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From Slave to Sharecropper in the French Soudan: an Effort at Controlled Social Change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 June 2011

Martin A. Klein
Martin A. Klein
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Extract

At the time of conquest, one of the major problems facing the French colonial administration was the massive number of slaves in West Africa. In some districts, they were as much as three fourths of the population. Early on, the slave trade was restricted. Slavery itself was a more complex problem. The administration wanted to ignore or, at best, regulate it, but from the first, the issue threatened embarrassment at home and social conflict in the colonies. The French depended on slave-owning elites to govern West Africa. The desire to protect their control over their slaves often tied these elites to the French. Slavery could not exist without the support of the state, but few colonial administrations dependent on metropolitan parliaments for their budgets could admit that openly. Local administrators were very hostile to any proposal to act against slavery, probably because they feared for their own safety. Both continuing enslavement and the frequent flight of slaves posed problems.

Type
Articles
Information
Itinerario , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , July 1983 , pp. 102 - 115
Copyright
Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 1983

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References

Footnotes

1. Klein, Martin A. and Lovejoy, Paul E., “Slavery in West Africa” in Hogendorn, Jan and Gemery, Henry, The Uncommon Market. Essays in the Economia History of the Atlantic Slave Trade (New York, 1979).Google Scholar

2. Archives du Senegal (AS), K 18–22.

3. Weber, Eugen, Peasants into Frenchmen (Stanford, 1976), 126–27.Google Scholar

4. Archives Nationales du Mali (ANM), E 181.

5. Comm. to Gov., 12 Mar 1904, Archives Nationales de la Guinée, 2 D 88.

6. Letter with Poulet's Rapport sur la Captivité, ANM 1 E 181.

7. Klein, Martin A. and Roberts, Richard, “The Banamba Exodus and the Decline of Slavery in the Western Soudan”, Journal of African History, XXI (1980).Google Scholar

8. On Macina, see Gallais, Jean, Le Delta Intérieur du Niger (Dakar, 1967)Google Scholar; Brown, William A., “The Caliphate of Ham-dullahi C. 1818–1864, A Study in African History and Tradition”. Unpublished thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1969Google Scholar; Johnson, Marion, “The Economic Foundations of an Islamic Theocracy - The Case of Macina,” JAH, XVII (1976), 481–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9. Gallais, I, 129. There was, however, an active slave market and new slaves were brought in. The problem was that during the period of greatest enslavement, the last decades of the 19th century, Macina was a contested area, and thus, not one that saw accumulation of slaves.

10. Resumé Historique, Djenné, ANM, 1 D 38.

11. Annual Report, Djenné 1909, ANM 1 E 30.

12. Admin. Djenné to Gov., 24 Dec, 1908, ANM 1 E 30.

13. Annual Report, Djenné, 1909, ANM 1 E 30. Marion Johnson and Jean Gallais refer to both the jamgal and the jégom. Gallais, I, 129–131; Johnson, , “Theocracy” 488Google Scholar; and Johnson, Marion, “Production, Consumption and Exchange in Macina,” paper presented to Kano Seminar, 5–10 January 1975.Google Scholar As becomes clear below, the jégom, or sixth, replaced the jamgal. It would have been impossible for slave households to have paid both and survived.

14. The obligation of a male slave in most Soudanic societies tended to be approximately the amount of grain needed to feed a man for a year. The highest reported outside of Macina was in Goumbou, where Meillassoux's informants say that a slave owed 150 muude or 337 kilograms. Meillassoux, Claude, “Etat et conditions des esclaves a Gumbu (Mali) au XIXe siècle”, in Meillassoux, , Esclavage in Afrique Noire (Paris, 1975), 236Google Scholar and Pollet, Eric and Winter, Grace, La Societé Soninke (Dyahunu, Mali) (Brussels, 1971), 239.Google Scholar

15. It is not completely clear that a strong male could easily produce 1.6 tons. Gallais has a. description of a rice-cultivating family with six active members aged 15 or above, which produced 4.6 tons in 1958. The family in question may not have had all the land they wanted. They produced well above their needs, and with fish supplementing their diet and supplementary income from offseason labour, were relatively comfortable. If they had to pay jamgal, there would have been little surplus. Gallais, I, 203–11.

16. Political Reports, Djenné, June and July 1903, ANM 1 E 29.

17. Political Report, Djenné, December 1905, ANM 1 E 29.

18. Political Report, Djenné, July 1908, ANM 1 E 29.

20. Political Report, Djenné, October 1908, ANM 1 E 29. During this period of liberation, slave children were often the central issue in conflicts. See Klein and Roberts, “Banamba”.

21. Tour report, 24 December I908, ANM 1E 192. The agreement had the virtue of being the result of negotiation. Both sides made concessions. In Guinea, during the same period, at least one administrator tried to impose on the “former slaves” a contract that merely reproduced their traditional obligations. See correspondence from Foreca-riah, ANG 2 D 94 and 95.

22. Annual Report, Djenné, 1908, ANM 1 E 29.

23. Fawtier report on Tour, 1909–1910, Djenné, ANM 1 E 30.

24. Political report, Djenné, April 1909, ANM 1 E 30.

25. Report of Inspector Saurin, quoted by G. Febvre, Political report, Feb. 1910, Djenné, ANM 1 E 30.

26. Loc. cit.

27. Annual report, Djenné, 1910, ANM 1 E 30.

28. Political report, Feb. 1910, Djenné, ANM 1 E 30. Dimadio is the singular of Rimaibé.

29. Various reports, Djenné, 1912 and 1913, ANM 1 E 30.

30. Political report, Dec. 1912, Djenné, ANM 1 E 30.

31. A.A. Lalarde, Report on tour, April-May 1912, Djenné, ANM 1 E 30.

32. Political report, Sept. 1913, Djenné, MM 1 E 30. See also reports from Mopii.

33. Lalarde, tour report, April-May 1912, ANM 1 E 30.

34. Journal Officiel de L'A.O.F., 19 Dec. 1908.

35. Ponty's instructions to Governor Camille Guy, AS 7 G 63.

36. Admin. Koury to Gov., 19 April 1907, ANM 1 E 204.

37. Klein and Roberts, “Banamba.”

38. Resident Yelimané to Admin. Nioro, 5 March 1908, ANM 1 E 212.

39. Gov. Hioro, 27 May 1908, ANM 1 E 212; Gov. to Goumbou, 14 March 1908, ANM 1 E 197.

40. Gov. to Issa-Ber, Bandiagara, Sokolo, Goumbou, and Niorro, 29 June 1908, ANM 1 E 212. (His italics).

41. Admin. Goumbou to Gov., 21 April I908, ANM 1 E 197.

42. Miscellaneous reports, ANM 1 E 38 and 1 E 39.

43. MM 1 E 43, esp. political reports of July and August 1908.

44. Gallais, I 131.

45. Gallais, I, 16O-161.