Era
The Geledi Sultanate on the Shabeelle, 1800s
The Geledi Sultanate was a Somali state on the Shabeelle river, centred on Geledi, today's Afgooye. Under Sultan Yuusuf Maxamuud in the 1840s it ruled much of the land between the Shabeelle and the Jubba, grew grain and kept large herds that fed Mogadishu, and taxed every caravan that crossed the river. The French officer Charles Guillain visited it in March 1847 and left the fullest early description.
In short
In the 1800s the richest farmland in Somalia, along the lower Shabeelle river, was ruled from the town of Geledi. Its sultans came from the Gobroon family.
At its height, in the 1840s, Sultan Yuusuf Maxamuud held sway from the Shabeelle to the Jubba, and reached into the coastal towns. The best eyewitness account comes from a French naval officer, Charles Guillain, who spent 8 to 14 March 1847 in Geledi (Guillain, Documents sur l'histoire, la géographie et le commerce de l'Afrique orientale, part 2, vol. 2, 1856, pp. 21–41).
The town in 1847
Geledi stood where the caravan roads from the interior crossed the Shabeelle, about ten hours by camel from Mogadishu. Guillain found three large villages on both banks, with fifteen to eighteen hundred houses between them (same source, p. 22).
The houses were round, with clay walls about two metres high and thatched conical roofs. Guillain found them cooler than his own tent, and moved into them in the heat of the day (pp. 22–24).
He estimated about 6,000 people in the three villages, in a territory of fifteen villages. He found the people "cheerful, lively, but gentle", and known as brave in war (pp. 33–34).
Grain, herds and honey
The Shabeelle flooded each rainy season and left rich soil behind. Guillain wrote that millet was "the special product of the place". It fed Geledi and Mogadishu, and much more was exported, carried to the coast in leather sacks on camels (pp. 28–31).
He saw "countless herds of camels, cattle, donkeys, sheep and goats" covering the riverbanks (p. 30). Each year Geledi sent Mogadishu 300 to 400 measures of ghee and 200 of tallow. Farmers hung hollow log hives in the riverside trees to gather honey (p. 31).
Sultan Yuusuf Maxamuud
Guillain wrote down the sultan's line from the founder of his family: "Youceuf, son of Mahhmoud, son of Adira…", fourteen generations back to Gobroon (pp. 35–36). Yuusuf had inherited only the title of sheikh of the Gobroon. Guillain says he owed his wider power "to his skill and his energy" (p. 34).
The British officer Lieutenant Christopher, who visited before Guillain, described him as tall, about forty-five, dressed in a long white cloth, carrying a small spear (quoted on pp. 34–35). His brothers Ibraahim and Muuse helped him govern and went with him to war.
Guillain also described the people's looks in the racial terms of his time. He wrote that the Somali of the north "surpasses" the Somali of Geledi in skin colour and features, the latter being "blacker", with thicker lips and flatter noses; only in a few leading families did he see reddish skin and aquiline noses (p. 33). He called Ibraahim "the man of government" with a profile showing "the spirit of intrigue and cunning", and Muuse "a handsome man" of gentle look (p. 36).
Yuusuf wrote to the French in Arabic. One letter opens: "In the name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate; from Sultan Yuusuf, son of Sultan Maxamuud…" (p. 7).
Power on the coast
Geledi's reach went beyond the river.
- Tolls. Every caravan between Mogadishu and the lands of the Jubba crossed at Geledi and paid a transit duty to the sultan (p. 41). Guillain later records a toll of three piastres per loaded camel (same volume, p. 148).
- Mogadishu. In 1842 Yuusuf came to Mogadishu to mediate a dispute between its two quarters, Xamarweyne and Shingaani. Christopher reports him saying of the town: "Is this city not mine?" (pp. 39–40).
- Barawa. When Barawa fell under the control of Bardera around 1840, its people sent a delegation and a gift of 200 piastres to Yuusuf, and asked for his help to restore their old ways (p. 38).
The war with Bardera
In the 1830s and 1840s a religious reform movement based at Bardera, on the Jubba, spread across the south. Guillain records that it banned tobacco and dancing and required women to veil (pp. 36–38). He called its leader "an enraged puritan, a great reformer" and its rule "intolerance and fanaticism", which he said most local people did not accept (pp. 36–37).
Yuusuf stood for the older customs. Guillain writes that he had on his side every community "not directly within reach" of his rival. After "a series of hard-fought battles", Yuusuf won (p. 39). When Guillain arrived, he was gathering men at Dafeed for a campaign against Merca.
Who suffered?
Guillain records the battles of the 1840s in Barawa, Bardera and the Shabeelle valley (pp. 38–39). Guillain also records that farm work in Geledi was done by enslaved people, most brought from Zanzibar (p. 28).
After 1847
In 1894 Italy signed a protection treaty with "Gheledi e Nadan", dated 3 November 1894 (Hertslet, The Map of Africa by Treaty, 1909, vol. 3, p. 1086). A British War Office handbook of 1907 still called Geledi "especially worthy of mention": Mogadishu drew "all its supplies" from its district (Official History of the Operations in Somaliland, vol. 1, 1907, p. 25).
Sources differ
- The date of Christopher's visit. Guillain dates it to 1845. Christopher's own report was published in London in 1844, so his visit was probably earlier.
- How the Bardera war ended. Guillain gives no date.
Read the primary sources yourself
Sources
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