notion of rehabilitation appears to have been part of the ethos of both the caliphal state and the caliphal slaveholders.

http://www.openbookpublishers.com/htmlreader/978-1-78374-062-8/10.Salau.xhtml

[size=18pt]Convict labour under colonial rule[/size]

After the British conquest in 1897-1903, the state established new prisons and maintained some old ones.33 The vast majority of the current prisons in Northern Nigeria, such as the Kano central prison and the Kazaure central prison, were built during the colonial era.34 The colonial government saw to it that agriculture emerged as the most important economic activity. This was due to several factors, of which the most prominent were: the growing demand for raw materials like cotton, rubber, groundnuts, palm oil and palm kernel by British industries; the need to make Britain independent of America for its raw cotton; and the need to generate revenue for the administration of the protectorate/colony.35 Given that colonial economic activities were mainly directed towards satisfying these needs, it is not surprising that the focus of agricultural production was on cash crop cultivation.36 The state and European firms provided seeds and employed other strategies to encourage owners of small farms to produce mainly groundnuts and cotton.37 Slave labour on plantations was instrumental to the expansion of groundnut production, as evidenced by the contribution of the royal estate in Fanisau to its development in Kano.38

In addition to encouraging the production of cash crops on small holdings and plantations, the state initiated agricultural experimental centres in prisons so as to help determine whether specific regions in Northern Nigeria were suitable for growing specific cash crops. These centres were often located on prison “farmlands,” which were also responsible for the production of food.39 The prison farmlands varied in size, but in general they occupied public land or land owned by the government, rather than land rented, purchased or borrowed.40 Because of that, the prison farmlands did not face significant obstacles in terms of land use. Consequently, colonial prison administrators could increase the acreage under cultivation at any point and locate farmlands either “on the ground in the immediate vicinity of gaol[s]” or elsewhere.41 In one report, it was proposed to move a farmland to an area relatively distant from the prison because “The ground in the immediate vicinity of the gaol is not suitable for farming purposes, the ground being very stony, and the crops were not successful”.42
The evidence discovered among the documents we digitised suggests that, unlike the use of convict labourers for food production, their use in cash crop production was not practised in all the prison farmlands that existed in early colonial Northern Nigeria. Specifically, it suggests that the use of these labourers in cash crop production was limited to several areas in Northern Nigeria including Zungeru, Lokoja, Niger Province, Kabba Province and Nassarawa Province. In these areas, convicts cultivated cash crops that were important both in Europe and also locally. Thus, in Nassarawa Province, convicts cultivated soya beans as well as the Nyasaland and Ilushi types of cotton; in Niger Province, convicts cultivated cotton; in Kabba, convicts cultivated cotton and soya beans; in Zungeru, convicts cultivated ceara rubber and sisal hemp; and in Lokoja, convicts cultivated cocoa and kola.43 Outside the actual cultivation of cash crops by convicts in these regions, there is evidence that the Director of Agriculture advocated the experiment of growing wattle in Zaria Province in 1913, although we do not know whether or not this experiment was conducted.44
Although data on the quantity of cash crops produced by convicts are lacking for almost all the regions mentioned above, we do have documents indicating that ten acres of cotton were cultivated in Nassarawa in 1911 and that 150 lbs of cotton were picked in Niger Province in 1911 (Fig. 10.6).45
Given this available data, and the fact that convicts represented a small percentage of the colonial workforce, one can assume that the cash crops produced by convicts were generally of little quantitative importance.46 On the other hand, the experimental cash crop cultivation on prison farmlands, whether successful or unsuccessful, helped to determine whether the soil and climate of specific regions were suitable for the cultivation of specific cash crops.47 Accordingly, this experimental cultivation must have been one of the factors that helped to foster the expansion of cash crop production in early colonial Northern Nigeria.
The work done by the prisoners employed in farming was considered “light” in comparison to the work prisoners did elsewhere.48 Although farm work was ideally meant only for convicts certified as medically unfit for hard labour, there is evidence that convicts employed for “hard” or non-agricultural work were sometimes also employed for farming.49 The working day could start from 6am-12pm and finish between 2pm-5.15pm, six days per week.50 Sometimes non-convicts assisted convicts in work on prison farmlands. In Niger Province in 1911, for instance, “Two acres of land were planted on July 4th with cotton and on December 13th the first picking was done by some of the Resident’s staff. All the labour other than the actual picking, was carried out by prisoners”.51

there were prisons every where there was aking, it is called "tubu" or ewon in Yorubaland.

