Futa-jallon

Collaboration with HopelessPandora 


 Yauri                  Zamfara             Kebbi and Gwari                    Gobir, Katsina and Zaria          Fulani-Kontagora

Daura               Fulani-Wodaabe               Fulani-Fula          Hausa-Kano    Kanuri

Nupe          Jukun      Ngas       Igala

SOUTHEAST NIGERIA
Fon           Hausa-Zinder    Fulani-Toucouleur     Fulani-Massina       Futa-Toro

 Kanem     Bornu

Tribes side by side 

Blood of the Kingdoms story featuring all the characters

Government history

Sokoto Caliphate

Ijaw-Itsekiri Conflicts

End of the Aro Confederacy

Famous Individuals and Groups

Queen Amina 

Queen Nzinga


Religious Matters

Ekwensu

Anyanwu and Agbala

Ahia and Menri

Chukwu and the Alusi

Nimu Kwome

Maps

West Africa in 1050 CE by upvoteanthology

West Africa in 1100 CE by upvoteanthology


Disclaimer: This telling of history will be using the format seen in Axis Powers Hetalia as a method to allow a wider audience access to knowledge of this particular tribal subgroup. For this case, we have a non-Nigeria based variant of the Fulani which ties into the overall story of the Fulani jihads.

Jallon and his siblings once resided in present-day Algeria in 6000BCE where their sense of identity was developed at Tassili n'Ajjer. The Fulani siblings, comprised of Wodaabe, Fula, Ilorin, Jallon, Kontagora, Toro, Massina and Toucouleur lived with many other tribes in the North of Africa during the ancient years during what was known as the Green Sahara period. When the northern part of the Sahara was a lush Green vibrant landscape where the Fulani shared the landscape with Ateria and Capsia along with their Berber childreb. The prehistoric northern region of the Sahara unbeknownst to the Northern tribes was undergoing a form of climate change, desertification. By 3000 BCE the Sahara desert pushed up North right to the edge of North Africa, forcing away the wildlife, which included a variety of Savannah animals to wherever they could find lush greens. The Kingdoms and cultures of Ateria and Capsia collapsed, leaving only the Fulani siblings and Berbers to manage the area. The siblings maintained peace with the Berbers during this period preferring to continuously roam as nomadic herdsmen. 

This would continue until 600BCE when Carthage established a presence in North Africa followed by many Mediterranean civilizations making their footholds in the African region and mixing with some of the Berbers. Carthage engaged in trade with the Berbers and the Fulani but would often enslave the Berbers during this time period. During the first of the Punic War the Berbers and the Fulani made up the bulk of the Carthaginian forces. Later Berber and Fulani would rebel, crippling Carthage and continuously sabotaging their attempts to maintain order during the rest of the Punic Wars. When Carthage fell in 146BCE, the Berbers and the Fulani were under the impression that the Roman Empire would leave them be, however Rome put them under his territory in the process, but two Berber kingdoms were allowed to flourish. The Fulani and the rest of the Berbers would form the breadbasket of the Roman Empire for several centuries and even after the Roman Empire fell, the Byzantine Empire did its best to maintain control of the Algerian region after the Vandal civilization moved in to replace the Roman one. The Fulani siblings left Algeria during the 6th century, escaping Byzantine rule a century before the Muslim Conquests, as they resisted the constant attempts at conversion to Christianity by both Rome and Byzantine.

The Fulani were now wandering the very desert that had destroyed their ancient civilizations thousands of years prior and their path took them into West Africa. However they would not settle in one place for long, continuously wandering and engaging in trade with the various tribes. One of the things that the Fulani, Wodaabe in particular had going for them, were a breed of the exotic Zebu cattle, a breed of cattle that originated in the Indian region but due to centuries of trade the Fulani had bred their own variant of the cattle. As their herds increased through the centuries the siblings had to split up and find new regions to settle, learning the tongues and cultures of the Sub-saharan africans, a world away from the Berbers, Romans, Greeks, Egyptians and Phoenicians that they once knew. 

Like the other Fulbe, Jallon initially arrived in what would become Northern Nigeria and Niger before moving on. Moving further than some of his siblings he happened upon a land of stepped sandstone plateaus with many picturesque trenches and gorges, the region serving as the watershed for some of western Africa’s greatest rivers. In fact, Jallon had located the source of the Niger River itself. The region was too rich to continue a nomadic lifestyle and by the 13th century, Jallon settled in what would become West-Central Guinea. He initially met with confrontation from the Kingdom of Waalo but was able to make peaceful arrangements. 

