Dorugu Kwage Adam's Memoirs: Jihad and Slavery in Central Sudan in the Nineteenth Century

This paper will focus on the memoirs of Dorugu Kwage Adam, a Hausa from Damagaram born in the nineteenth century of freeborn parents. Originally published in 1886 by Jacob Friedrich Schon under the title Magana Hausa while Dorugu was still alive, the memoirs were then republished at the turn of the twentieth century by Tony Kirk-Greene and Paul Newman. While Dorugu's memoirs significantly describe his life in Central Sudan as a freeman and a slave during the middle of the nineteenth century, the second edition by Kirk-Greene and Newman also compared some of his statements with those made by Heinrich Barth, a contemporary European explorer who he served in the period between 1850 and 1855. Despite the comparisons of Kirk-Greene and Newman, however, there is still no comprehensive study on how Dorugu's memories of slavery contrast with not only Barth's relevant account but also with public memory of slavery in the Central Sudan. This is the aim of my proposed paper. By subjecting three different memories of slavery (public memory, Barth's memory and Dorugu's memory) to detailed analysis, I hope to demonstrate that although the various accounts agree on certain issues, Dorugu's account significantly supports revisionist interpretations on the nature of slavery in Central Sudan.