4,2. SAME TRANSFORMATION, MUCH WIDER SCALE

 4.2. Same transformation much wider scale

 COMMERCIAL FORCES WIN AFTER A FIGHT
AND STRONGER POWER SPRINGS UP
TO CONTAIN THEM 

In the most developed regions
charismatic leaders, advanced merchants
and destabilized crowds
establish states of an unprecedented kind

Such transformation affects most of the light green zone, from about 1850.

• Djimini cycles in a more commercial region 

• Is an explorer taken for the messiah? 

• "Everywhere the humble show their masters their teeth"   

• A theocracy amps up growth...

•  ...then contains it

*     *     *

Next,  

Djimini cycles in a more commercial region

DJIMINI CYCLES IN A MORE COMMERCIAL REGION

GROWTH AFFECTS THE LAKE CHAD REGIONS
 OF BORNU AND LOGONE

Compare the accounts of two explorers
(Barth and Clapperton, in 1825 and 1855).

They may see important matters
and even illustrate them,
but do not grasp their implications
or pursue the economic information that slips in:
So we interpret 

 -- Narrative of travels and discoveries in northern and central Africa in 1821, 1822, 1823
by Captain Hugh Clapperton, London, 1826

-- Travels and discoveries in North and Central Africa by Heinrich Barth, London, 1855

Regions at the epicenter of Boko Haram

• Bornu toward 1825

° The economy is comparable to that of 15th-century France

and this horseman resembles a knight

Clapperton's narrative

° A theocratic ruler 
has recently become head of the 1000-year-old kingdom.
He is stronger than the obese kings
but constraints still hem him in

Shehu al-Hajj Muhammad al-Kânemi / Clapperton

White robes represent saintliness and being the representative of God strengthens authority...

 Same

...yet giant turbans hamper movement and the barrier isolates.  

  

• Logone,

farther from the Saharan trade
and so more primitive, 

is changing more slowly 

° Ways to discourage 
the emergence of independent producers  

* The king offers the mission an immense quantity of supplies, much more than it can consume, which makes obtaining them from locals pointless.

* Clapperton sees iron money for the first time, and gives it a rare illustration:

  

° But commerce expands
and power becomes stronger,
as in Djimini  

* Economic transformation: 
weaving and dyeing appear in the 18th century.

* Reinforced power: 

-- Toward 1700, chieftaincies unite, that is, at about the time that traders smash Kong's monopoly of routes to the south and reach Djimini.

-- Toward 1800, the ruler becomes nominally Muslim, a sign of centralization since power comes from God. The change that coincides with Gnapon's take-over.

• A generation later 

° In Bornu...

* Barth finds that a revolution has defeated the oldest nobility, that is, the descendants of the men with the huge turbans. The ruler is free of physical constraints. 

* Cowries arrive at the same time.

° In Logone...

* Commercial production expands:

-- Cotton is grown, "...weaving and dyeing are here carried on to a considerable extent, new land is being cleared, a market is "fairly active," and "Field-hand villages" grow up during the rainy season. (Who owns them, the oligarchy or independent producers? Barth does not say.)  

-- Cotton bands have replace the iron money. They are a divisible currency, though less so than cowries : one band = eight cowries.   

* But the government remains the same:  

The ruler continues to provide a huge quantity of supplies, enough for a hundred people though Barth is alone,  and receives him behind a curtain.

The economy is developing 
 but authority stays the same:
Watch out. 

*     *     *

Next,
An explorer is taken for a messianic leader

AN EXPLORER IS TAKEN FOR A MESSIANIC LEADER

BARTH UNWITTINGLY BEHAVES AS AN AGITATOR
AND AUTHORITIES ARREST HIM 

Bagirmi officials think he will "upset the kingdom" 

should he arrive in the absence of the sultan,

who is on a slaving expedition.

He is arrested for 18 days, 
four of them in irons.

The sultan eventually lets him leave

but not explore Bagirmi: 

A polite way of saying,

"Get out of here and don't come back"

•  On his way from Logone to Bagirmi,
Barth behaves like a king: 

° He gives away so much wealth (in needles)
that he is called "the needle prince:"
But hand-outs are meant to gain partisans.

