Pachana (Kaabu)

Origins

Pachana was a province of the Mandinka Kaabu Empire, which grew from a westward extension of the Mali Empire and became independent in the 16th century. Like other Kaabu provinces, it is known mainly through oral tradition and occasional Portuguese reports.

Rule and society

Pachana, Sama and Jimara were the royal provinces whose Nyancho warrior nobility, reckoned through the female line, provided the supreme king of Kaabu in rotation. Its own mansa governed with lineage heads, and the Nyancho lived largely from war, slave raiding and trade with the Portuguese.

Decline and legacy

Pachana declined with Kaabu under Fulani pressure in the 19th century. After the fall of Kansala to the forces of the Imamate of Futa Jallon in 1867, its lands came under Fula rule and later Portuguese Guinea.

Few sources survive for this state; details are uncertain.