Around the turn of the 15th century Jallon had a son named Denanke. Denanke resisted the idea of staying in the basin and wanted to establish a proper kingdom of their own. After multiple disagreements with their 'parent', Denanke left for upper Senegal area, having been swayed by an influential Fula tribesman named Mansa Tenguella managed to amass a large army and to the shock of the Fula world, successfully attack the Mali Empire. 

For the first 2 centuries Jallon and his brother Toro would take advantage of the basin of the Niger river and making sure that they were initially too valuable to be attacked by the nieghbouring kingdoms that had arisen in the meantime. Particulary of note was the Mali Empire previously mentioned, which during their entry into the land was a very powerful empire. However things were about to change with the rise of the Songhai empire, this reduced stability in the region as  a lot of Kingdoms rose up as Mali's grip over the Senegambia region weakened and Toro and Jallon found themselves surrounded by new kingdoms that fought for their independence to have their own lands. Those kingdoms that surrounded them were the Kingdom of Jolof ruled by Serer-Jolof and her son Serer-Kayor and Serer-Baol (1549), Mandinka-Kaabu (1537). What prevented further altercations from occuring however was the shadow of the Songhai who grew more powerful than the Mali Empire ever did. In addition Denanke's actions provided a distraction by foolishly attacking Songhai in 1512 and his army getting crushed. Jallon chose not to interfere as his offspring made repeated failed attacks at the Songhai empire.  Towards the mid 16th century at this time his sister Fulani-Massina came to introduce Islam to Jallon. He readily accepted as Islam was a method of protection from invasion by Songhai who was not too pleased after all of Denanke's attacks. However this soon began to stir tension within the Fulbe community, some wanted to keep the traditional religion, whilst a growing number were accepting Islam. This however did not stop them from participating and profiting greatly from the new African slave trade that brought them a lot of revenue from Portugal. 

However, Jallon and Toro lost their protection thanks to Morocco at the end of the 16th century. For context at this time Morocco was left destitute after repelling Portugal after the battle of Alcacer Quibir. Morocco desired Songhai's wealth and sent an army led by Judar Pasha. Whilst Songhai did indeed outnumber Morocco's forces, the technology gap was greater and thus Morocco crushed Songhai's empire, but it left Morocco even more destitute in the process and weak enough for Portugal and Spain to swoop in and take over his territories. By the 1600 all that left of Songhai was his son Dendi, who would never reach the heights that Songhai had, even after revolutions and revolts that occured in the region that would become Nigeria and Niger. This meant that the Serer family of tribes and the Mandinka families could fully turn their attention to Jallon. Toro on the other hand, had moved out of the region further up north to richer pastures and out of reach from these kingdoms except for Waalo. Simultaneously it allowed Toro to keep an eye on Denanke who had ceased their grand ambitions after seeing the decimation of the Songhai empire.

The biggest fallout from the fall of the Songhai empire was the rise of roving bands of warlords, the Berber tribes especially managed to harass various small states and kingdoms, further destabilizing the region and creation tension even within Jallon's own people. This caused the religious rift within the Jallon Fulbe to finally break loose with a civil war occuring in the region, but Jallon sided with his Muslim bretheren and crushed the traditionalists, cementing Islam as his official religion. However the destability caused from all this prevented a concrete kingdom from being formed until 1725 with the Battle of Talansan in 1725. This ended in Jallon's victory and starting his own strong Immammate. This raised the ire of all the neighbouring kingdoms and they got ready for war and all were prepared to crush Jallon. 

What initially saved Jallon from this were events that occured in the 1680s amongst the Serer groups. Further remnants of the Songhai fallout involved constant invasion by Mauretanians towards Serer-Jolof. While she repelled them each time this was leading to a military attrition. This situation meant Serer's sons had turned against her and destabilized her own kingdom so that they could support their own, and in the result, the two brothers constantly warred with each other in order to gain full dominance. Jallon's control of the agricultural basin during drought periods also made Jallon too valuable to conquer and he was able to extort great trade prices from the warring brothers. One further threat to Jallon came from Jallon's own son, Denanke, who had sided with the traditionalist view of the Fula people. Denanke in 1776 was prepared to make war with Jallon with the assistance of Jolof and Kaabu. However thanks to a missive from Jallon, Toro stepped in and destroyed Denanke, erasing his presence in history and allowing the mostly passive Futa Toro to begin his own Immammate. 

