Zongo settlements

Zongo settlements are areas in West African towns populated mostly by migrants from the northern savannah regions and the West African Sahel,[1] especially from northern Nigeria.[2]

View over Nima in Greater Accra

Common features of the zongo communities are their use of Hausa language as lingua franca and their shared religion: Islam.[3] The designation of these wards of migrants as zongos derives from the Hausa word zango which literally means "a camping place for trading caravans".[4] As the name reveals, zongos were originally founded as ports of trade in the long-distance trading networks that connected the West African subregion.[5]

Ghana

Collectively referred to as zongos, zongo communities are found in all 16 regions of Ghana with much denser populations in Greater Accra and the Ashanti Region.[6][7]

The earliest bustling zongo communities in Ghana started in Salaga, and by the first quarter of the 19th century similar communities were already established in Tamale, Yeji and Ejisu.[8][9] The largest and one of the oldest zongos close to the coastal belt started in 1810 at Ushertown (Zangon Mallam or present-day Zongo-Lane) before they were resettled at Sabon Zango followed by Nima (1836).[10]

In the present day, zongo communities in Ghana are a microcosm of people from the lower and middle classes from both northern and southern Ghana as well as immigrants from neighboring countries including Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Togo.

The Hausa from northern Nigeria and Southern Niger were the pioneer settlers of the zongos. The early settlers constructed makeshift houses with the intention to work hard, raise some capital and return to their locality. As it has usually been with immigration, many adopted their new found place as their permanent home.[11]

See also

Benin

Zongo Communities are common in Benin with large settlements found in Parakou, Ganou and the port city of Cotonou.[12][13]

References
  1. Schildkrout, Enid (2009). People of the Zongo. Cambridge, GBR: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-511-55762-0. OCLC 958554015.
  2. Cecilia Sem Obeng (1 January 2002). Home was Uncomfortable; School was Hell:In general terms, the word is used to describe an area or settlement inhabited by different tribes who got themselves resident there as a result of trading activities.The settlement may be an entire town or a part of an urban settlement. For instance, Ghana has several Zongos located within several parts of her regions. A Confessionalist-ethnographic Account of Belief Systems and Socio-educational Crisis in the Schooling of Ghanaian Rural Girls. Nova Publishers. ISBN 978-1-59033-469-0.
  3. Pontzen, Benedikt (2021). Islam in a Zongo: Muslim Lifeworlds in Asante, Ghana. The International African Library. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-83024-9.
  4. Arhin, Kwame (1979). West African Traders in Ghana in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century. London: Longman. p. 6. OCLC 728719688.
  5. Lovejoy, Paul E (1980). Caravans of kola: the Hausa kola trade, 1700-1900. Zaria: Ahmadu Bello Univ. Press. ISBN 978-978-154-568-9. OCLC 477437003.
  6. Pellow, Deborah (2008). Landlords and lodgers: socio-spatial organization in an Accra community. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-65397-6. OCLC 487621617.
  7. Samwini, Nathan (2006-01-01). The Muslim Resurgence in Ghana Since 1950: Its Effects Upon Muslims and Muslim-Christian Relations. LIT Verlag Münster. ISBN 9783825889913.
  8. Ashanti and the Northeast. Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana. 1970.
  9. Weiss, Holger (2008-01-01). Between Accommodation and Revivalism: Muslims, the State, and Society in Ghana from the Precolonial to the Postcolonial Era. Finnish Oriental Society. ISBN 9789519380711.
  10. Naylor, Rachel (2000-01-01). Ghana. Oxfam. p. 61. ISBN 9780855984311.
  11. "Zongo:the eleventh region?". 4 August 2013.
  12. Washington, Teresa N. (2016-11-29). The African World in Dialogue: An Appeal to Action!. Oya's Tornado. ISBN 9780991073085.
  13. Sargent, Carolyn Fishel (1989-01-01). Maternity, Medicine, and Power: Reproductive Decisions in Urban Benin. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520064843.
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