Niger State
Niger or Niger State is a state in Central Nigeria and the largest state in the country. The state capital is Minna, and other major cities are Bida, Kontagora, and Suleja. It was formed in 1976 when the then North-Western State was bifurcated into Niger State and Sokoto State. It is home to Ibrahim Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar, two of Nigeria's former military rulers. The Nupe, Gbagyi, Kamuku, Kambari, Dukawa, Hausa and Koro form the majority of numerous indigenous tribes of Niger State.
Slavery in Niger
Beginning in the 18th century but particularly in the 19th century, the Sultanate of Damagaram, located in the present-day city of Zinder, became a political rival to the Bornu empire. Damagaram was successful because it built a large, mobile army able to protect trade routes and because they made alliances with the Tuareg leaders who had now become the primary power in the Aïr Mountains. With these alliances, Zinder became a major power along the trans-Saharan trade route from Kano to Tripoli and Cairo. Zinder combined populations from the Kanuri (the major ethnic group of the Bornu empire), the Hausa, and the Tuareg and as a result developed slave practices which borrowed from all three to create a large slave population and varied institutions of slavery. There were thus large populations of domestic and agricultural slaves, borrowed from Kanuri customs, the development of plantation slavery, from Hausa practice, and the development of separate slave communities, from Tuareg practice. Slaves were not the only export commodity from the Sultanate, but were crucial parts of the overall economic structure. As the Sultanate increased in power, the Sultan began to replace nobles in his court with slave administrators, which increased his ability to rule without interference by others.