° He shares provisions of the Logone ruler
with a caravan leader,
not realizing that only kings do so
(it shows that the trader has been accepted 
and prevents him from obtaining supplies from locals).

° He sits on a carpet
(until he learns that only kings may do so). 

 •  He appears to have supernatural powers

° That is partly due to bad luck:

When thunderclouds disperse as he leaves his hut,

he is called "king of the high regions."

But then he stays in his hut as much as possible,

the inaccessibility probably adding to his aura.

° Distributing medecines sparks belief in his magic:
On his expulsion,
crowds follow him "all the way from Bagirmi"
to obtain them.

° Add his personal appearance, 
whose oddity makes him automatically distinct.

• Most significant:
The appearance of the crowds themselves,
which reveals the destabilisation
that comes with economic growth 

The Logone ruler with his limited authority cannot control its effects.

European precedents: Millenarial movements begin at the end of the 11th century in places where commerce expands (the Rhine valley, parts of northern France and Belgium, and large parts of Europe later). When there is no economic growth such records are absent.

-- The pursuit of the millenium by Herman Cohn, Oxford, 1957, 22 et seq.:

A classic study of European revolutionary messianism

• Those crowds foreshadow

the mass millenarial movements

that will sweep the savannah 

Kanembu warriors, "Le tour du monde," ed. Elysée Reclus, 1885

(The Kanembu: a Bornu population)

A messianic leader? Vigorous and unencumbered, riding a white steed, whom a disciplined infantry follows (please read on)...

When lands are lost,
the old ways are irretrievably gone,

social ties dissolved
 and ancestral beliefs no longer reassure,
people may flock to leaders who are outside the norm --
including a European explorer of Africa. 

*     *     *

Next,

 "Everywhere the humble show the masters their teeth"

"EVERYWHERE THE HUMBLE SHOW THE MASTERS THEIR TEETH"

MILLENARIAL MOVEMENTS SWEEP THE SAVANNAH

That historians know best
-- because the French confront it --
begins on the Senegal
and establishes a theocracy on the Middle Niger 
(in 1854)

-- The title's citation: Dakar archives, 1857

This page and the next summarize Aubin, 457-94

• The early economic growth
of the Senegal Valley,
due to geography
and the French outpost of Saint-Louis

° The Senegal Valley's alluvial plain

 yields two harvests a year,

 which allow important sales of millet 

°As well,

cattle-raising gives its Tukolor population

 a sense of private property that is unusual for the time.

 Many become traders

Saint-Louis: 6,000 residents in 1800, 15,000 in 1850

-- Aubin 463-4 and notes

° The Industrial Revolution
increases the demand for hides and peanuts

and slaves and slave-ship crews require more provisions 

with the slave trade at its height.

° Trading posts along the river multiply. 

Locals hired as sailors or servants

 may save their earnings to become traders 

• Growth enriches some,

but many lose their lands
and points of reference

An early millenarial movements deepens social cleavages by letting almamies (Muslim leaders), who are deeply involved in commercial production and long-distance trade, control communal landholdings and impose tithes, which they often keep.

 -- Aubin 465-6, n. 109-116

   
Tukulor prophets appear from the 1770's. In 1830, one of them preaches "the spirit of pillage and devastation" against infidels and "an army of saints... ready for martydom... grows from village to village... with prayer-beads in hand, heads shaved, marches before him...". 

-- Abbott P.D. Boilat, 
Esquisses sénégalaises,1853, 411

In the 1840's, bands of ragged marauders threaten a traveller's boat.

-- Anne Raffenel, 

Voyage en Sénégambie occidentale, 1846, I, 38-9, 47, 177-8, 267-8

• A Tukulor merchant, 

a scholar
and rare West African to have been to Mecca,

calls for a society based on divine law

(al-hajj Umar Tall,
in the early 1850's)

° His followers include 

one fourth of the Tukulor population

 plus subordinates from other ethnic groups, 

peasants who have lost their lands, slaves, lineage minors.

