3.2.1. TRADITIONAL SLAVE RAIDS LIMIT VIOLENCE

Full account, Aubin, pp. 487-90

THE ANNUAL DRY-SEASON RAIDS SOUGHT ONLY THE NUMBER OF CAPTIVES THAT ELITES COULD USE, SINCE A SURPLUS WOULD HAVE TO BE MAINTAINED OR SOLD

If the latter independent producers would buy them, and increase their labor force, production, sales and threat.

• Captives were mainly women and children:

In what is now Mali, 1892 / zoom

Drawings of captives show mainly women, this one with a child in the background.

• The army of Bornu (in northeastern Nigeria) killed male prisoners by cutting off a leg. 

The explorer Heinrich Barth, who accompanied the expedition, mentions those killings without comment.

-- .Narrative of a voyage in North and Central Africa, 1855, II, pp. 324-86.

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Captures were braked by..

• Crowds that accompanied armies between the Niger and Ethiopia. Bivouacs represented palace, capital and kingdom, or the head, hands and feet of the king.

  -- Aubin, p. 487; references, n.198.

Marshal Bugeaud during the Conquest of Algeria by Horace Vernet, 1846 / zoom

The tents in the background recall the hierarchy of royal camps in the African savannah.

• Attacking villages from one side only (in Cayor, Senegal), allowing flight and sparing harvests. 

 -- De la Sénégambie français by F. Carrère et P. Jolle, 1855, p. 70.

• Ritual 

• The Ashanti (Ghana) considered only one day in three propitious for war. They halted an advance that threatened the English to avoid fighting on an unfavorable day. 

-- Emmanuel Terray, "La captivité dans le royaume abron du Gyaman"

 in L'Esclavage en Afrique précoloniale, ed. Claude Meillassoux, 1975, p. 325

. 

• In Senegambia, adversaries advanced "in a kind of parade," shooting and retiring to reload, each in turn.

                                                                                                                       -- Carrère and Jolle (above), p. 70.

*     *  Use of horses Nobles used them for prestige, for show, for individual exploits, to tower over foot soldiers — or to flee. Zoom The man on foot is holding his own. Should victory matter, they might fight on foot —  Galla (in Ethiopia) dismounted, "fought desperately for their lives" and won ; Mossi (in Burkina Faso) came to the battlefield riding asses, three fighters to an ass, dismounted and won. -- Galla, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile by James Bruce, 1791, III, p. 233  Mossi, Dakar archives, 1 p.89  More examples in Aubin p. 486, n.1 97  Voyage au Soudan français (Haut-Niger et pays de Ségou en 1879-81) by the Commander Gallieni The fête contrasts horsemen's spectacle with foot soldiers' discipline. Use of guns Bullets from "trade guns," made in Birmingham on African demand, did not pierce wooden shields, or even a European officer's uniform when shot from 20 yards. Throwing stones worked better. -- Wooden shields, uniform: Voyage en Afrique occidentale by A. Raffenel, 1846, I, 28 -- Stones: Travels and Discoveries in North Central Africa by H. Barth, 1865 ed., II, 393 Comments similar to these appear for the whole savannah belt until the end of the 19th century: Aubin pp. 487-9, n.195-199 A dandy and a farmer treat guns as accessories :

Gallieni  

• Like horses, muskets could be cast aside when victory counted: In Nigeria, Oyo troops overcame those of Ibadan by throwing away their guns and charging with sabres.

-- History of the Yoruba by Samuel Johnson, 1924, p. 24.

• When efficiency counted, traditional ways returned: A hunter shot five arrows in succession with such speed and precision that several seemed to strike the target at the same time.

-- Revue coloniale by H. Héquard, 1852, 2nd series, IX, p. 342

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Martial show reinforced the ruler and guns' smoke and fracas fit in:

Mossi king (in Burkino Fasso) with his cavalry, 1892.

 

     Second Visit to Discover the Sources of the Nile by John Speke,1864

Gallieni account (above)

 Zoom

End of Ramadan in Bauchi (Northern Nigeria), 1973: same use.

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But the raids themselves were not supposed

to succeed too well —

"We only want to keep you in your corner."

-- Noble raiders to producers of crops for market in Mauretania toward 1790,

L'Afrique et le peuple africain by M. Lamiral, 1789, p. 85.

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 Next,

3.2.2. 

European warfare had comparable limits