The Battle of Tabkin Kwotto

In February 1804, Usman dan Fodio ﵀ left the city of Degel with his followers. Sultan Yunfa of Gobir had declared the jama’a his enemy and cut off its freedom of movement. The Shehu moved with his brother Abdullahi dan Fodio ﵀, his son Muhammad Bello ﵀, and hundreds of households to Gudu, a place on the western edge of Gobir.

For Usman dan Fodio ﵀ this journey was a Hijrah, a withdrawal of religious meaning, not merely a flight. At Gudu he was proclaimed Amir al-Mu’minin by the jama’a. From that moment the breach with Gobir was final.

Yunfa sent successive patrols to harass the jama’a. Cattle were stolen, supplies plundered, small groups taken captive. In the months between February and June the conviction grew that a great clash was unavoidable.

When Yunfa heard that the jama’a was moving eastward toward the lakes near Tabkin Kwotto, he assembled his cavalry. Warriors of allies among the Tuareg and the Sullubawa joined him. The Gobir army was numerous, mounted, and equipped for the open plain.

On the morning of 21 June 1804, the scouts of the jama’a saw the dust of the Gobir cavalry on the horizon. Tabkin Kwotto, a shallow lake, lay at the back of the jama’a. The space ahead was open plain, perfect for cavalry.

Abdullahi dan Fodio ﵀ and Umaru al-Kammu, the two field commanders, chose not a front line but a square. The Fulani warriors stood on four sides, with the archers at the corners and the spearmen behind them. In the middle were the non-combatants and the small reserve mount.

The choice of the square was no Arab tactic and no Hausa tactic. It came from a simple calculation: a smaller force could not afford to be flanked. A square has no flank.

The Fulani were known for their bows. They drew up so that arrows from each side of the square could leave at the same time. The archers rotated in layers, so that the shooting was continuous, not in volleys.

When the Gobir cavalry first caught sight of the formation, it slowed. A square on a plain is a curious target. Not running, not fleeing, not vulnerable in the flank. Yunfa’s commanders deliberated briefly and chose to attack all the same.

The first Gobir charge came head-on. A line of horsemen rode at full gallop against the north side of the square. Their lances were low, their shields high. Behind them came a second wave in close formation.

The Fulani archers waited. Abdullahi dan Fodio ﵀ had ordered them not to shoot before the riders were within fifty paces. On flat ground that is a distance of a few seconds at full gallop.

When the distance was reached, the rain of arrows came. A square of five hundred men of which two hundred were archers yields a density of fire that few West African battlefields had seen before. The front rank of Gobir horses crashed down. The second wave rode over the fallen, lost its rhythm, and splintered against the spearmen of the square.

The north side of the square did not bend. The Fulani spearmen stood in two rows, with the spear shaft braced obliquely against the ground. The Gobir horses that ran into the spears overturned. Their riders fell between the square and the fallen vanguard.

The first charge broke on the north side. The Gobir officers called their men back and regrouped for a second attack, this time along the eastern flank.

The second Gobir charge came over the eastern flank. At its head rode an armored captain, an officer of Yunfa, recognizable by his chain mail and his plume. In Bello’s Infaq al-Maysur it is written that he was seen by his own men as the man on whom they leaned.

He rode ahead of the second wave, in a gallop that forced his own riders to follow. His horse was heavily equipped, his lance long. He came within bow range of the eastern side of the square.

A Fulani archer, in the corner between the north side and the east side, shot. The arrow struck the horse, not the man. The horse crashed sideways. The captain rolled on the ground, lost his lance, half rose. Before he could draw his sword, two spearmen of the square reached him.

He fell not far from the square. His fall was visible to his own riders. The second wave, which rode on his speed and his example, slowed of itself. A cavalry without a head is a cavalry that loses its line.

The jama’a called the takbir. The praise was heard along the whole eastern side. On the Gobir side, the officers looked at one another and at the body of their captain. The space between rage and hesitation, between attack and retreat, opened up.

With their captain fallen and their rhythm broken, the Gobir cavalry lost its cohesion. Riders turned their horses in opposing directions. Some attempted a third charge, individually, and were shot from the saddle by the archers of the square. Most rode north, back toward Alkalawa.

Abdullahi dan Fodio ﵀ ordered the square not to break. A square that opens to pursue opens its flanks. The Gobir warriors who still wandered around the square were kept under fire until they too gave way.

Only when the field was empty of organized resistance did Abdullahi give the order to advance. The jama’a gathered its wounded, killed no remaining wounded Gobir warriors who surrendered, and remained on the spot through the night.

For Yunfa the news was a shock. He had committed his best cavalry, with numerical superiority, on terrain that favored them. He had lost to an enemy without horses and without a fortress, with only a square and bows.

The news traveled faster than the survivors. Before the end of the week it had spread from Kebbi to Zamfara.

What changed at Tabkin Kwotto was not the count of the dead. It was the movement that set in afterward.

In the weeks following the battle, delegations from neighboring Hausa states came to Gudu and to the jama’a. Warriors from Kebbi, from Zamfara, from smaller territories that had suffered under Gobir, joined them. The Tuareg, who before the battle had stood at Yunfa’s side, kept their distance. A number actually went over to the jama’a.

For Usman dan Fodio ﵀, this influx was confirmation that the struggle would not remain confined to Gobir. What had begun as a conflict between a sultan and a scholar now became a movement that stretched across half a dozen territories. The conditions for a caliphate began to take shape, although the name Sokoto came only later.

For Yunfa the battle was a warning he did not read. Instead of seeking peace, he reinforced Alkalawa and prepared for a long war. The war he chose would become his own end.

Tabkin Kwotto was no end. It was a beginning. Between 1804 and 1808 there would follow three failed assaults on Alkalawa, before the city fell in October 1808.