Fulani << foo LAH nee >> are a people of the grassland regions of western Africa. The more than 5 million Fulani live as far west as Senegal and as far east as Cameroon. For hundreds of years, most Fulani have been cattle herders and have lived as minority groups among various agricultural peoples. The Fulani are also called Fula, Fulah, Fulbe, Fulata, Peul, or Poul.
The Fulani originated in what are now Senegal and Guinea. They built a powerful empire there during the A.D. 600’s. Some descendants of these Fulani intermarried with people they conquered and became a separate group, called the Toucouleur (also spelled Tukulor) (see Mali (People)). The Fulani gradually spread eastward and reached Nigeria and Cameroon in the early 1800’s.
Many Fulani became Muslims in the early 1700’s and conquered a number of their neighbors in religious wars. Between 1804 and 1809, Uthman Dan Fodio, a Muslim religious leader, conquered most of the Hausa states of Northern Nigeria (see Hausa). He then established an empire consisting of several Fulani states. Uthman’s empire remained powerful until the British conquered Northern Nigeria in 1903. Many Fulani still live in the northern part of Nigeria.