The irony here is that the jihad of Uthman Don Fodio against the Hausa kingdom was succesful in part because he condemned the enslavement of fellow muslims and from there was able to recruit more and more slaves into his jihadist quest to unsurp their Hausa oppresors.

Once the Sokoto Caliphate had been established by Don Fodio, slavery did not reduce but became more institutionalized in the north.

After the British conquest in 1897-1903, the state established new prisons and maintained some old ones.33 The vast majority of the current prisons in Northern Nigeria, such as the Kano central prison and the Kazaure central prison, were built during the colonial era.34 The colonial government saw to it that agriculture emerged as the most important economic activity. This was due to several factors, of which the most prominent were: the growing demand for raw materials like cotton, rubber, groundnuts, palm oil and palm kernel by British industries; the need to make Britain independent of America for its raw cotton; and the need to generate revenue for the administration of the protectorate/ colony.35 Given that colonial economic activities were mainly directed towards satisfying these needs, it is not surprising that the focus of agricultural production was on cash crop cultivation.36 The state and European firms provided seeds and employed other strategies to encourage owners of small farms to produce mainly groundnuts and cotton.37 Slave labour on plantations was instrumental to the expansion of groundnut production, as evidenced by the contribution of the royal estate in Fanisau to its development in Kano.38 I like this part.

Remii:
there were prisons every where there was aking, it is called "tubu" or ewon in Yorubaland.

Ewon is chain

Tubu is cell.

9jacrip:


Ewon is chain

Tububis cell.

Ewon is chain, Ewon is prison, Ewon is bondage. Yoruba newscasters call Ilesa Prison as "Ogba ewon Ilesa" Yoruba words have several meaning. Let us not derail this trend.

Hypocritical and malleable moral principles of the colonialists on slavery

In addition, the colonial regimes turned to justifying slavery in West Africa. In a striking change of attitude, the imperial agents of European powers changed their approach to slavery once they had gained power. Even E. D. Morel, later known for his courageous
critique of King Leopold’s violent regime in Congo, underwent a sudden change from his 1895 condemnation of slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate to his 1900 justification of slavery as a natural and benign institution in African society.

http://www.aehnetwork.org/content/textbook/Manning.Slavery-and-Slave-Trade-in-West-Africa-1450-1930.pdf

9jacrip:


Ewon is chain

Tububis cell.

Ewon is also prison

When Mungo Park visited Kano for the first time he was highly dissapointed at what he saw.

He had heard stories of a vibrant and great city at the heart of western Sudan (present day northern Nigeria) known as Kano and thus decieded to visit it .

When he got there he estimated the city's population of no more than 30,000 with two-thirds of that being slaves held in the slave markets and dungeons.

The vast majority of present day peoples claiming Hausas in the north are descendants of these slaves captured from the middle belt.

This is why their over lords do not give a rat's ass on their almajiri constituency after all they are slaves.

Hmm! Northern history. Interesting! I think prison system was also in existence in the SouthWest before Colo masters came. Ops! Give us pictures na.

Remii:


Ewon is chain, Ewon is prison, Ewon is bondage. Yoruba newscasters call Ilesa Prison as "Ogba ewon Ilesa" Yoruba words have several meaning. Let us not derail this trend.

FOLYKAZE:

Ewon is also prison

In modern times, yes ewon evolved into prison.

Originally, ewon was solely for chain either in its used form of bondage or unused form.

bump