IV.3. DESTABILIZED CROWDS SWEEP THE SAHEL

4.3. MENU: CROWDS SWEEP THE SAHEL

THROUGHOUT THE SAHEL CIVIL WARS BREAK OUT. NEW ECONOMIC FORCES WIN. STRONGER POWER CONTAINS THEM 

Charismatic leaders, commercial producers, long-distance traders and destabilized crowds establish theocracies.

Turmoil like that of Djimini takes place in much of the light green zone.

In brief 

• Change ripples down from the Saharan fringe

• An explorer is taken for the messiah   

• "Everywhere the humble show the masters their teeth"   

• A theocracy amps up growth...

•  Then contains it

*     *     *

Next,  

4.3.1. 

Change ripples down from the Saharan fringe

4.3.1. CHANGE RIPPLES DOWN FROM THE SAHARAN FRINGE

THE MISAKULLAH STORY FORESHADOWS REGIONAL CHANGE 

Trade routes through the central Sahara lead to Bornu, a kingdom that resembles those of the Middle Niger. Comparing the accounts of two explorers,* in 1825 and 1855, shows signs of coming storm.

 -- 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 now.

Bornu toward 1825:

(The shortened name is used for the 19th-century state)

• The economy is comparable to that of 15th-century France. This horseman resembles a knight:

Zoom

Clapperton's narrative

• A theocratic ruler becomes head of the 1000-year-old kingdom. He is stronger than the former obese kings, but constraints still hem him in:

Shehu al-Hajj Muhammad al-Kânemi, Clapperton / zoom

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

Zoom

But the giant turban hampers movement and the barrier isolates.  

  

Logone, a state south of Bornu so farther from Saharan trade, keeps traditional restraints on growth:

• The king offers the mission far more supplies than it can consume, so that it will not seek them from local producers.

• Clapperton sees an iron for the first time and gives it a rare illustration:

Zoom 

 

• But commerce is expanding and power developing, as in Djimini. Weaving and dyeing appear in the 18th century. Chieftaincies unite at about the same time and toward 1800 the king becomes nominally Muslim, a sign of strength since it claims that power comes from God.

# # #

In Bornu a generation later...

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

• Cowries arrive with that revolution. The change takes place decades later than in Djimini, because the king is more powerful than the Kondougou chief.

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. 

• Cotton bands have replaced 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. He receives him behind a curtain.

The economy is developing 
 but authority stays the same:
For now.

*     *     *

Next,
4.3.2.
An explorer is taken for the messiah

4.3.2. AN EXPLORER IS TAKEN FOR THE MESSIAH

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 way of saying, "Get out of here and don't come back."

# # #

His trouble comes from how on his way from Logone to Bagirmi, he involuntarily attracts followers: He...

• Gives away so much wealth (in needles) that he is called "the needle prince:" Hand-outs are meant to gain partisans.

• Shares provisions of the Logone ruler with a caravan leader, not realizing that he is acting like a king. 

• Sits on a carpet until he learns that it is a prerogative of kings.   

• Appears to have supernatural powers. 

• When thunderclouds disperse as he leaves his hut, he is called "king of the high regions." Then he stays in his hut as much as possible, inaccessibility  adding to his aura.

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

As well, no one has seen a white person. That makes him exceptional.   

# # #

The crowds themselves, which seem to spring up out of nowhere, reveal the destabilization that economic growth brings. The Logone ruler does not have the power to control it.  

In medieval Europe millennial movements begin at the end of the 11th century in places where commerce expands (the Rhine valley, parts of northern France and Belgium and later, in large parts of Europe). There are no records of such turmoil in regions where there is little economic growth. 

                                                                    -- The Pursuit of the Millenium by Herman Cohn, Oxford, 1957, p. 22 and on.

It is a classic study of European revolutionary messianism.

Those crowds foreshadow the mass movements about to 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, a disciplined infantry following (please read on)...

# # #

When lands are lost, the old ways are irretrievably gone, social ties dissolved and ancestral beliefs no longer reassure...

People may seek leaders

who are outside the norm —

including a European explorer of Africa. 

*     *     *

Next,

 4.3.3. 

