IV. 3. BACK TO DJIMINI -- VIOLENCE REAPPEARS

4.3. Djimini violence reappears

A CENTURY OF PEACE BRINGS ANOTHER CYCLE 
OF GROWTH, UPHEAVAL 
AND RESISTANCE TO NEW FORCES OF GAIN 

Internet

Senufo warrior

• New forces menace

• Senufo fight back

• Different violence, similar goal

*      *      *

Next,

New forces menace

NEW FORCES MENACE

 NORTHERN TRADERS MULTIPLY
(From about 1870) 

The Hausa merchant "Mori" 

settles in the textile center of Marabadiassa,

and "Karamoko Bassiri" in Bouake, farther west

-- The imams of Dabalakoro and Darhala

(Muslim villages that spring up along the trade route)

The imam of Darhala

said that his father and others arrived then as well

William Allen, Narrative of an expedition to the River Niger, 1848

Hausa dignitaries

• Their advance is part of a general evolution:

° 1820's

Fulani from Northern Nigeria ride south, with white clothing and banners, crying "Allahu Akhbar!" and awaiting paradise should they die in combat. At Oyo's capital they incite Muslim slaves to kill their animist masters and join them. 

-- Clapperton,
 Records of a second expedition to the interior of Africa, 1825-27,
ed. Paul Lovejoy, 203-4

° 1850's 

Bornu Fulani and Kanuri move south, enslaving or killing populations or demanding tribute.  

-- Barth, II, 93

° 1870's

Segu's Amadu Tall "seems to be less and less interested in his possessions in Kaarta, Fadugu and Bélédugu (in Senegal and Mali), which are in constant revolt... (he) is turning his efforts toward the south..."

-- Dakar archives, 1880

 ° 1890's 

Northerners reach the coast.

-- Dakar archives, 1894

• They colonise and enserf:  

° The indigenous language is disappearing

"The spirits of the land, say the Senufo of Kenedugu, have retreated to certain swamps... Woe to the careless person who should pronounce words in the Bambara language, that of the conqueror, next to those swamps. He will immediately be sucked in. The country is Senufo, and its spirits wish to hear Senufo alone."

-- Dakar archives, 1888

° Populations are becoming tributary

North of Djimini: "It is to them (the northerners) that they (the Senufo) give their work and their harvests. In fact they are captives, except that they are not sold."  

-- Dakar archives, 1888

Within Djimini: "They tried to steal our harvests"

 -- Serisio Coulibali, farmer

The northerners preach Islam,
which in an animist context
means transforming society itself.

*      *      *

Next,
Senufo fight back 

SENUFO FIGHT BACK

GNAPON'S SON NAMBOLOSSE
LEADS THEIR RESISTANCE

It is he who is killed in 1878,
when "too old to fight."

-- Dakar archives, 1878

• He is the Senufo hero:
"He made the traders respect us. 

He forced them to speak our tongue.

He pillaged caravans and said,

'If I renounce crime, how will I eat?'

 -- Serisio Coulibali, farmer

Internet

° Who are the riders? 

They can't be Muslims, 
for the facial cuts are animist
(At least those on Internet)

Do they represent Nambolosse? 

Are villagers horsemen?  

Or do the statues represent Sonnangui, slave-owning Senufo who become producers for market (as the next chapter explains).

Internet

Horsewoman

° What about women riders?  

The sister of the terrifying warlord Samory was a raider. 

Was she alone, or did other women raid as well?

What about the facial cuts? 

One would have to see a representative exhibit or perhaps people on the spot still know.

They are questions I thought of only later.  

• After Nambolosse's death the Senufo 
continue their attacks.

They distinguish between
local and long-distance traders,

assaulting only caravans with donkeys,

which are raised in the north.

-- Dakar archives, 1891, confirmed by interlocutors.
Donkeys would not be raised so near the forest, 
with its deadly tsetse flies. 

° The petty traders are left alone,

for they have become part of Senufo society

They are Dyula, like the marabout whose prayers helped found Bokhala. Their Islam is so "lax" that their elders were often drunk in public.

Translation: they will not use Islam to defy the traditional order.

-- Drunk in public:
Journal de Braulot, Dakar archives, 1893

° "We let the little Dyula alone, 

but the Soninke were like fish. 

We did not know where they came from 

or where they were going,

and we caught them like fish."  

-- Bafétigui Coulibali, imam of Dabakalakoro

° "We:" the imam identifies with the animists 

against other Muslims: please read on.

Senufo resistance is effective. 
For over 15 years,
raiders devastate territories to the east and west,
but spare Djimini.

*     *     *

Next,
Different violence, similar goal

DIFFERENT VIOLENCE, SIMILAR GOAL

HUMAN SACRIFICE,
ANOTHER WAY TO COUNTER THREAT 
FROM RISING COMMERCIAL FORCES 

The king of Dahomey immolates 10 slaves in 1850 and 300 in 1853, 

to keep palm oil growers from obtaining them
(Dahomey: now part of Benin)

• Every year Dahomeyan family heads

sacrifice wealth to the ancestors,

the amount depending on status. 

