Pre-1500 — Ancient settlement#
Iron-age Hausa farming communities settle the Hadejia–Jama'are floodplain (the south-western fringe of the Lake Chad basin). The northern dunes of present-day Kazaure, Maigatari and Babura are pastured by Tuareg and proto-Fulani; the Manga (a southern Kanuri-speaking people) settle the Gumel–Hadejia corridor as the western marchland of the Bornu Empire.
1500 — 1804 — Pre-colonial polities#
The walled towns of Auyo, Birnin Kudu, Kazaure, Garki and Hadejia (Biram) flourish as the Banza Bakwai ("bastard seven") Hausa states — the outer ring of the Hausa world, tributary at various times to Kano, Borno or neither. Biram (Hadejia) is counted by some chroniclers among the original Hausa Bakwai as the seat of Bayajidda's eldest son Biram. Gumel is founded c. 1750 by Dan Juma, a Manga noble breaking away from Borno suzerainty. The Hadejia plains pay tribute alternately to Kano (cowries) and Borno (slaves and salt).
1804 — 1903 — The long 19th century#
Sokoto jihad flag-bearers conquer most of the upper Jigawa basin. Hadejia Emirate is founded in 1805 by Sambo dan Salihu under Sokoto authority; Kazaure Emirate in 1818 by Dan Tunku, a Fulani-Tuareg flag-bearer; Dutse and Auyo are absorbed as sub-emirates of Kano. Gumel remains a Manga state, swinging between Borno and Sokoto, repeatedly sacked.
The most serious internal revolt of the Sokoto Caliphate erupts here: Buhari of Hadejia (1848–63), grandson of the founder, repudiates Sokoto's authority, raids Kano caravans, and is killed at Garin Gabas, 1863 after fifteen years of war — the Hadejia Wars. The wars devastate the floodplain, depopulate Auyo and Garki, and entrench slave-raiding as the dominant fiscal practice of the late Caliphate.
Through the 1880s the Hadejia and Kazaure emirates' fiscal base — cowrie tribute denominated in beads-of-account — collapses as British silver shilling and the new Maria Theresa thaler displace the cowrie in long-distance trade. By 1898 the emirates are nearly bankrupt. See How the currency fell before the flag.
1900 — 1960 — Colonial provinces#
Kano Province (1900) within Northern Nigeria. British conquest of Kano on 3 February 1903 (Battle of Kotorkoshi); Hadejia Expedition (April 1906) crushes the last Hadejia resistance under Muhammadu Mai-Shahada. The Hadejia, Kazaure, Gumel and Dutse emirates are reduced to Native Authorities under the Kano Resident, their treasuries (Beit-el-mal) audited by British Assistant District Officers from 1908.
The 1929 Hadejia–Auyo tax protests — peasant refusals to pay the new colonial direct tax in cowrie-to-shilling conversion — are crushed without bloodshed but produce the first Northern petition to the Lieutenant-Governor against the Native Authority system.
1960 — present — State creation chain#
- 1960 — Northern Region.
- 1967 — Kano State (Gowon's twelve-state structure).
- 27 Aug 1991 — Jigawa State carved out of northern Kano by Babangida; capital at Dutse, 27 LGAs, foundation Governor Col. Hamza Ahmed.
- 1996 — boundary with Yobe finalised after the Hadejia–Nguru Ramsar wetlands dispute.