"Everywhere the humble show the masters their teeth"

4.3.3. "EVERYWHERE THE HUMBLE SHOW THE MASTERS THEIR TEETH" -- Dakar archives, 1857

MILLENARIAL UPHEAVALS SWEEP THE SAVANNAH

This page and the next summarize Aubin, pp. 457-94

An early movement begins in Futa Toro, the alluvial plain of the Senegal River, then moves to the Middle Niger where it establishes a theocracy. 

(In 1854)

Factors that make Futa Toro distinct:

• Its alluvial plain produces two harvests a year and cattle-raising gives its Toucouleur population a sense of private property that is unusual for the time. Many become traders.  

• The French outpost of Saint-Louis stimulates grain sales as its population grows...*

* In the 1780's 6,000; in the 1850's 15,000.

View of Saint-Louis from the Sea, undated / zoom

...especially after 1830 when the Industrial Revolution leads to a greater demand for hides and peanuts.* And with the Atlantic slave trade at its height, more slaves and slave-ship crews must be supplied.  

* * Used for pharmaceuticals, soap, diesel fuel, fertilizer...

 Zoom (among other pictures)

Inauguration of the bridge on the right in the 1850's.

# # #

Points of sale along the Senegal multiply. Some workers and servants save their salaries and become merchants, but many people lose their lands and points of reference. 

The mission between Matam and Bakel (outposts along Senegal River) in Voyage au Soudan français by Commdt. Gallieni, 1885 

Much later (toward 1880) but same principle

• An early millennial movement deepens social cleavages by letting almamies (Muslim leaders), many of whom are involved in commercial production and long-distance trade, control communal landholdings and impose tithes, which they often keep. 

-- Aubin pp. 465-6, n.109-116.

• Toucouleur 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, p. 411.

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

-- Anne Raffenel, 

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

Toward 1850 al-hajj Umar Tall, a Toucouleur merchant, scholar and rare West African to have been to Mecca, calls for a society based on divine law.

1860 / zoom

His followers include one fourth of the Toucouleur population

and subordinates from other ethnic groups: peasants who have lost their lands, slaves and 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.

Vue de l'armée du Futa Toro en marche, 1820 (in  account of the explorer Mollien, Gallica) / zoom

The authorities resist. Sign of their strength — there are no markets.

-- Raffenel I, 233.

Umar leads his following to the Niger.

*      *      *

 Next,

4.3.4. 

A theocracy amps up growth...

4.3.4. A THEOCRACY AMPS UP GROWTH...

MUSLIM LAW ENCOURAGES COMMERCIAL PRODUCTION... 

and the most dynamic traders of the Middle Niger back the theocracy of al-hajj Umar.

(The Tukulor confederation of Segu, 1861-1890)

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

 They use Islamic law to...

• Impose private landownership 

When Umar and his crowds arrive, communal property is at the heart of local Muslim as well as animist social structure. But Islamic law demands division among heirs — that is, private property in practice — and the regime soldier-backed judges 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." The next chapter says more.

# # #

Such change requires authority: "He said he was a mere soldier of Mohammed, but that gave him infinitely more power than that of the usual king."  

 -- An official mentioned in Dakar archives, 1887, 
citing Amadou Tall, Umar's son and successor

 Al-hajj Umar Tall, drawing of the time, source unknown

A robe and headdress that do not encumber and steps, not a barrier, steps increase the aura.

• Let rulers choose their heirs and transmit their wealth to them.

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), and can convey it to his chosen heir.

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

• Amadu keeps 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 p. 476, notes 161, 163, 164.

# # #

Doctrine is adapted to practical needs: 

• Ségou becomes a pilgrimage destination equal to Mecca, reinforcing the theocracy. 

• Amadu has 800 wives, which lets all groups hope that a son of theirs will come to power.

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

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

1920's postcard

To understand the hold of mass philosophies,

set them in their economic contexts

and observe the practical effects of applying them.

*     *     *

Next,

4.3.5.

 ...then contains it

• 
  

4.3.5 ...THEN CONTAINS IT

AMADU RESTRAINS THE MOST ASSERTIVE TRADERS

Zoom

Hausa silver traders, 1920's

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 makes Amadu, his son by a Hausa wife, his successor. Amadu looks Hausa and speaks Hausa, and a Hausa interlocutor in Ségou 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

 His theocracy limits the profits 

of potential challengers,

as did the kingdoms of the past. 

End of this section.

 *      *      * 

Next section,

IV.4

Back to Djimini: Violence returns