The Slave and the Scholar: Representing Africa in the World from Early Modern Tripoli to Borno (N. Nigeria)

What is it about?

The Borno sultanate, in present-day Nigeria, was indeed a global empire in the Early Modern period. Sahelian pilgrims, North African scholars, European slaves, Saharian nomads and Turkish mercenaries would travel to its capital, connecting it with West Africa, the Mediterranean World and the Middle East. However, how gauge Borno's integration in the global Early Modern world from a plural perspective, both from the inside and the outside? Using the narratives of Aḥmad b. Furṭū, a sixteenth century Borno scholar living in the sultan’s court, and of Pierre Girard, a French slave in seventeenth century Tripoli, Libya, I will question the idea of globality according to a Borno-centered representation of the world. The mental mapping of their narratives challenges then a yet unanswered question in the field of early modern history: How can we conceive global history from an African point of view?

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