Chapter 325: The Policy of Using Barbarians to Control Barbarians

Facts proved that Omar bin Ali was still quite wise.

It was impossible for Spain to let him, the Caliph, go; as long as he was alive, the Sokoto Caliphate would still exist in name.

Once he died, Spain could abolish the title of Caliph and legitimately incorporate Sokoto into its own sphere of rule.

As long as the entirety of Sokoto was incorporated into Spanish colonial rule, Spain, no matter how cruel, would not exterminate the indigenous people of Sokoto.

After all, European countries prided themselves on being representatives of civilization, and surface-level work still had to be done thoroughly. Historically, Belgium did not perform well in this regard, and the final result was forced intervention by the European powers, which prevented Belgium from further damaging the image of European nations.

Some examples can also be seen from Spain's rule over other colonies. The entirety of Spain was filled with anti-Black sentiment, and Black people were the only race that could not obtain Spanish citizenship.

However, Spain did not carry out a genocide-like massacre against Black people; since Carlos's coronation, the total number of Black people massacred by Spain did not exceed one million.

Moreover, much of this so-called massacre was carried out through death by forced labor, which was a common tactic of the great powers and naturally would not be counted as part of a massacre.

The number of people who were truly killed by the sword was probably only a few hundred thousand. This number was not even a fraction of the total indigenous population massacred by Britain and France in their colonies, so it naturally would not attract special attention from European countries.

After Andrew confirmed that Omar bin Ali was indeed the Caliph and that he was dead, he allowed the army to take over the order of Oyo-Ibokho and implement a brief military rule.

Andrew did not execute the Sokoto officials who had already surrendered to the Spanish army; he only ordered the army to keep them under strict guard.

After all, the help of these officials would be needed to take over the order of the entire Sokoto Caliphate, and their assistance would even be needed to rule the whole of Sokoto in the future.

The strategy Spain implemented in its colonies was to use the natives to control the natives. Letting the local indigenous people manage the local indigenous people could not only reduce the resistance of the local natives but also control the colony more effectively.

To say nothing else, these natives were truly ruthless toward their own people. For the sake of the various benefits promised by Spain and their own futures, they would raise their swords against their own kind without hesitation.

It was precisely thanks to the management of these indigenous officials that Spain's colonies in Africa remained relatively stable.

When the news that the Sokoto Caliph was dead and the Spanish army had occupied Oyo-Ibokho reached Spain, it immediately attracted the attention of the Spanish people.

Unlike the previous minor skirmishes with indigenous nations, the Sokoto Caliphate was a country with a vast area. Being able to annex such a country also meant that Spain's colonies would expand significantly in land area.

The expansion of colonies not only represented an increase in Spain's sphere of influence and comprehensive strength but also represented a great opportunity to make a fortune.

Of course, the most important thing at the moment was to confirm Spain's actual occupation of the Sokoto Caliphate; after the Berlin Conference ended, these nominal matters were also very important.

Although Omar bin Ali was dead, the previous Caliph had other sons. Spain temporarily had Omar bin Ali's younger brother succeed as Caliph, and after signing a colonial treaty with Spain's Guinea colonial government, Spain immediately abolished his Caliph title.

Although the title of Sokoto Caliph was abolished, Spain did not abolish the Emirs of those states.

Of course, Sokoto currently had nearly thirty Emirs, and in the end, it certainly would not keep so many. Judging by the area of the Sokoto Caliphate, retaining fewer than ten Emir titles could help Spain better manage this land.

Naturally, the Emirs of the three southern states—Oyo, Iwo, and Ijebu—who had sent troops to help Spain during the war were all retained, and they would also have the opportunity to obtain large tracts of land and become models of those who cooperated with Spain and gained benefits.

Setting such a model was also very useful. Seeing the benefits obtained by these three states, the natives of other states would also try to contact Spain and obediently submit to Spanish rule when they had no other choice.

After all, they had previously obeyed the rule of the Sokoto Caliph, and it was nothing more than changing the ruler to an infidel.