 -- Dakar archives, 1880

° They hope for lands and booty, 

and the collapse of their former communities

 predisposes them to accept a new one

• Those armies contrast with royal ones:

"Pursued, surrounded,

they did not change their regular pace

and let themselves be killed rather than flee."  

-- Dakar archives, 1880

Ambroise Tardieu collection /  Internet

A millennarial force of 1818

But the authorities resist.

Sign of their strength -- no markets.

-- Raffenel I, 233

Umar leads his following to the Niger.

*      *      *

 Next,

A theocracy amps up growth...

A THEOCRACY AMPS UP GROWTH...

MUSLIM LAW ENCOURAGES 
COMMERCIAL PRODUCTION 

So the Middle Niger's most dynamic traders welcome
al-hajj Umar's theocracy 
(the Tukulor confederation of Segu, 1861-1890)

The capital is the town of Segu, on the Middle Niger.

• It uses Muslim law to...

° Impose private landownership 

When Umar arrives, communal property is at the heart of Muslim as well as animist social structure. But Islamic law demands division among heirs, and the regime sends soldier-backed judges to enforce it.

By the 1890's all the land in the densely-populated Segu area is privately held, and produces millet for fifty local markets.

Communal organization is gone.

-- Dakar archives, 1895

° Obtain labor through "holy wars" --

(A page in the next chapter explains this)

• Enforcing such a change 
requires stronger power:

The theocratic kings are the opposite 

of the animist or syncretist rulers 
who maintain the status quo

 Al-hajj Umar Tall, drawing of the time

A robe and headdress that do not encumber, an aura increased by stairs instead of a barrier.

"He said he was a mere soldier of Mohammed, but that gave him inifinitely more power than that of the usual king."  

 -- Dakar archives, 1887, 
citing Amadou Tall, Umar's son and successor

° To encourage strong leaders,
succession practices change:
Rulers transmit their wealth to chosen heirs

Along the Senegal and Niger, succession that passed from brother to brother ensured short reigns and prevented a single dynasty from accumulating wealth. But now the leader alone possesses "baraka" (divine grace), to convey to his chosen heir.

Umar chooses his son Amadu, who too appoints his successor.

And keeps the treasure.

When his father's followers accuse him of "stinginess" -- the usual complaint when a king does not share  -- he hires soldiers of his own.

He takes 20 camel-loads of gold (500 kilos) on campaign and the French find gold jewels valued at 300,000 francs buried in the palace.

-- Aubin 476, ns. 161, 163, 164

• Doctrine is adapted to practical needs --

Segu becomes a pilgrimage destination
equal to Mecca

and Amadu has 800 wives

The pilgrimage reinforces the theocracy and the wives give all groups a chance that a descendant of theirs will come to power. 

-- Mecca: Paul Soleillet, 
Voyages et découvertes dans le Sahara et dans le Soudan, 1887, 233 

-- Wives: Lt. de vaisseau Mage,
 Voyage dans le Soudan occidental, 1868, 408

To understand the hold of mass philosophies,

set it them in their economic contexts

and observe the practical effects of applying them.

*     *     *

Next:

...then contains it 

...THEN CONTAINS IT

AMADU RESTRAINS THE RISE

OF THE MOST ASSERTIVE TRADERS

Internet, photographer not named

Hausa trader

• Hausa legacies go to the State  

They are the traders who bring textile production to Djimini and whom several kingdoms expel.

Umar shows his favor to them when he chooses Amadu, his son by a Hausa wife, as his successor. Amadu looks Hausa and speaks Hausa, and a Hausa interlocutor in Segu told me that his father and one of Amadu's sons exchanged cordial visits.

Yet they cannot transmit their wealth.

 -- Dakar archives, 1895

• As for the Soninke, 

Amadu says... 

"Their fortunes are like the fleece of sheep,

which grows back as one cuts it."

-- Bamako archives, 1897

 In limiting profits
his theocracy remains traditional.

End of this section.

 *      *      * 

Next section,

IV, 3.
Back to Djimini -- violence reappears