WHEN THE SLAVES ARE FREED, THE PRODUCERS' ECONOMIES COLLAPSE

AS SOON AS THEIR MILITARY CONTROL IS ASSURED THE CONQUERERS 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 economy of the administrator's entire 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.

MUST FIND THE COPY.

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. 


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Islam, sole non-Western subject