His successor, the expansionist Abdul Kader defeated the emirates of Trarza and Brakna and by his death in 1806, power became decentralized between a few elite families of Torodbes.

Threatened by both the expansion of the Toucouleur Empire and the French in the mid-19th century, Futa Toro was eventually annexed in 1859.

[2][a] The people of the region speak Pulaar, a dialect of the greater Fula languages spanning West Africa from Senegal to Cameroon.

[1] A class of Muslim scholars called the Torodbe[b] seem to have originated in Futa Toro, later spreading throughout the Fulbe territories.

[3] In the last quarter of the 17th century the Mauritanian Zawāyā reformer Nasir al-Din launched a jihad to restore purity of religious observance in the Futa Toro.

[2] Sulayman died in 1776 and was succeeded by Abdul Kader ('Abd al-Qadir), a learned teacher and judge who had studied in Cayor.

In 1785 they obtained an agreement from the French to stop trading in Muslim slaves and to pay customs duties to the state.

[2] The Almamyate was ruled by an Almamy elected, from a group of eligible lineages, by an electoral council, which contained a fixed core and a fluctuating periphery of members.

[7] The kingdom was ruled officially by the Almamy, but effective control lay with regional chiefs of the central provinces who possessed considerable land, followers and slaves.

[1] In the middle of the 19th century, the Futa Toro was threatened by the French under the leadership of Governor Louis Faidherbe.

The devastation prompted a religious revival led by Shaikh Amadu Ba, who threatened the power of the traditional aristocracy.

[15] Fear of continuing Muslim migration, however, led the military authorities to attack France's remaining clients in 1890.