There were certainly some religious fanatics among these states, and they were surely full of prejudice and hatred toward non-Muslim infidels.

But these people were clearly unable to hinder Spain's rule over Sokoto. As long as anyone dared to resist Spanish rule, the Guinea colonial government would not mind letting them go see their Allah.

After completely controlling the situation in Oyo-Ibokho, Andrew immediately led the army north to take over the political power of the vast number of states.

If there were natives who were as sensible as the southern states, Andrew would not mind cooperating with them and letting them continue to be their own Emirs.

How to determine if they were sensible and willing to submit to Spanish rule? The method was also very simple: see if these states were willing to hand over their own armies.

For any who were willing to hand over their armies, Spain would not deal with them for the time being. But if they were unwilling to even hand over the command of their own armies, then they certainly harbored malicious intentions.

Andrew would not be polite to these people; he would directly order the army to launch a strong attack, capture the capital of the state, and then execute the ruler of the state, the Emir.

Compared to the time spent attacking the Sokoto Caliphate government, Spain spent even more time attacking these nearly thirty states.

The reason was also very simple: these thirty states were distributed over a land 1, 00 kilometers wide from east to west and over 900 kilometers long from north to south, and the time required to travel to each Emirate was the longest.

The actual time required to attack each state was not long, as the population of each state was small, not even as large as the small indigenous nations like the Bamum Kingdom or the Aro Confederacy that had already been conquered by Spain.

The Sokoto Caliphate had a population of nearly ten million and also had nearly thirty indigenous states. This meant that each state had an average population of only over 300, 00; what could such a small population do?

After nearly two months of integration, Andrew wiped out more than ten of the indigenous states, leaving only exactly ten indigenous states to rule the Sokoto region.

In addition to the three states in the south that were originally obedient to Spanish rule, Andrew also left seven Emirates: Mandara, Ukari, Bauchi, Bede, Kano, Borgu, and Kebbi, which together formed the ten major states ruling the Sokoto region.

To prevent anyone from re-integrating these ten major states to form a relatively powerful resistance force, the Guinea colonial government, after discussion, decided to abolish the military power of each Emirate.

These ten Emirates were only allowed to have an army of one thousand to protect the safety of the Emirates themselves.

As for the protection of the sovereignty of this land, with the protection of the Spanish colonial army, these indigenous armies were naturally not needed.

In addition to reducing the armies of these ten states, Spain also continued the policies of the original Sokoto Caliphate. All ten of these Emirates were required to pay tribute to the Guinea colony, and those who failed to pay the required amount would be punished.

Although the original nearly thirty Emirates were reduced to ten, these ten Emirates did not fully take over the land area of the Sokoto Caliphate.

The land that once belonged to the core of the Caliph was directly taken over by the Guinea colony. These ten Emirates annexed more of the land of other states, which also meant that the population of these Emirates generally did not exceed one million.

To prevent collusion between these Emirates, Spain also established corresponding rules within these ten Emirates.

Once the ruler of a state discovered that other states intended to resist Spanish colonial rule, they could report it to the Guinea colonial government.

Once the report was found to be true, not only would the Emirate planning the resistance be punished, but the reporting state would also receive its own reward.

What kind of reward? Of course, it was the land and population of the Emirate that planned the resistance.

The direct benefit of this regulation was that it pitted the Emirate that planned the resistance against the other states. In the future, if any Emirate wanted to plan resistance against Spanish colonial actions, in addition to preventing discovery by the Spanish colonial government, they would also need to prevent discovery by other Emirates.

Because reporting could earn land and population rewards, these Emirates would also actively pay attention to the situation and actions of other states.

In this way, the Emirates that could have cooperated became enemies of each other. Since everyone was in a hostile relationship, there was naturally no possibility of cooperation.

Such a handling method had already been implemented in federal-style indigenous nations like the Ashanti Empire before, and Spain was no stranger to this.

