4.5.7. THE SLAVES ARE FREED AND ECONOMIES COLLAPSE

BEYOND THE USELESS CONQUERORS' TEXTILES, LOCAL ECONOMIES' DYNAMISM MAKES COLONIAL COMMERCIAL CONTROL IMPOSSIBLE

So the first act of all when military control is assured is to free the slaves, which brings the producers' immediate collapse. 

# # #

A melancholy report describes it: 

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, proof 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 economy of the administrator's district collapses within weeks.

He concludes by doubting that their lives will be better, and by sadly observing the instant disintegration of societies that had flourished.*

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

*This is the report that Monsieur Texier, the sous-préfet of Dabakala, found in the archives and let me read.

# # #

In all but the most remote of the conquered regions, that transformation is complete by 1907. The colonialists impose their economies. 

The producers must work the fields themselves. 

Their descendants still do.

*     *     *

Next,

 4.5.8.

 Islam, a non-Western topic?