Kingdom of Bagirmi

Kingdom of Bagirmi, historic African state founded in the 16th century in the region just southeast of Lake Chad. Europeans first learned about the existence of Bagirmi and the other powerful states of central Africa (Wadai Bornu-Kanem) when Dixon Denham penetrated the Lake Chad region in 1823. Details became known particularly from written records of the later explorers Heinrich Barth and Gustav Nachtigal.

The Bagirmi dynasty appears to have been established in 1522. The Bagirmi king, called the mbang, ruled from the capital city of Massenya. The rulers as well as many of their followers accepted Islam during the reign of the fourth sultan, Abdullah (c. 1600). The 17th century brought prosperity as a result of the slave trade. Bagirmi became a pawn in the conflicts between the rival empires of Bornu to the west and Wadai to the east. A vassal of Bornu in the 17th and 18th centuries, it fell to Wadai early in the 19th century and was repeatedly sacked by and forced to pay tribute to both states. Drought and the persecution of Muslim teachers promoted substantial migration out of Bagirmi in the 19th century. Nonetheless, it was an important commercial and craft centre in the first half of the 19th century, exporting locally woven and dyed cloths and non-Muslim slaves. In 1894 Massenya was destroyed by the army of the adventurer Rābiḥ az-Zubayr. A series of treaties in the late 19th and early 20th centuries brought the territory under French control.