Pre-1500 — Ancient settlement#
Nok terracotta culture (c. 1500 BCE – 500 CE) centred on the Jos plateau extends across southern Kaduna (Kagoro, Kafanchan, Jaba). The Nok Culture is the oldest figurative sculpture tradition in sub-Saharan Africa and the oldest evidence of iron-smelting in West Africa. North of the Kaduna River, Hausa walled towns (Zazzau, Kufena, Turunku) take shape between the 11th and 14th centuries.
1500 — 1804 — Pre-colonial polities#
Zazzau (Zaria) is one of the seven Hausa Bakwai. The legendary Queen Amina of Zazzau ♀ (late 16th century) extends Zazzau's military reach to Bauchi, Kano and Nupe — the only Hausa polity ruled by a woman in the classical era; she is credited with the ganuwar Amina (Amina's walls) at Turunku and Zaria. South of the Kaduna River, the Atyap (Kataf), Bajju, Ham (Jaba), Adara (Kadara), Gbagyi, Kagoro, Numana, Kaninkon, Ninzo and dozens of other Plateau-branch peoples live in stateless or small-chiefdom societies, slave-raided by Zazzau but never incorporated.
1804 — 1903 — The long 19th century#
Mallam Musa, a Fulani flag-bearer, deposes the last Habe (Hausa) Sarkin Zazzau Muhammadu Makau in 1808; Makau flees south and founds the Habe Emirate of Abuja (modern Suleja). Zazzau is incorporated into the Sokoto Caliphate as the Zaria Emirate, with the throne rotating among four ruling houses (Mallawa, Bornawa, Sullubawa, Katsinawa). Jema'a Emirate is founded c. 1810 in the southern hills under a Fulani flag-bearer from Bornu. Through the 19th century the Zaria and Jema'a emirates raid the southern Kaduna highlands continuously for slaves — establishing the grievance that the southern Kaduna peoples carry into the 20th and 21st centuries.
The British WAFF takes Zaria in 1902 under Colonel Morland; Kano falls 3 Feb 1903; the Battle of Burmi (27 July 1903) kills the fleeing Sultan Attahiru I. Emir Aliyu dan Sidi of Zazzau (1903–1920) submits and is later deposed by the British in 1920.
1900 — 1960 — Colonial provinces#
Lugard establishes the capital of Northern Nigeria at Zungeru (1902–16), then at Kaduna (April 1916). Kaduna is laid out by Lugard's surveyor Captain F.A. Wilkins as a planned colonial city — racially segregated, with a European GRA, a Native Town and a Sabon Gari for southern Nigerian migrants. From 1954 it is the capital of the Northern Region under Premier Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto — the political and ceremonial capital of the entire North.
1960 — present — State creation chain#
- 1960 — Northern Region (capital Kaduna).
- 27 May 1967 — North-Central State (capital Kaduna), under Gowon's twelve-state structure.
- 3 Feb 1976 — renamed Kaduna State under Murtala's nineteen-state restructure.
- 23 Sep 1987 — Babangida hives off Katsina State from northern Kaduna.
- 1980s–present — chronic Zangon-Kataf, Kafanchan, Kaduna-city and Birnin Gwari communal, sectarian and banditry crises.Northern Abandonment CycleUnprosecuted Massacre Cycle