After completely controlling the situation in the Sokoto Caliphate, it took Spain less than half a month to build such a ruling system.

During this period, Spain also gathered about 500, 00 people and transported them from the Sokoto Caliphate to other areas of the Guinea colony.

Doing this, in addition to reducing the population of the Sokoto region and increasing local stability, also increased the manpower in other areas.

Spain had discovered new gold mines in the Huang Jinhaian area, and this manpower could either go to the Huang Jinhaian to mine gold or arrive in the Congo region to reclaim new land for Spain.

Of course, the Sokoto region also needed to retain a certain amount of manpower. Since Spain had already completely controlled this area, the next most important thing was to build a railway in Sokoto.

The railway would not only facilitate Spain's access to the resources of each state but also allow the Spanish colonial army to reach the scope of each state more quickly.

As long as the railway could connect the land of each state, even if a rebellion broke out in each state in the future, it would not be a difficult problem for Spain to solve.

It is worth mentioning that because the entire Sokoto region was incorporated into the Guinea colony, this also made the Guinea colony leap to become Spain's largest colony in Africa.

In addition to having the largest area, the Guinea colony was also the colony with the longest coastline and the largest indigenous population for Spain in Africa.

Although having a large area and a long coastline was good news, how to deal with such a huge number of natives was also no small trouble for Spain.

Killing them all was definitely impossible; to massacre all the natives in this area, at least more than ten million people would have to be killed.

Such a massacre was too crazy, and the resulting public opinion pressure was something the Spanish government could not bear. If they really did this, let alone the Spanish government, Carlos would also bear the reputation of a tyrant.

At that time, it would have a huge impact on the international influence, status, and prestige of the Spanish government and Carlos himself.

Don't look at the fact that Europeans didn't care about the lives of Africans; if news of Spain massacring ten million natives really came out, almost all Europeans would condemn the cruelty of the Spanish government.

At that time, Spain's diplomatic environment would also be extremely bad, and all European countries could use this as an excuse to fleece Spain heavily.

It was precisely because of this that the handling of the Black African population had long since changed from massacre to relocation.

Currently, the relocation of the Black population was quite effective; in a few years, Spain had relocated a total of over one million indigenous people.

Among these millions of African people, more than half took ships to the Americas. And among this more than half of the population, more than half of the Africans went to the United States.

Who made the United States the country with the most immigration appeal at this time? It had only been a little over a hundred years since the founding of the United States, and its population had already surpassed many European powers.

In the future, during World War I, the population of the United States would crush a group of European powers, and it would be one of the best in the world.

The rapid increase in the U. . population relied on its own immigration appeal. Since the United States was so attractive to immigrants, Carlos did not mind helping the Americans and letting the U. . population increase faster.

In the future, Spain's efforts to relocate the Black population would only be greater. Carlos even discussed this matter with the Colonial Secretary, William, and William indicated to Carlos that in the next five years, the Colonial Department expected to transport at least 3 million Black people abroad.

It seemed like 3 million Black people was a lot, but in reality, it was very easy to achieve.

The population relocation within Africa alone could achieve more than half of the goal, and coupled with the population transported to countries like the United States, 3 million was just a figure that could be easily achieved.

According to this intensity of population transport, by around 1890, the African population of the Guinea colony could be reduced by about one-eighth, and the population of the Congo territory could be reduced by about one-tenth.

Perhaps one day in the future, one of Spain's African colonies could achieve the milestone of zero Black people.

Of course, the most special colony, South Morocco, could not be counted. Morocco was originally a special African country, and there was basically no Black population in the country, so it was naturally not included.

At present, among the remaining three major African colonies, the one with the most hope of achieving zero Black population was the West African colony.

The main reason was also very simple: the African population here was the smallest. Coupled with the fact that it was the main area for Spanish agricultural development, the support it received from the Spanish government was also the greatest.

Perhaps before the outbreak of World War II, the West African colony really had hope of becoming a colony with zero Black people, and that would be the time when the West African colony was localized.

(End of this chapter)