The king sacrifices what costs most,

slaves

Journals of two missions to the king of Dahomey, in 1849 and 1850 by Frederic E. Forbes

• When the British block the port
to prevent slave-carrying ships from sailing (in 1852), 
the ruler finds himself with a mass of captives
that the oligarchy cannot absorb
and that are costly to maintain  

Dahomey Human sacrifice in 1853, "Le Tour du Monde"

Palm-oil production has increased under European demand, and its producers would gladly buy those slaves.

The king sacrifices them instead. 

• Ritualized destruction emphasizes authority,

as usual

In the first drawing, the king is giving the order to pitch the captives over the wall. The population watches from outside.

In the second, the ruler and crowd participate in the execution together. The people cheer each time the executioner raises a head, while the king sits under the parasol (a symbol of power) in the front row.

There is no comparable ritual in Djimini, 

where the economy is much less developed
and that has no king.

But pillaging caravans and massacring labor
have the same goal,
to protect societies that commercial forces threaten.

End of this chapter.

*      *      *

Next chapter,

IV, 4.
Commercial forces win, then crumble

IV,4. COMMERCIAL FORCES WIN, THEN CRUMBLE

 4.4. Commercial forces win then crumble

SLAVE RAIDERS SWEEP THE SAVANNAH

With archaic kingsoms crushed,
they seize the labor that commercial economies demand
(Especially from about 1870)

The raiders must have looked this / Internet

• Slavery and growth 

• Adapting Islam to captive labor

• Warlords and big-time traders

• Samory and the Senufo Judas 

• Slave liberation and colonial economies

*      *      *

Next,

Slavery and growth

SLAVERY AND GROWTH

RAIDS BECOME MASSIVE AND EFFICIENT

They are meant to seize land and labor for production,
not maintain the status quo

 • New firarms, new use, new results 

 "Muslim raid in the 1880's" by Harry Johnston 

Rifles replace the deliberately poor trade guns.

Arab slavers in East Africa, Internet (source not named)

Populations are massively displaced..  

Second journey to the source of the Nile by John Speke, London, 1864 (colors added, Almamy stock photo)

...to work immense domains. 

• Djimini production greatly expands
during the raider Samory Ture's brief rule
(1894-98)

Kong, Kondodougou and Bokhala are destroyed, but other villages spring up or become larger -- "Marabadiassa which replaced Kong after its destruction, is an important commercial center." 

 
Rice culture develops, yams are introduced, markets grow from 2000 people to 5000 and the new center of Dabakala attracts 7000. 

 -- Abidjan archives, 1899 

All interlocutors confirmed that growth.

*     *     *

Next,
Adapting Islam to the need for labor 

ADAPTING ISLAM TO THE NEED FOR LABOR

PRODUCERS INTERPRET IT 
TO JUSTIFY MASSIVE SLAVE RAIDS
AND INTENSE EXPLOITATION

As they use it to impose private land ownership

•  Muslim terms come to mean:

"Keffir:" evil doer, unbeliever -- animist

"Jihad:" war against the keffirs -- slave raids 

• Application: "Though a good man at heart..." 

a Tukulor warlord attacks an animist village that has given his men water. When an explorer objects, he answers, "they are keffirs, with them all means are fair."  

-- Lt. de vaisseau Mage, Voyage dans la Sénégambie occidentale, 1868, 623 

 • A slave's descendant reacts

In Segu, the son of an animist slave owner agreed to speak to me about slavery, and invited the descendant of one of his father's captives to attend our conversation.

My host said that his father had treated his slaves well, and had even left one in charge of the family during an absence. But, he said, the Tukulor cared only for money and treated their slaves like animals.

I then asked,
"Weren't they ruined when the French freed the slaves?"
The visitor, who so far had said nothing, 
suddenly sat up and joyfully exclaimed, 

 "They even cried about it!" 

-- Dongougou Bouaré, Segu

 *      *      *

Next,
Warlords and big-time traders

WARLORDS AND BIG-TIME TRADERS

 RAIDERS AND POWERFUL MERCHANTS ALLY

Accounts of Nambolosse's killing 
overlook the Dyula chief and substitute "Mori,"
a Hausa merchant and the chief of Marabadiassa,
who ravages nearby Taguana   

• Historical reality

When Nambolosse demands that a wealthy Hausa be given over to him as a slave and seizes a Soninke legacy, a Dyula chief and his men come to Bokhala when the warriors were gone and burn him alive in his hut.

-- Dakar archives, 1878

• Accounts:

° The Muslim version,
by raiders' descendants 

The dispossessed heirs call in Mori, whose men set fire to Nambolosse's hut. When he runs out they decapitate and eviscerate him, and cook his corpse on a spit, like a roast.  

