Bariba

The Bariba, who call themselves Baatonu, are a Gur-speaking farming people of the Borgou grasslands in northeast Benin and adjoining Nigeria. About 1350 mounted Wasangari invaders from Bussa made themselves a ruling caste over the Baatonu clans of the Nikki district; Sounon Sero became the first king of Nikki.

They weathered Songhai assaults, defeating Sunni Ali in the 1490s at Gwangwarake, though Askia Muhammad briefly held Bussa in 1505. After Songhai fell in 1591 the Oyo Yoruba reduced Borgu to vassalage, from which it broke free in 1783 by winning the battle of Gberegburu.

From the 1500s Wangara kola merchants linked Gonja with Hausaland through the country, the Wasangari elite keeping their ancestral cults and leaving Islam to the trading quarters. In 1837 Siru Kpera, king of Nikki, fell in battle beside the Alaafin of Oyo against the Fulani jihadists.