Wadai

Wadai, historical African kingdom east of Lake Chad and west of Darfur, in what is now the Ouaddaï (q.v.) region of eastern Chad. It was founded in the 16th century, and a Muslim dynasty was established there about 1630. Long subordinate to Darfur, it became independent by the 1790s and began a period of rapid expansion, chiefly at the expense of the Bornu kingdom to the west. Its prosperity resulted from its position at the junction of two major trade routes: the east-west route linking the upper Nile River and Darfur with Bornu and Kano, and the trans-Saharan route from Abéché (Wadai’s main town) northward to Banghāzī on the Mediterranean. In the 19th century, caravans abandoned other trails across the desert in favour of the Abéché-Banghāzī route because it was safer, thanks to the regional stability achieved by a series of strong Wadai kings, or kolaks (al-Sharif, 1835–58; Ali, 1858–74; and Yusuf, 1874–98). French occupation between 1906 and 1914 put an end to the trans-Saharan trade.