The Majeerteen and Hobyo sultanates, 1700s–1927

In short

In the 1800s two Somali kingdoms ruled the north-east coast. The Majeerteen Sultanate held the Horn itself, from the Gulf of Aden round Cape Guardafui. The Sultanate of Hobyo held the Indian Ocean coast to the south.

Both signed treaties with Italy in 1889 and kept governing themselves for over thirty years. Italy ended both by military force between 1925 and 1927.

The Majeerteen Sultanate

The Library of Congress dates the Majeerteen Sultanate to the mid-1700s. It "came into its own" in the 1800s under Boqor Cismaan Maxamuud (Library of Congress, Somalia: A Country Study).

It grew rich on "a liberal trade policy that facilitated a flourishing commerce in livestock, ostrich feathers, and gum arabic" (same source). The Boqor lived at Bargal, near Cape Guardafui. An Italian survey of the early 1920s found it a town of about 600 people, with four stone forts, the sultan's house and sixteen other stone buildings (La Migiurtinia ed il territorio del Nogal, Regio Governo della Somalia Italiana, c. 1926).

Britain and the shipwrecked sailors

The Horn was a dangerous coast for steamships. In 1862 the Majeerteen agreed with Britain to protect the lives of shipwrecked sailors (Official History of the Operations in Somaliland, 1901–04, War Office, 1907, vol. 1, p. 46).

The agreement was renewed in 1879 and on 1 May 1885. Britain paid 360 dollars a year to the Majeerteen sultan and to Yuusuf Cali at Alula (same source). The Library of Congress says the sultan acknowledged "a vague vassalage to the British" but kept his kingdom free (Library of Congress).

Yuusuf Cali Keenadiid and the founding of Hobyo

Yuusuf Cali Keenadiid was a kinsman of Boqor Cismaan. The British War Office records that, as governor of Alula, he "fought for several years" against Boqor Cismaan, and made peace with him in 1884 (Official History, vol. 1, p. 132).

He then turned south. The same source says he took Hobyo with about fifty matchlock men and held it against an attempt to remove him in 1885. The Library of Congress adds that he had gone into exile in Arabia and came back in the 1870s with "a score of Hadhrami musketeers" (Library of Congress).

From Hobyo he extended his rule inland, to the wells of Galkayo in Mudug, where he built a small fort (Official History, vol. 1, p. 132).

The 1889 treaties with Italy

On 8 February 1889 an Italian warship raised the Italian flag at Hobyo, under a treaty with the Sultan (Hertslet, The Map of Africa by Treaty, 1909, vol. 3, No. 348, p. 1123). In May, Italy set its limits from Warsheikh to Cape Awad.

On 7 April 1889, at Bender Alula, Boqor Cismaan signed his treaty with Italy (Hertslet 1909, vol. 3, No. 346, p. 1119):

"We, Sultan Osman Mahmud Jusuf, Sultan of all the Migertini, have of our own free will put to this Act our hand and seal."

He placed his country "from Ras Auad to Ras-el-Kyle" under Italian protection. He promised to make no treaties with other powers. Yuusuf Cali signed as a witness (same source). The land between the two sultanates, which both claimed, also passed under Italian protection with "the consent of the two Sultans" (same source, No. 349).

Protection, not rule

For three decades, Italy's protection meant little on land. The War Office wrote in 1906 that Italy's relations with the two sultans were "limited to the payment of an annual subsidy" (Official History, vol. 1, p. 42). Italy paid 3,600 thalers a year to the two sultans (Hertslet, vol. 3).

The Italian government's own survey admits that its protectorate was "more nominal than effective" in the years after 1889 (La Migiurtinia, ch. X). It records that Boqor Cismaan even offered his protectorate to France and Germany. A new convention, signed on 18 August 1901, renewed the agreement (same source; Hertslet vol. 3).

Between Britain and the Dervishes

In January 1903 a British force landed at Hobyo to march against the Dervishes. The British accused Yuusuf Cali of obstructing them, removed him and his son to Aden, and Italy sent them into exile in Eritrea (Official History, vol. 1, pp. 132–133).

In May 1903 Italy brought back his son, Cali Yuusuf, as sultan of Hobyo (same source, p. 189). The 1905 Illig agreement then gave the Dervishes the Nugaal valley between the two sultanates. The Majeerteen sultan, the Italian survey records, at first kept friendly terms with the Dervishes, and later fought them (La Migiurtinia, ch. X).

The end, 1925–1927

In the 1920s Italy's fascist government decided to bring the two sultanates under direct rule. Governor Cesare Maria De Vecchi led the campaign (Library of Congress; "Campaign of the Sultanates", Wikipedia).

The occupation began in October 1925. The Italian survey itself records, in a footnote, that Bargal, the Boqor's town, "no longer exists: it was bombarded and razed to the ground on 28 and 29 October 1925" (La Migiurtinia, note to entry 20). Resistance in both sultanates went on into 1927.

Who suffered?

The people of Bargal lost their town. Fighters and families across the Bari and Mudug regions died in the campaign of 1925–1927, and their rulers were removed. No agreed figure for the dead exists in the sources we can link to.

A family that wrote

The house of Hobyo left another mark. In the early 1920s Cismaan Yuusuf Keenadiid, of the Hobyo ruling family, created the Osmanya script for writing Somali. See how Somali came to be written.

Sources differ

• When Hobyo came under Italian protection. The Library of Congress says 1888 (Library of Congress). Italy's own notification gives a treaty and flag-raising on 8 February 1889 (Hertslet, vol. 3, p. 1123).
• When Hobyo was founded. The War Office puts Yuusuf Cali's move to Hobyo after 1884; the Library of Congress says the 1870s.
• The British agreement. The War Office dates the renewal to 1 May 1885; Hertslet dates it to 1 May 1884.

What it moved forward

The two sultanates show that Somalis built states of their own, with rulers, forts, trade and treaties, before any colony. They dealt with Britain and Italy as sovereign partners for forty years. Their story belongs to the long Somali record of self-government.

Read the primary sources yourself

• E. Hertslet, The Map of Africa by Treaty, 3rd ed., 1909, vol. 3, Nos. 346–349 (the 1889 treaties and notifications): full text.
• War Office, Official History of the Operations in Somaliland, 1901–04, 1907, vol. 1: full text.
• Regio Governo della Somalia Italiana, La Migiurtinia ed il territorio del Nogal (in Italian), c. 1926: full text.