Bakwa Turunku(1468 — 1566)
Bakwa Turunku
8 min read
Queen of the kingdom of Zazzau (present-day Zaria, Nigeria) in the 16th century, Bakwa Turunku founded the city of Zaria around 1536. She is the mother of the famous warrior queen Amina of Zaria, a symbol of female power in West Africa.
Key Facts
- Reigned over the kingdom of Zazzau (Zaria) c. 1536–1566
- Founded the city of Zaria, which still bears her mark today
- Mother of Queen Amina of Zaria, a legendary military figure
- Represents a tradition of female rulers in the Hausa states
- Her reign predates the deep Islamization of the region
Works & Achievements
Bakwa Turunku's greatest achievement was the founding or rebuilding of the city of Zaria, which became the permanent capital of the kingdom of Zazzau and one of the most important urban centers in what is now northern Nigeria.
Bakwa Turunku is credited with structuring the administration of her kingdom through official titles, a taxation system, and a network of regular markets, laying the foundations of a centralized state.
Under her reign, exports of tanned leather, textiles, and other goods to North African markets reached a scale that brought lasting wealth to the kingdom and strengthened its regional influence.
By involving her eldest daughter Amina in the affairs of the kingdom from an early age, Bakwa Turunku prepared the succession and shaped the woman who would become the most celebrated warrior in Hausa history.
Anecdotes
Around 1536, Bakwa Turunku built a new capital for her kingdom, which she initially named Zazzau. According to Hausa oral tradition, she gave the city the name Zaria in honor of her youngest daughter Zariya — a name that lives on to this day in the city of Zaria, in Nigeria.
Bakwa Turunku ruled at a time when certain women could rise to supreme power in the Hausa kingdoms under the title of Sarauniya, meaning fully sovereign queen regnant. Her reign, renowned for its administrative wisdom and diplomatic skill, stood in contrast to that of her eldest daughter Amina, who would become a legendary warrior — demonstrating that female power could take very different forms.
The kingdom of Zazzau under Bakwa Turunku was a major commercial crossroads in West Africa, exporting tanned leather, textiles, and kola nuts to great cities such as Kano and as far as the trans-Saharan trade routes. The queen is said to have personally overseen the markets and diplomatic exchanges with neighboring states, making Zazzau one of the dominant economic powers of the region.
Oral tradition attributes a remarkable longevity to Bakwa Turunku: she is said to have lived nearly a century, reigning over Zazzau for several decades. This exceptional length of rule allowed her to train her daughter Amina in the arts of governance and military strategy before passing power on to her.
Bakwa Turunku is one of the few women in pre-colonial Hausa history to have held the title of Sarauniya as a sovereign head of state, rather than merely as a regent. Her reign is preserved in the oral chronicles of the griots (*marok'a*) and in the Tarikh of Zazzau, making it a key reference in the history of women in power across West Africa.
Primary Sources
The Kano annals mention the relations between the kingdom of Zazzau and the other Hausa states in the 16th century, referring to commercial and diplomatic exchanges under the successive rulers of Zazzau, including its reigning queens.
This chronicle of the kings and queens of Zazzau, transmitted orally and later partially transcribed, places Bakwa Turunku among the rulers who reigned over the kingdom and credits her with founding the city of Zaria.
In this work by the Sultan of Sokoto, written in the early 19th century, the Hausa kingdoms and their dynasties are discussed along with their governance traditions, some of which included women rising to supreme power.
The oral traditions collected by this British colonial administrator record accounts of Bakwa Turunku, the founding of Zaria, and her relationship with her daughter Amina, testifying to the vitality of Hausa collective memory.
Key Places
The capital founded or rebuilt by Bakwa Turunku around 1536, Zaria is today a major city in Kaduna State, Nigeria, whose oral tradition keeps alive the memory of its founding queen.
A major neighboring Hausa city-state and Zazzau's principal trading partner, Kano was the regional marketplace with which Bakwa Turunku maintained diplomatic relations and intensive exchanges of goods.
A crossroads of trans-Saharan trade routes, Agadez was the waypoint for caravans carrying Zazzau's goods north toward the Maghreb and North Africa — a vital hub in the commercial network in which Bakwa Turunku's kingdom played an active role.
An intellectual and commercial center of the Songhai Empire, contemporary with Bakwa Turunku's reign, Timbuktu embodied the cultural and religious power of Sahelian Islam in the 16th century.
A contact zone between the Hausa states and the forest peoples to the south, the Jos Plateau was a strategically important region for Zazzau's trade and military expeditions.
