Land tenure in the Sokoto sultanate of Nigeria.

摘要

This work is intended as a contribution to the social and economic history of the Sokoto-Rima basin and more broadly on the history of the Sokoto Caliphate which occupied the territory of Northern Nigeria and beyond. It focuses on the control, accessibility, ownership, and transfer of proprietary and usufructuary rights in land tenure under the Sokoto Caliphate and the colonial state.;The writings of the Sokoto triumvirate which created the caliphate, the colonial administrators' reports and the reports of the Northern Nigerian Lands Committee of 1910 provided the primary sources and paradigms which explained the way land tenure was organised under the Maliki law in the precolonial period and how far it changed during the colonial era. On the whole, control of land use and ownership was essential to the consolidation and cohesion of both the caliphate and the colonial states.;Oral data showed further evidence of concentration of considerable holdings of land by the aristocracy under the caliphate state which led to the establishment of numerous slave estates that continued to exist up to the time of colonial rule. It is suggested in the study that the founding of Sokoto and ribat settlements was strongly influenced by the nature of the caliphate land tenure.;The reign of Sultan Bello was one of the critical periods in which there was steady expansion of land use. The control of land matters ceased to be effective after 1837, mainly due to the lack of enforcement of land tenure regulations by the successors of Bello. The result was the advent of complex absentee ownership and tenant farming which became pervasive after the turn of the century.;Under the Caliphate state, land tenure was related to exemption from taxation in Sokoto, while under the colonial state, land tenure was tied to taxation, slavery and agriculture. However, ownership of private estates, smallholdings, and inheritance laws were less affected. There were intricacies in the relationship of women and land tenure in Sokoto because women did not control their holdings directly. Women owned and used land, but their role in agricultural production was certainly far less important than that of men.