AN ECONOMIC FOCUS BRINGS A DIFFERENT STORY

BLOOK 1 SHOWED HOW NOTICING OMISSIONS CHANGES ONE'S VIEW OF PARIS. 

BLOOK 2 SHOWS HOW SETTING CHANGE IN ITS TANGIBLE 

SETTING TRANSFORMS HOW WE VIEW IT  

By uncovering similar reactions to profit-seeking in pre-colonial Africa and pre-industrial France, it highlights the importance of underlying economic change. 

The Sheik of Bornu in Clapperton's narrative, 1824  / Louis XIV by M. Leloir in G. Toudouze, Le Roy Soleil, 1931

Railings both emphasize and isolate kings in 19th-century Northern Nigeria and 17th-century France.

That approach

# # #

The pages on Africa summarize research done in 1972-73 for a doctorate from New York's Columbia University, "Growth and Violence in the Precolonial Sudanic Belt," 1975. It was based on all material published by that time, particularly accounts of explorers in West Africa. I also consulted the archives of Paris, Abidjan, Dakar, Bamako, Wagadugu and Accra, conducted interviews in those towns and in Segu (Mali) and did three months of field work in Djimini (Ivory Coast).  

The thesis was published as Croissance économique et violence dans la zone soudanienne in "Guerres de lignages et guerres d'état en Afrique," ed. Jean Bazin and Emmanuel Terray, Paris, Éditions des Archives, 1982, pp. 423-500, translated by Emmanuel Terray.

*     *    *
Next:

Why choose Africa?  

l.

WHY CHOOSE AFRICA?

THE REASON IS A CLEANING-LADY 

When my brother and I were small Cora Bailey, a Black woman from a neighboring town, would do some house work and take care of us when our mother took a day off. She was a calm person whom we never thought of disobeying. She made superb lemon meringue pie and peanut butter cookies. Sometimes she brought her daughter, Doris, a teenager I admired because she could twirl.

When I was 15 Cora told me that Doris wasn't coming because she had had a baby, and then, that he had died. "She misses him," she said.

At about that time my aunt, who worked at the Urban League in the town where Cora lived, told my mother that Cora was a prostitute. "We don't need you any more," Mom told her. We never saw her again.  

The accusation may not have been true. In any case there had never been anything untoward in the ten years that Cora took care of us, and her private life was none of our business. She may not even have known the reason for being let go. 

Such unfairness led to my choosing the left and her memory explains being drawn to Blacks. It is the reason for choosing African history.

Blook II is dedicated to Cora Bailey.

*    *    *

Next,

Summary and contents

SUMMARY AND CONTENTS

 0. Summary & contents

ECONOMIC GROWTH LEADS TO A CLASH BETWEEN OBSOLETE AND RISING FORCES 

African and French populations react in comparable ways when profit-oriented producers destabilize the social order: 

• In Dahomey,* when the British block the port to keep slave-ships from sailing the king finds himself with 300 captives to feed. Rather than sell them to palm oil producers** who would use them as laborers, he beheads them through a massive human sacrifice (in 1853).

*The kingdom in modern Benin that controlled the slave trade on that part of the coast. 

** Whom their White clients make independent of the king. 

Sacrifice humain au Dahomey en 1863, "Le Tour du Monde"

-- Analyzed by the late anthropologist Claude Meillassoux,

Ostentation, destruction, reproduction , "Économies et sociétés," 1968, II, 4, pp. 760-766.

The king sits in the front row under a parasol, a symbol of power. The people massed behind him cheer each time the executioner raises a head. 

• In France, Protestants were often nascent capitalists whose beliefs, applied in practice, threatened traditional controls on gain. When they sidelined Catholic businesses whose activities medieval guilds contained, Louis XIV billeted dragoons in their homes, saying that they could do whatever they liked short of killing them unless they converted (in 1684).

