Baggara Arabs

The Baggāra (Arabic: البَقَّارَة, romanized: al baqqāra, lit. 'heifer herder'), also known as Chadian Arabs, are a nomadic confederation of people of mixed Arab and Arabized indigenous African ancestry, inhabiting a portion of the Sahel mainly between Lake Chad and the Nile river near south Kordofan, numbering over six million. They are known as Baggara and Abbala in Sudan, and as Shuwa Arabs in Chad, Cameroon and Nigeria.

The Baggāra mostly speak their distinct dialect, known as Chadian Arabic. However the Baggāra of Southern Kordofan, due to contact with the sedentary population and the Sudanese Arab camel herders of Kordofan, has led to some Sudanese Arabic influence on the dialect of that zone. They also have a common traditional mode of subsistence, nomadic cattle herding, although nowadays many lead a settled existence. Nevertheless, collectively they do not all necessarily consider themselves one people, i.e., a single ethnic group. The term "baggara culture" was introduced in 1994 by Braukämper.

The political use of the term baggāra in Sudan is to denote a large group of closely related cattle-owning Arabic speaking tribes that reside traditionally in the Southern parts of Darfur and Kordofan who mixed extensively with the native people they live with in the region, in particular the Fur people, Nuba peoples and Fula people. The bulk of Baggara Arabs live in Chad and Sudan, with small minorities in Niger, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Cameroon, and northern Nigeria. Those who are still nomads migrate seasonally between grazing lands in the wet season and river areas in the dry season.

Their common language is known to academics by various names, such as Chadian Arabic, taken from the regions where the language is spoken. For much of the 20th century, this language was known to academics as "Shuwa Arabic", but "Shuwa" is a geographically and socially parochial term that has fallen into disuse among linguists specializing in the language, who instead refer to it as "Chadian Arabic" depending on the origin of the native speakers being consulted for a given academic project. The term Shuwa is said to be of Kanuri origin.

Like other Arabic speaking tribes in Sudan and the Sahel, Baggara tribes claim to have ancestry from the Juhaynah Arab tribe. They are of Arab and Arabized African ancestry.

However the first documented evidence of Arab settlements in this region was in 1391 when the King of Bornu, Abu 'Amr Uthman b. Idris sent a letter to the Mamluk Sultan, Barquq, complaining about the Judham and other Arabs raiding his territory and enslaving his subjects. The name of one of the major Baggara tribes is shared with an important sub-tribe of the Judham Arabs, the Beni Halba. Braukamper dates the formation of the Baggara culture to the 17th century in Wadai, between Bornu and Darfur, where Arabs, who were camel-herders, met the cattle-rearing Fula people migrating east, and out of this contact arose what Braukämper has coined an Arabic baggaara (cattle-herders') culture which today extends from western Sudan (Kordofan and Darfur) into Nigeria (Borno). The Nigerian Arabs are the westernmost representation.

Baggara tribes in Sudan include: the Rizeigat, Ta’isha, Beni Halba, Habbaniya, Salamat, Messiria, Tarjam, and Beni Hussein in Darfur, and the Messiria Zurug, Messiria Humr, Hawazma, Habbaniya and Awlad Himayd in Kordofan, and the Beni Selam on the White Nile. The Messiria estimated at 515,000 people (2012 estimate) and the Rezeigat estimated at 299,000 people (2012 estimate) are probably the largest subtribes of the Baggara in Sudan. There is also a small population of "Shuwa Arabs" from Chad who numbered 90,000 in Sudan according to a 2012 estimate.

The Messiria, one of the largest and most important tribes of the Baggara Arabs are found in Chad, Darfur and Kordofan in Sudan. They numbered 515,000 in Sudan according to a 2012 estimate. The bulk of the Messiria reside in East Kordofan and Chad with a comparatively smaller population in Darfur. In Darfur they are found mainly in Niteiga, an area north of Nyala. Besides the community of Messiria in Niteiga, there are several small Arab groups in Darfur that claim a connection with the Messiria, these are the Ta'alba, Sa'ada, Hotiyya, and Nei'mat. Along with these small groups should be included the Jebel "Messiria" community at Jebel Mun, in West Darfur, that speak a Nilo-Saharan language, Mileri, related to the Tama. The Mileri of Jebel Mun are traditionally not regarded as Arabs but their leaders have been stressing a Messiria Arab descent.