NEW FORCES MENACE

LONG-DISTANCE TRADERS MULTIPLY AND DOMINATE   

(FROM ABOUT 1870) 

The Hausa merchant "Mori" settles in the textile center of Marabadiassa; "Karamoko Bassiri" in Bouake, farther west; the father of the 1970's imam of Darhala, a Muslim village on the route to Kong, arrives at the same time.

-- Informants in Muslim villages

William Allen, Narrative of an Expedition to the River Niger, 1848

Hausa dignitaries

The painting reminds me of the village elders who met with me at the request  of the sous-préfet Monsieur Texier, dressed in their robes and sitting in a semi-circle around me.

Their advance is part of a general evolution:

• 1820's: Fulani from Northern Nigeria ride south, wearing white clothing, carrying banners, crying "Allahu Akhbar!" and awaiting paradise should they die in combat. At Oyo's capital they incite Muslim slaves to kill their animist masters and join them. 

-- Clapperton,
 Records of a Second Expedition to the Interior of Africa, 1825-27,
ed. Paul Lovejoy, 203-4.

• 1850's: Bornu Fulani and Kanuri move south, enslaving or killing populations or demanding tribute.  

-- Barth, II, 93.

• 1870's: Segu's Amadu Tall "seems to be less and less interested in his possessions in Kaarta, Fadugu and Bélédugu (in Senegal and Mali), which are in constant revolt... [he] is turning his efforts toward the south..."

-- Dakar archives, 1880.

• 1890's: Northerners reach the coast.

-- Dakar archives, 1894.

# # #

They colonise and enserf:  

•  The indigenous language is disappearing:

"The spirits of the land, say the Senufo of Kénédougou, have retreated to certain swamps [...]. Woe to the careless person who should pronounce words in the Bambara language, that of the conqueror, next to those swamps. He will immediately be sucked in. The country is Senufo, and its spirits wish to hear Senufo alone."

-- Dakar archives, 1888.

• Populations are becoming tributary:

North of Djimini: "It is to them [the northerners] that they [the Senufo]give their work and their harvests. In fact they are captives, except that they are not sold."  

-- Dakar archives, 1888.

Within Djimini: "They tried to steal our harvests."

 -- Serisio Coulibali, animist farmer.

The northerners preach Islam,
which in an animist context
means transforming society itself.

*      *      *

Next,
Senufo fight back