4.5.2. ADAPTING ISLAM TO THE NEED FOR LABOR

PRODUCERS INTERPRET THE FAITH TO JUSTIFY THE MASSIVE 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 

...which allows turning their lands into estates for commercial agricultural production while enslaving their people.

"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. 

# # #

A slave's descendant reacts 

In Ségou, the son of an animist slave owner agreed to speak to me about slavery. He 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, Ségou

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Next,

4.5.3. 

Samory's legend skips the raided