International records / OpenAlex research

Trans-Saharan Trade and the Sahel: Damergu, 1870–1930

Consular trade returns from Tripoli show a dramatic increase in the proportion of legitimate trade in trans-Saharan exports from the central Sudan in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. This article focuses on Damergu, a Sahelian region located on the Tripoli–Kano route, and traces the reactions of North African merchants, local Tuareg rulers, and ordinary villagers to an increase and then an abrupt decline in trans-Saharan trade. North African merchants, who migrated to Damergu from Ghadames or from diaspora communities in Hausa towns, moved south after the decline of trans-Saharan tr…