Dragonnade (detail) by Maurice Leloir in Le Roy Soleil by Gustave Toudouze, 1931

 

Both populations approve thwarting the disruptive forces, which reaffirms authority. 

The essential conflict was not that of 

"slaves against masters, peasants against lords,"

but of rising economic forces 

and those trying to contain them.

These pages uncover those cycles of conflict.

# # #

Contents

 I. Hinterlands react to sudden growth

 II. Braking the search for gain

One can't bring in the harvest or fish with large nets or hunt big animals alone;  Curbs on gain that villagers impose; The grandiose destruction of wealth, a universal practice; From elders to chiefs to kings; Behavior whose logic escapes us; Were (are) tangible factors recognized?; Awareness of the economic base would avoid tragedies like this 

III. Curbing growth: kings and limited war

3.1. Kings maintain the status quo

Kings concentrate wealth, then make it circulate; African kings, prestige and constraint; "Absurd" succession practices; Kings of medieval Europe are also restrained; Detour: Christ becomes a warrior or king; Static kings are universal; Commercial peoples' subordination 

3.2. Ritualized warfare, another brake on growth

IV. Africa: the choice of a backwater

4.1. The African past revisited

4.2. Commerce strikes a communal society

4.2.1. Legendary empires of the medieval savannah

4.2 2. Trade strengthens social systems, then transforms them

4.2.3. Classless communities that elders lead

4.2.4. Cowries, new traders and textiles... 

4.2.5. The cowrie currency meets violent resistance

4.2.6. Introducing a pattern of change

         4.3. Throughout the savannah, same cycle 

4.3.1. Back to the hinterland: Violence reappears

4.3.2. Commercial forces win, then crumble

4.3.3. Another narrative

V. "The past is another country:" pre-industrial France

     5.1. Enigmas, often clues 

     5.2. Growth and the "Wars of Religion"

     5.3. Absolute Monarchy wins

     5.4. The Sun King, anti-capitalist? 

The end of brakes on gain —  almost

*    *    *

Next,

Hinterlands react to sudden growth

I. HINTERLANDS REACT TO SUDDEN GROWTH

RUDIMENTARY ECONOMIES MAKE ITS EFFECTS STAND OUT

Mid-19th-century Timbuktu and mid-15th century Paris were   backwaters compared to the towns of Italy, the Middle East, India and China.

• Yet in 1850 West African production was expanding, and states had emerged in the most commercial regions (west of Lake Chad and along the Senegal and Niger Rivers)...

 "Arrival at Timbuktu," Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa by Henrich Barth, 1855 / zoom (color added)

Timbuktu: soldiers accompany the caravan because authority is weak and routes unsafe. 

• And by 1450 France, recovered from the plague and the ravages of the Hundred Years' War, was undergoing a gradual economic growth that slowly-centralizing royal power contained. 

Louis II of Anjou arrives in Paris, "Chronicle of Jean Froissart," toward 1475 / zoom 

Paris: the north-south route looks like a country path.

• But upheavals brewed:

• In West Africa, the Atlantic slave trade buttressed archaic elites, slowing the rise of producers independent of them. Its end let those producers sweep away out-of-date entities social upheaval that economic destabilization provoked. The result was the rise of dynamic economies, which Islamic theocracies both protected and controlled. The colonial conquerors' liberating the slaves to install their own economies brought that transformation to an end. 

• In France, the geographic discoveries of the end of the 15th century would bring unprecedented economic growth. There too, social upheaval would bring the new interests' victory and a stronger state to control them, until the only way to do so was to erase them. 

We now turn to 

how those economies worked. 

*      *      * 

 

Next,
I.
Braking the search for gain

II. BRAKING THE SEARCH FOR GAIN

2. Braking the search for gain

UNMECHANIZED AGRICULTURE DEMANDS COLLABORATION

  Zoom

Fresco in an ancient Egyptian tomb

  Gone from the web

 Ethiopian villagers return from the field.

