4.5.1. DESTRUCTION, SLAVERY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

RAIDS BECOME MASSIVE AND EFFICIENT

Once meant to maintain the status quo, their goal becomes seizing land and labor for production.

• Rifles replace the deliberately poor trade guns.

 Muslim raid in the 1880's by Harry Johnston / zoom

• Populations are massively displaced to provide labor for the huge new estates where labor is intensive :

Arab slavers in East Africa  / zoom

Second Journey to Discover the Sources of the Nile, 1861-1862, by John Speke (French ed.),  zoom

"He cultivates his vast estate by bands of slaves chained together..."

Speke, color added by Almamy

*     *

Eliminating communal societies allows establishing commercial estates: Djimini production greatly expands during the brief rule of raider Samory Ture (1894-98) —

• Kong and villages in small print are destroyed, but those in large print spring up or become largetr: "Marabadiassa which replaced Kong after its destruction, is an important commercial center." 

 -- Abidjan archives, 1899

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

-- Same source.

All interlocutors confirmed that expansion.

*    *

When with deliberate naiveté I asked the elders of Darhala

what was the work of slaves,

their chief said their were no slaves

and ended the conversation. 

*     *     *

Next,
4.5.2. 

Adapting Islam to the need for labor