The Sokoto Caliphate (), also known as the Sultanate of Sokoto, was a Sunni Muslim caliphate in West Africa. It was founded by Usman dan Fodio in 1804 during the Fulani jihads after defeating the Hausa Kingdoms in the Fulani War. The boundaries of the caliphate are part of present-day Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Nigeria. It was dissolved when the British and Germans conquered the area in 1903 and annexed it into the newly established Northern Nigeria Protectorate and Kamerun respectively. The caliphate arose after the Hausa King Yunfa attempted to assassinate Usman dan Fodio in 1802. In order to escape persecution, Usman and his followers migrated towards Gudu in February 1804. Usman's followers pledged allegiance to Usman as the Commander of the Faithful (). By 1808, the Sokoto Caliphate had gained control of several northern Nigerian states. Under the sixth caliph Ahmadu Rufai, the state reached its maximum extent, covering a large swath of West Africa. In 1903, the twelfth and last caliph Attahiru was assassinated by British forces, which led to the end of the caliphate. Developed in the context of multiple independent Hausa Kingdoms, at its peak, the caliphate linked over 30 different emirates and 10-20+ million people in the largest and most developed state of pre-modern Subsaharan Africa. The caliphate was a loose confederation of emirates that recognized the suzerainty of the Amir al-Mu'minin, the Sultan of Sokoto. The caliphate brought decades of economic growth throughout the region. An estimated 1 to 2.5 million non-Muslim slaves were captured during the Fulani War. Slaves worked plantations but may also have been granted freedom conditional on conversion to Islam. By 1900, Sokoto had "at least 1 million and perhaps as many as 2.5 million slaves" second only to the American South (which had four million in 1860) in size among all modern slave societies. Although European colonists abolished the political authority of the caliphate, the title of sultan was retained and remains an important religious position for Sunni Muslims in the region to the current day. Usman dan Fodio's jihad provided the inspiration for a series of related jihads in other parts of the Sudanian Savanna and the Sahel far beyond the borders of what is now Nigeria that led to the foundation of Islamic states in the regions that would become Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast, Chad, the Central African Republic, and Sudan. History Background The major