        Witness by Peter Weir with Harrison Ford, 1985 / YouTube

Amish farmers build a barn

This chapter explains need to contain profit  

and how it took place.

• One can't bring in the harvest or fish with large nets or hunt big animals alone

• Curbs on gain that villagers impose

• The grandiose destruction of wealth, a universal practice

• From chiefs to kings

• Behavior whose logic escapes us 

• Were (are) tangible factors recognized? 

• Awareness of the economic base would avoid tragedies like this

*      *      *

Next,
One can't bring in the harvest 

or fish with large nets or hunt big animals alone

ONE CAN'T BRING IN THE HARVEST OR FISH WITH LARGE NETS OR HUNT BIG ANIMALS ALONE

SO WORK MUST BE COLLECTIVE

 The Harvesters by Pieter Breughel the Elder, Flanders, 1565 / zoom

Pursuing individual gain weakens the community and communal lands become privately owned. Then people leave —"He went off to seek his fortune," is how many fairy tales begin.

The growing towns let some migrants learn a craft or become merchants — that's how a middle class grows up — but most finish as vagabonds, mercenaries or thieves. 

Those who remain on the land become sharecroppers or serfs. 

*     *     *

Next,

Curbs on gain that villagers impose

CURBS ON GAIN THAT VILLAGERS IMPOSE

INDIVIDUALS' SEARCH FOR PROFIT BRINGS IMMEDIATE RESTRAINT

In traditional Africa the newly-rich are admired if they share their wealth, tolerated if they spend it and sanctioned if they keep it: Griots (praise-singers) follow them, chanting acclaim...

Zoom

Griots accompany a chief, Mali, early 20th century; they will certainly sing his praises.

Zoom

Griots celebrating a birth, Senegal, 2006

That gradually becomes mockery of their servile origins until they give the expected tip — that is, until they distribute funds  they might otherwise invest.  

Expecting immigrants to distribute presents 

when they return to their villages 

and pestering them if don't do so enough: 

same idea. 

*      *      *

Next,

The grandiose destruction of wealth,

a universal practice

THE GRANDIOSE DESTRUCTION OF WEALTH, A UNIVERSAL PRACTICE

THE SIMPLEST WAY TO CONTAIN PROFIT: ELIMINATE IT

Spectacular destructions draw in the public, reinforcing authority at the same time. As by:

Competition

When the Kwakiutls, people of the North Pacific, toward 1850 obtain goods by barter with Whites, the clans that control the trade compete by throwing the wares into the sea. The clan that destroys most wins. 

This 1914 movie filmed the last match.

The community watches from the shore. Then all celebrate with a feast and dancing.

Trailer

Pictures from the movie, that is, of the real ceremony

The return

Ostentation 

Nobles disperse their income in horses, accoutrements and arms that they show off in processions that accompany important people, notably the king. People come from miles around to watch processions that break the routine.

       A Royal Army on the March,16th-century tapestry (detail), Renaissance Museum

Dispersing wealth with panache is part of prestige: King Arthur cares "not for gold or silver, but for honor alone," says a Roman envoy whom Arthur has treated with a feast that a full page describes.

-- La Morte d'Arthur

Funerals 

When a Viking chief dies his body is placed in a boat is filled with treasure, put to sea and burnt. Everyone watches from the shore.

The  Vikings by Robert Fleisher with Kirk Douglass, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, 1958.

 Considered ethnographically excellent.

 The movie shows the majesty of the destruction.

Monuments

Ancient Egypt remained essentially unchanged for 3,000 years. Imagine — 3000. 

Because the pharaohs neutralized investible income with monuments so huge that the term "pharaonic" applies to any construction that is over the top? 

That immensity was a constant show of power.   

           The Great Pyramid of Giza /  zoom

 Squandering 

A 14th-century ruler of the Mali Empire spends so much gold on his pilgrimage to Mecca that its value drops for a decade, which hinders emerging producers.

Populations watch the extraordinary caravan pass and benefit from the largesse. 

