The “Hill Refuges” of the Jos Plateau: A Historiographical Examination

Abstract

The Jos Plateau comprises an area of approximately 2500 square miles in the north-central part of Nigeria. It includes a high plain, interspersed with granite hills and is bounded by a broken scarp some 1500 to 3000 feet in height. Historically as well as geographically, the Plateau has stood apart from the neighboring lower plains region. In the nineteenth century, the Muslim emirate of Bauchi controlled nearly all the territory surrounding the Plateau, but inhabitants of the Plateau successfully repelled intermittent Bauchi Incursions and maintained their independence until the arrival of the British at the beginning of the twentieth century. Most of the literature dealing with the Plateau has focused on this theme of resistance and a number of interrelated topics. As it happens, such studies nearly always emphasize the isolated nature of the region, whether cultural or economic. As a result, a stereotyped view of the Plateau has emerged, a view which characterizes the area as a “hill refuge,” settled by small groups who lived in the most inaccessible reaches, were economically self-sufficient, and who at best maintained minimal links with each other. The isolated nature of these groups is seen as a major cause of their intrinsically conservative nature and predisposition to resist change. According to the stereotype, the people of the Plateau remain a useful subject of research since they continue to exhibit many of the “archaic” forms of social, political and economic organization that may have been prevalent throughout Africa thousands of years ago.

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