Hausa Kingdoms
While some Fulani claim Semitic origins, Hausas are indigenous to West Africa. This suggests that the processes of "Hausaization" in the Sudan was probably both cultural and genetic. The Hausa-Fulani identity came into being as a direct result of the migration of Fula people into Hausaland occurring from the 15th century. At the beginning of the 19th century, Sheikh Usman dan Fodio led a successful jihad against the Hausa Kingdoms founding a centralized Fulani Empire (anglicized as the Sokoto Caliphate). After the jihad, Dan Fodio encouraged intermarriage between the immigrant Fulani to the conquered Hausa states and local mainly other Hausa people; in addition, Jobawa, Dambazawa and Sullubawa Fulani clans originating in Futa Tooro migrated to the region and intermarried with the local urban mainly Hausa elite, and were a major factor in the linguistic, cultural and ethnic mixing of the Hausa-Fulani people. As a result of this, Hausa-speaking Fulani form the core and vast majority of the native populations of Daura, Zamfara, Kano, Katsina, Zazzau, and Sokoto, and about 22% of the total population of Nigeria.