The emperor holds a huge gold nugget in this European map of his time. / zoom

 Deliberate destruction

takes place innumerable ways

 and transforms the meaning of innumerable
customs and events.

*     *     *

Next,

From elders to chiefs to kings

FROM ELDERS TO CHIEFS TO KINGS

WHEN THE SEARCH FOR PROFIT OVERWHELMS VILLAGES

AND THEIR ELDERS, CHIEFS REPLACE THEM. WHEN THEY TOO ARE OVERWHELMED, KINGS APPEAR

Belief in monarchs' tie with the Next World explains the awe that they inspire. 

 # # #

That connection draws its power from looking to rulers of the past, as with human sacrifice in Dahomey and coronations in France:

An illustration in the French press of the 1860's and a stained glass window showing the coronation of Louis IX (Saint Louis).

• In Dahomey, the ritual ends by decapitating prisoners of war, to send them as slaves to the departed kings. 

Captives are bound to posts, but "The confinement was not cruel: Each victim had an attendant standing behind him, to keep off the flies; all were fed four times a day, and were loosed at night [...]. They marked time to the music, and chattered together [...]. It is the King's object to keep them in the best of humors" so that they cheerfully enter their future service.

-- Sir Richard Burton A Mission to Gelele, King of Dahomey, 1864, p. 205.  An account for the nearby kingdom of Ashanti, mentions well-fed captives who seem equally unconcerned.

Victims for Sacrifice, "The History of Dahomey, an Inland Kingdom of Africa" by Archibald Dalzel, 1793 / zoom

• In France, coronations take place in the church built on site of the baptism of the first Frankish chief to recognize the Pope.*

 *In Reims, a two-day march from Paris. 

The Crowning of Charlemagne (no more information) / zoom

Coronation is essential:

The high point of Joan of Arc's epic is neither the victory at Orleans that launched her aura nor the martyrdom that maintained it, but the coronation of the Dauphin (the heir to the throne). He had taken the title of Charles VII, but without the ceremony, he did not have the right to it. "God will protect you" she said, to persuade him to make the dangerous journey though territory the English enemy held. 

     

A painting that tells her story dominates the Panthéon's* grand entry hall. The coronation has the same central position in the triptych as Annunciations, Nativities or Crucifixions in medieval works.

*France's secular mausoleum.

# # #

Both kingdoms renew the tie with the sacred each year.  

• In Dahomey, a smaller number of captives is sent to to serve the deceased kings. 

• In France, the king displays his magical powers by curing people suffering from scrofula with his touch, after taking communion at Easter.

Henri II's book of hours (toward 1540), detail, zoom

The practice ends when the Church refuses communion to adulterous Louis XV. Abandoning the rite erases a supernatural aspect of royalty and contributes to the monarchy's decline.

# # #

Massive public participation strengthens authority: 

• In Dahomey the four-day event includes a procession showing the king's wealth, parades of male and female troops and "various dances, all of them performed in decapitation style by the King [... ]. The vociferous rapture of the subjects knew no bounds as the King danced with his sword between his teeth" [...]. Presently the King began to hand down decanters of rum, a sign that he was weary [...]. He had danced thirty-two dances."

-- Burton, p. 221.

Combat for the heads of the decapitated, Le Tour du Monde, 1863 (in the scholarly French journal Annales) / zoom

Burton does not mention fighting for heads but does describes violent fighting for the king's gifts. He says that wounds and death are considered support for him. 

• In France too, coronations take several days. They include the procession to and from Reims that people come from the entire region to watch, a vigil, a banquet, a cavalcade, and the newly-crowned king's entry into Paris.

     Cavalcade of Louis XV after the Sanctification, October 16, 1722 by Martin le Jeune / zoom

# # #

In Dahomey the sacrifice of slaves,

the most costly and prestigious ware,  

and in France such shows' expense,  

erase potentially investable riches.

*     *     *

Next,

Behavior whose logic escapes us