-- Bakari Coulibali, imam de Darhala

° The animist version,
by victims' descendants
(The villages are understandably separate) 

Nambolosse's hut is fireproof. He does not die, but chases Mori out of Djimini. He would have caught him, but Mori's magic horse would disappear and reappear five kilometers further. In his flight Mori runs into Samory and says to him, "Watch out for Djimini. There are real men there." 

 -- Serisio Coulibali, Senufo farmer

° Other French records: silence,

which shows not the absence of raiders,
but French interest only in those they fight

After about 1870, at least four raiders besides Samory terrify populations of the northern Ivory Coast: "Mori" and Vakuba Ture who "raids in the east with his sons."

--  Vakaba Ture: 

Abidjan archives for the Bonduku region (east of Djimini

I found no other mention of raiders in the records of Paris or Dakar for that region, though the Abidjan archives and those of local administrative centers refer to them perhaps. the main source would be local memory, which may be vibrant even now.

Collective memory reveals what matters
to the people who recall it,
not the literal truth
(the belief that Equality Philip 
cast the deciding vote for the king's execution
 is a reason why there is no monarchy in France).

In Djimini,
both Muslim and animist villagers
overlook the Dyula killer
because the Dyula do not raid,
 and vanish in later attacks.

They replace him with Mori,
whose assaults elsewhere foreshadow Samory.

*       *       *

 Next,

Samory and the Senufo Judas

SAMORY AND THE SENUFO JUDAS

SAMORY,
TEXTILE TRADER, SLAVE RAIDER AND CONQUEROR,
 KNOWN EXCLUSIVELY FOR OPPOSING THE FRENCH 

They push him back from his first empire
 (in 1875).
He falls back on Djimini
 (in 1894-98)

• A fifth column, the "Sonnangui:"
Senufo who with the cowrie currency

emerge as producers for market,
with slaves as laborers  

They are "indigenous people... who have adopted the language the customs, the ways and the external aspects of the Dyulas' religion while keeping the Senufo tattoos... 

They have neither the elevation of ideas nor the education of the Dyula, but having opened their arms and land to Samory, have profited from the victor's friendship to exploit the Senufo, toward whom they display an arrogance and a despotism that the  Dyula ignore."

-- Abidjan archives, bold added

• Among them is Pelegayan,

who grows millet for a market
on the conqueror's route
(Foumbolo)

 In small letters, villages that Samory destroys. In large ones, villages that are new or enlarged.

 "He wanted to be king, 

but did not have the right"

The Djimini forces stop Samory near Foumbolo. 

Pelegayan gets up at night, goes to Samory and says,   

-- "Don't be discouraged, you'll win this battle. 

-- How?

-- Oh, don't worry, I am a child of this country and I will show you its secrets.

-- You tell me not to be discouraged, but I've been here for three months and I'm not getting anywhere. 

-- Oh, don't worry, I am a child of this country, I know the secrets, you will win out. 

He gives the secrets and tells his army not to load their guns. "

-- Serisio Coulibali

The Sonnangui are remembered for their "curious" Islam,

 which brings them closer to the conquerors
and separates them from their animist slaves.

*     *     *

Next,
Slave liberation and colonial economies

SLAVE LIBERATION AND COLONIAL ECONOMIES

THE NEW PRODUCERS' DYNAMISM 
MAKES ESTABLISHING COLONIAL ECONOMIES IMPOSSIBLE

Their opposition is implacable
and European wares cannot compete 

• Textiles, motor of commerce, 

are unsaleable:
Why substitute flimsy manufactured cloth

° For this... 

Haussa weaving 

Cloths of hand-woven strips from the excellent cotton last a lifetime, and look spectacular on dark skins. (In fact, the colonial powers never do take over the African market, which goes to the Dutch with the dramatic prints that soldiers in Indonesia bring home).

° ...or this?

                                                                                                                             Internet

Embroidery, a royal craft

• So as soon as their military control is assured 

the conquerors free the slaves,
which provokes exodus and collapse.  

A melancholy report describes them: 

The 40-page narrative by the local administrator begins with the Ivory Coast governor announcing emancipation in two northern centers with large slave populations. He travels from the coast during the rainy season, which shows that the order comes from Paris.

At first slaves do not believe that they are free, but when a few slip away and nothing happens, the exodus snowballs. Almost all the captives leave, some to villages that often no longer exist, others with no idea where to go.

The administrator concludes by doubting that their lives will be better, and by sadly observing the immediate disintegration of societies that had flourished. 

-- Rapport du Capitaine Schiffer, October 1907, Dabakala archives

• The producers must work the fields themselves -- 

their descendants still do.

In all but the most remote of the conquered regions,
that change is complete by about 1907.

Then colonial economies can be imposed. 

End of this chapter.

*     *     *

Next chapter,
IV, 5.
Another narrative