Armas

ethnic group
group=Arma


poptime= Approx. 20 Thousand
popplace=Middle Niger River Valley of Mali, Niger.
rels=Muslim
langs=Songhay languages
related-c= Songhai, Mandé, Spanish, Moroccan, small numbers of Irish and French [ Olsen, 1996: "Arma", p.37. ]

The Arma people are an ethnic group of the middle Niger River valley, decended in part from Moroccan - Spanish invaders of the 16th century CE. The name, applied by other groups, derives from the Spanish word for firearms, which they introduced into the region.

The Songhai expedition and aftermath

The 1590 expedition sent to conquer the Songhai Empire trade routes by the Moroccan Saadi Dynasty was led and populated by four thousand Spanish and other European converts. Converted to Islam, they were either hired as mercenaries or captured as slaves by the Moroccans. After the destruction of the Songhai in 1591, the Moroccan forces settled into Djenné, Gao, Timbuctu and the larger towns of the Niger River bend. Never able to exert control outside their large fortifications, within a decade the expedition's leaders were abandoned by Morocco. In cities like Timbuctu, the men of the 1591 expedition intermarried with the Songhai, became small scale independent rulers, and some of their decendents came to be identified as minor dynasties of their own right. By the end of the 17th century CE, Bambara, Tuareg, Fula, and other forces came to control empires and city-states in the region, leaving the Arma as a mere ethnicity.

Today

As of 1986, there were some 20,000 self-identified Arma in Mali, mostly around Timbuctu, the middle Niger bend, and the Niger Inland Delta.

The Arma ethnicity is distinct from (but sometimes confused with) the 20 Million strong Djerma (or "Zarma", "Zerma") peoples of Western Mali, who predate the Moroccan invasion, and speak the Zarma language, also a sub category of Songhai.

Famous modern Arma people include the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré.

ee also

*Judar Pasha: Spanish Muslim commander of the Moroccan Expedition of the 1590s.
*Battle of Tondibi: Culmination of the Moroccan Expedition, destroying the Songhai Empire in 1591.

References

*Samuel Decalo. Historical Dictionary of Niger. Scarecrow Press, London and New Jersey (1979). ISBN 0810812290
*James Stuart Olson. The Peoples of Africa: An Ethnohistorical Dictionary. "Arma", p.37. Greenwood Press (1996) ISBN 0313279187
*Michel Aitbol. Tombouctou et les Arma de la conquête marocaine du Soudan nigérien en 1591 à l'hégémonie de l'empire peul du Macina en 1833. Paris, (1979).
*Albrecht Hofheinz. [http://folk.uio.no/albrech/Goths.pdf Goths in the Lands of the Blacks. New Arabic manuscript finds from Timbuktu and their significance for the historiography of the Niger Bend] . (2001)
*Hunwick, John O. Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire: Al-Sa`Di's Ta'Rikh Al-Sudan Down to 1613 and Other Contemporary Documents. Brill Academic Publishers, 1999. ISBN 9004112073.

Other links

* [http://www.ujaen.es/info/eventos/losarma/index.html I Congreso Internacional sobre los Arma] . Al-Andalus, Andalucía y España en Tombuctú y la frontera subsahariana (s. XVI-XXI). Universidad de Jaén (Spain), 19-20 February 2004.