Jallon needed to make sure that Toro had stability in his region, so he needed assistance from another Fula family member, that being Toucouleur. Toucouleur went to reside at Toro's kingdom to provide a strong military backbone to prevent the new empires in Toro's region such as the Bambara Empire, from invading Toro's fledgling kingdom. This was fortunate was Serer-Kayor had finally turned away from fighting his sibling and taking on Toro in 1780. While he was able to defeat Toro, Toucouleur's bolstering meant that Toro was not left destitute. Seeing that Toro was protected Jallon's thoughts turned to breaking his enemies. However there was a trade partner whose presence was looming on the horizon that was thinking of conquest of his own. That trade partner was France. 

Jallon and France had been getting along for decades, and Jallon's lands were extremely attractive for trade and French documents from the time show that Jallon was a prefered trading spot in the region. But this relationship came to a head once Toucouleur left Toro in 1818 to found her own Empire by conquering the Bambala empire. Without Toucouleur around Toro found himself increasingly pressured by France's influence to the point where the two came to battle in 1861 with Toro becoming a vassal of the French Empire as a result. A year later, Toucouleur found herself inspired by Fulani-Fula's success in conquering the Hausa regions of Nigeria and establishing her own Empire and the success of her other sister Massina. Toucouleur desired her sister's lands and thus went to war in 1862 and defeated her sister and incorporated her lands. Then Toucouleur then went after a Mandinka family member called Mandinka-Wassoulou and decimated his kingdom, embittering him to the Fula people in general. 

Unable to trust his family Jallon needed to expand quickly to make sure he would not be an attractive prospect for conquest. His first target, his old enemy, Mandinka-Kaabu. In 1865 the two met on the fields of Kansala and Jallon ended the last legacy of the Mali Empire. Next to fall was Serer-Jolof in 1875 and her sons Baol and Kayor in 1879. By now Jallon had his own powerful caliphate and now fully controlled the entire region which gave him a full monopoly on trade. Overconfident he decided to increase tariff prices on France, who by this time had been conquering the area around his lands since 1870, forming French West Africa. France, who by this time was listed as the Third French Republic was seeking to recoup the losses of his Empire after the fallout from Napoleon III. 

France was getting tired of the Fulani calling the shots and decided to slowly remove all allies in the region. First was Toucouleur in 1893 and decided to effectively go for Jallon upon word that England was making his own forays against Fulani-Fula and Woodabe, essentially ensuring that Jallon would receive no support from the rest of the Fula. In 1896 France defeated Jallon at the battle of Podeka. This allowed France control of the basin in 1898 and was incorporated in French West Guinea and in 1904 French West Africa

Until 1958 Jallon found himself participating in both world wars and like most of the different tribes across Africa, desired independence from the European colonists. That chance came in 1958. France had been devastated by world war 2 and two other French Colonies, Indochina and Algeria had broken French influence in the region. Charles De Gaulle and France then mandated that France's colonies needed to either be part of a French Commonwealth or they could vote for independence. Jallon, alongside many of the other tribes, cast their vote for independence to form the country of Guinea. 

Jallon and many of the more influential tribes in the region then opted for a communist style of government in the vein of Soviet Russia and even formed an alliance with Russia but later found Maoist China's style of communism much more attractive to their economy. Despite this Guinea managed trade with the NATO-aligned nations. What Jallon found a problem though, was the ruler appointed by Mandinka-Wassoulou named Ahmed Sekou Toure (a descendant of one of his Kings). Toure was a dictator in every sense of the word, ruling Guinea from 1958 to 1984. Jallon and several others tried to get support from Portugal and in 1970 a raid was staged against Toure which was swiftly repelled. Following this Jallon was brutally smacked down and would be jailed until 1984 when Toure died of a heart attack. 

His successor Lansana Conte was a more moderate dictator but Jallon still rebelled in smaller ways, especially as Guinea was suffering from rebel incursions by Liberia and Sierra Leone. After successful protests in 2007 a new prime minister was appointed. 

DISCLAIMER: I will not write further than 2007 as beyond it is still recent memory and not fully history yet. When 2018 comes around I will indeed discuss the 2008 Coup D'etat in Guinea.