IV.5. THE NEW PRODUCERS WIN, THEN CRUMBLE

 4.5. Producers win then crumble 

SLAVE RAIDERS SWEEP THE SAVANNAH

The end of the Atlantic slave trade* diminished the resources of traditional states, letting producers whose wealth came from long-distance trade blow them away and establish slave-based, profit-oriented theocracies in their stead. 

*Between roughly 1850 and 1870.

Gone from the web

Savannah horsemen who resemble the raiders.

A transformation that 

colonial conquest deletes

• Slavery and economic growth

• Adapting Islam to the need for labor

• Warlords and big-time traders

• Samory and the Senufo Judas

• Samory: bad guy or good guy, same tale

• Military conquest does not bring new markets: Take textiles

• Slaves freed, economies collapse

• Islam, sole non-Western subject

*      *      *

Next,

Slavery and economic growth

INTENSIVE SLAVERY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

RAIDS BECOME MASSIVE AND EFFICIENT

They are meant to seize land and labor for production,

not maintain the status quo.

• Rifles replace the deliberately poor trade guns.

 Muslim raid in the 1880's  by Harry Johnston 

• Populations are massively displaced... 

Arab slavers in East Africa (origin not named) / zoom

To provide labor for the huge new estates:

Second Journey to discover the Sources of the Nile by John Speke (French translation), 1864, zoom

Same source, color added (alamy)

# # #

Djimini production greatly expands during the brief rule of raider Samory Ture
(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

They use it to impose private land ownership and Muslim terms come to mean: 

"Keffir:" evil doer, unbeliever — animist

"Jihad:" war against the keffirs — slave raids 

"Though a good man at heart..." a Toucouleur 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, p. 623. 

# # #

The reaction of a slave's descendant  

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

ORAL HISTORY SHOWS THAT RAIDERS AND POWERFUL MERCHANTS ALLY

Accounts of Nambolosse's death show not the literal truth, but the threat of the slave-catching raiders and the durability of their memory.   

Reality: 

Nambolosse offends both groups of long-distance traders (from Senegal and Northern Nigeria) by demanding that a wealthy Hausa be given over to him as a slave and seizing a Soninke legacy. A Dyula chief (allied with them?) and his men come to Bokhala when the warriors are gone and, being "too old to fight," he is alone in his hut. They set fire to it and he is burned alive. 

-- Dakar archives, 1878

Memories: 

Both Muslims and animists drop the Dyula chief and substitute "Mori," a Hausa merchant and the chief of the Hausa village of Marabadiassa, who ravages Taguana country to the east.   

• 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 of Darhala

• Animist version, by victims' descendants:

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

How the stories are told shows the lasting antagonism between the two groups, whose villages are separate.

• Burning Nambolosse "like a roast" reveals Muslim contempt for animists, which my teen-aged interpreter emphasized by yelling insults at them from the window of a car. (I told him I'd fire him if he did it again, and he didn't).

• "Watch out for Djimini: There are real men there" expresses animist resistance to the Muslims and pride.

The animist version also shows Mori foreshadowing Samory (please continue). He is one raider among many: After about 1870, at least four others terrify populations of the northern Ivory Coast: "Mori" and Vakuba Ture who "raids in the east with his sons."

-- Abidjan archives for the Bonduku region (east of Djimini)

# # #

Except for the sentence above, I found no mention in the Paris or Abidjan archives of raiders whom the French did not confront.

Records in general 

leave out what the narrators think

does not concern them.

*      *     *

 Next,

Samory and the Senufo Judas

SAMORY AND THE SENUFO JUDAS

SAMORY, TEXTILE TRADER, SLAVE RAIDER AND CONQUEROR

When the French push him back from his first empire (in 1875) he transfers to Djimini.

(In 1894-98)

Adapted from African History Extra in "The Empire of Samori Ture on the Eve of Colonisation" by Isaac Samuel / zoom

A fifth column, the "Sonnangui:" Senufo who emerge as producers for market when the cowrie currency appears. Their laborers are slaves. 

The Sonnangui 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

# # #

Among them is Pelegayan, who grows millet for a new market

on the conqueror's route
(Foumbolo)

 Small letters, villages that Samory destroys. 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,
Samory: bad guy or good guy, same tale

SAMORY: BAD GUY OR GOOD GUY, SAME TALE

THE MOST FAMOUS AFRICAN OPPONENT OF THE FRENCH IS DEFEATED...

 Capture and prisoner (records of 1898)  

He becomes a hero

 

The Intrepid Warrior who Defied French Colonisation / video: zoom (in French)

A statue: Please click and scroll down.

A  pop tune: "Flee, flee, Samori, the Whites are coming, they have sworn to kill you." 

-- By Alpha Blondy, 1984

Yet the Senufo of Djimini recall him with terror. His massive slave raiding and the dynamic economy due to captive labor are left out.

*    *     *

Next,

Views of Islam, a non-Western topic

MILLITARY CONQUEST DOES NOT BRING NEW MARKETS: TAKE TEXTILES

THE VICTORS CANNOT ESTABLISH COLONIAL ECONOMIES (OBTAIN RAW MATERIALS AND MARKETS) BY MILITARY FORCE ALONE

Why substitute flimsy manufactured cloth for this...

Embroidery, a royal ornamentation.

Or this:

Alamy photos: zoom 

 

Haussa weaving 

 

# # #

The colonial powers never do 

take over the African market,

which goes to the Dutch with the

 dramatic prints that Ghanaian soldiers

in Indonesia bring home. 

*     *     *

Next,

Slaves freed, economies collapse

SLAVES FREED, ECONOMIES COLLAPSE

 

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. 


*     *     *

Next,

Islam, sole non-Western subject