Chapter 325: The Policy of Using Barbarians to Control Barbarians

Facts proved that Omar ibn Ali was still quite wise.

Spain could not possibly 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 the superficial work still had to be done thoroughly. Historically, Belgium did not do well in its superficial work, and the final result was that the European powers intervened by force, avoiding further damage to the image of European countries by Belgium.

Examples can also be seen from Spain's rule over other colonies. The entire Spanish nation 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 Gao Da'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 also 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 put to the sword and directly massacred 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, and naturally, it would not attract special attention from European countries.

Andrew, after confirming that Omar ibn Ali was indeed the Caliph himself and that he was already dead, only then allowed the army to take over the order of Wurno and implement a brief military rule.

For those Sokoto officials who had already surrendered to the Spanish army, Andrew did not execute them, but only ordered the army to keep them under strict guard.

After all, the subsequent takeover of the order of the entire Sokoto Caliphate would still require the help of these officials, and even the future rule of the entire Sokoto would require their assistance.

Spain implemented the strategy of using barbarians to control barbarians in its colonies. Letting the local indigenous people manage the local indigenous people could not only reduce the resistance sentiment of the local indigenous people but also more effectively control the colony.

To say nothing else, these indigenous people were truly ruthless toward their own kind. For the sake of the various benefits promised by Spain and their own future, they would raise their butcher knives against their own people 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 Wurno reached Spain, it immediately attracted the attention of the Spanish people.

Unlike the previous small skirmishes with indigenous states, 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 over a very large land area.

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

Of course, the most important thing at present 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 ibn Ali was dead, the previous Caliph had other sons. Spain temporarily let Omar ibn Ali's younger brother succeed as Caliph, and after signing a colonial treaty with Spain's Guinea colonial government, Spain immediately abolished his title of Caliph.

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 retain 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 that sent troops to help Spain during the war—Oyo, Iwo, and Ijebu—were all retained, and they would also have the opportunity to obtain large tracts of land, becoming models of cooperation with Spain and obtaining benefits.

Establishing such a model was also very effective. After seeing the benefits obtained by these three states, the indigenous people of other states, in the absence of a choice, would also try to contact Spain and obediently submit to Spain's rule.

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

There must be some fanatical religious elements among these states, and they must be full of prejudice and hatred toward non-Muslim infidels.

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

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

If there were indigenous people 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 judge whether they were sensible and whether they were willing to submit to Spain's rule? The method was also very simple, and that was to see whether these states were willing to hand over their own armies.

As long as there were states willing to hand over their own 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 must be harboring evil intentions.

Andrew would not be polite to these people and directly ordered the army to launch a strong attack, and after capturing the capital of the state, he would execute the ruler of the state, that is, the Emir.

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

The reason was also very simple: these thirty states were distributed over a land 1,600 kilometers wide from east to west and over 900 kilometers long from north to south, and the time required to travel to each Emir state was the longest.

The actual time required to attack each state was not long, after all, the population of each state was not large, and not even as large as the small indigenous states like the Bam Kingdom and 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 also meant that on average, each state had a population of only over 300,000; 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 originally obeyed Spain's rule, Andrew also left seven Emir states—Mandara, Ukari, Bauchi, Bede, Kano, Borgu, and Kebbi—which together formed the ten major states ruling the Sokoto region.

In order to prevent anyone from reintegrating 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 Emir state.

These ten major Emir states were only allowed to have an army of a thousand people to protect the safety of the Emir states themselves.

As for the protection of the sovereignty of this land, with the protection of the Spanish colonial army, there was naturally no need for these indigenous armies.

In addition to reducing the armies of these ten major states, Spain also continued the policy of the original Sokoto Caliphate. These ten major Emir states all needed to pay tribute to the Guinea colonial government, and those who failed to pay the amount of tribute would also be punished.

Although the original nearly thirty Emir states were reduced to ten, these ten Emir states 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 major Emir states annexed more of the land of other states, which also meant that the population of these Emir states was basically no more than one million.

In order to prevent collusion between these Emir states, Spain also established corresponding rules within these ten major Emir states.

Once the ruler of a state discovered the behavior of other states intending 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 Emir state that planned the resistance action be punished, but the reporting state would also receive its own reward.

What reward? Of course, it was the land and population of the Emir state that planned the resistance action.

The direct benefit of such a regulation was to put the Emir state that planned the resistance action on the opposite side of other states. In the future, if any Emir state wanted to plan a resistance against Spain's colonial action, in addition to preventing being discovered by the Spanish colonial government, they also needed to prevent being discovered by other Emir states.

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

In this way, the Emir states that could have cooperated became enemies with 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 states like the Ashanti Empire before, and Spain was no stranger to this.

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

During this period, Spain also gathered about 500,000 laborers and transported them from the Sokoto Caliphate to other areas of the Guinea colony.

Doing this, in addition to reducing the population in the Sokoto region and improving local stability, was also to increase manpower in other regions.

Spain had discovered new gold mines in the Huang Jinhaian area, and this manpower could either go to 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 region, the next most important thing was to build a railway in Sokoto.

The railway could not only facilitate Spain's access to the resources of various states but also allow Spain's colonial army to reach the scope of various states more quickly.

As long as the railway could connect the land of various states, even if a rebellion broke out in various states in the future, it would not be a difficult matter 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 indigenous people was also a considerable trouble for Spain?

Killing them all was definitely impossible; if they wanted to massacre all the indigenous people in this region, they would have to kill at least more than ten million people.

Such a massacre was too crazy, and the public opinion pressure caused was also something the Spanish government could not bear. If they really did this, let alone the Spanish government, Gao Da would also carry 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 Gao Da himself.

Don't look at the fact that Europeans didn't care about the lives of Africans; if news of Spain massacring ten million indigenous people 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 knock a large sum out of Spain.

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

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

Among these one million 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 the First World War, the population of the United States would crush a crowd of European powers, and looking at the world, it was also one of the best.

The rapid increase in the population of the United States relied on its own immigration appeal. Since the United States had such immigration appeal, Gao Da did not mind helping the Americans and letting the population of the United States increase faster.

In the future, for the relocation of the Black population, Spain would only invest more effort. Gao Da even discussed this matter with the Colonial Secretary Anlike, and Anlike indicated to Gao Da that in the next five years, the Colonial Affairs Department expected to transport at least 3 million Black people abroad.

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

Just the population relocation within Africa could achieve most of the goal, plus the population transported to countries like the United States, 3 million was just a number that could be easily achieved.

According to the intensity of such population transport, 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, South Morocco, the most special colony, could not be counted in. Morocco was originally a special African country, and there was basically no Black population in the country, so it was naturally not calculated in it.

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

The main reason was also very simple, and that was that the African population here was the smallest. Plus, it was the main region for Spain's agricultural development, and the support here from the Spanish government was also the greatest.

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

(End of this chapter) ===== CHAPTER 326 =====