IV.2. THE EFFECTS OF COMMERCE ON PRIMAL SOCIETIES

4.2. Effect of commerce on primal societies 

TAKE THE SAHARAN EXCHANGES OF GOLD FOR SALT AND SLAVES 

And the ripples that reach the forest fringe.

(Toward 1800) 

           Thanks to T.L. Miles for this excellent map / zoom 

The main trans-Saharan caravan routes toward 1400. Yellow: Modern Niger.

In brief

• The legendary empires o the medieval savannah

• Trade strengthens social systems, then transforms them

• Classless communities that elders lead 

• Traders and textiles come to Djimini

• A divisible currency brings upheaval

• Introducing a cycle of change

*      *      *

Next,

The legendary empires of the medieval savannah

TRADE STRENGTHENS SOCIAL SYSTEMS, THEN TRANSFORMS THEM

EARLY TRADE IS IN LUXURIES, WHICH ALONE BEAR THE COST OF TRANSPORT

Caravan Approaching a City in the Vast Desert of Sahara, "Stanley and the White Heroes of Africa" by H.B. Scammel, 1890 / zoom

Local authorities are delighted to get them, and use them to strengthen their control.

But merchants need supplies, and animals, water bags, ropes, sandals. The original authorities cannot handle such requests, and a new elite grows up to manage them. With its wives, children and servants it must be supplied as well. Agriculture and crafts develop. The initial transactions take second place. 

 -- As shown by the late anthropologist, Claude Meillassoux.

# # #

In the course of the 16th century traders move south from the Niger, for gold, slaves and a new product — kola nuts.

Zoom

Small and light, they are used as dyes. When chewed they lessen thirst and create a light euphoria. They contain caffeine, and their effect is like that of coffee.

They establish outposts, whose leaders control the routes. One of these settlements is Kong, whose rulers forbid outsiders from reaching beyond it. 

Adapted from a Google map

Toward 1700, a "mad" ruler (Lasari Gombele), habitually shoots into the market and seizes the wares people leave behind as they flee. A kola trader from the Niger (Mallam Boro), and a local merchant ally (Seku Watara) unite to overthrow him.* The names show that the conflict is between relatively uncommercial animists and Muslims, who are traders by definition.

*Information given by Karamoko Wattara, the canton chief, and Bassidi Watara, farmer, May 4 and 6 1973. 

The route to the kola-producing regions are open, and traders set up small centers on the forest's fringe.* Kong prospers and becomes an important center for both commerce and Islam, which here are closely linked.

*A report in the Abidjan archives dates the foundation of the settlement of Grumania toward 1740, and Djimini oral tradition places another, Satala-Sokura, at about the same time. (Aubin, p. 432).

Du Niger au Golfe de Guinée par le pays de Kong et le Mossi (1887-89) by Captain Louis Gustave Binger, 1892 /  zoom

 

"A View of Kong, Capital City of the Kong Empire" 

Captain Gustave-Louis Binger (above)

A Kong mosque

# # #

The"mad ruler" story expresses a pattern: When growing economies lead to interests that authorities cannot contain, they try to control them by force. That brings a struggle which the new interests win. 

We will come back to it.

 

The upheaval in Kong opens the routes,

and traders arrive in Djimini 

at the start of the 18th century.

*      *      * 

Next,
Classless communities that elders lead

THE AFRICAN PAST REVISITED

THAT WHITES DOMINATE THE AFRICAN PAST IS INSTINCTIVELY ASSUMED

This work, for example, shows slaves being led toward a white dealer. There is nothing about Dahomey's ritual decapitation of slaves, or about the 300 sacrificed so as not to be fall into producers' hands.

     The Transatlantic Slave Trade through the Eyes of an African Artist at the Abomey palace in Benin, 2022 / zoom

If you click "African slave trades images" (please notice the plural) on the web, you will find dozens of pictures dealing with the Atlantic slave trade, a few with that to North Africa but except for lines of chained captives who could be going anywhere, almost none within Africa itself.  

Even images on the Atlantic slave trade show Africans taking second place:

     The Slave Trade by Auguste François Biard, 1840 / zoom

A dead captive lies in the center, but the light shines on the white doctor and white master.

Written history makes the same assumption: 

"The Atlantic trade was the form of slavery that indisputably contributed most to the present situation of Africa. It permanently weakened the continent, led to its colonisation by the Europeans in the nineteenth century, and engendered the racism and contempt from which Africans still suffer."

-- La Dimension africaine de la traite des noirs by M. Bokolo, 1998 

 in the esteemed French monthly "Le Monde diplomatique:" / zoom

Th two explanations of the African past are that...

• "Decline" followed a time of greatness when empires that stretch across much of the savannah. Its causes were European: the fall of the price of gold due Spain's imports from South America, and the population loss, devastation and insecurity brought by the Atlantic slave trade.

• Pockets of prosperity suggest "stability," or changelessness: Since whites do not provoke change, there isn't any.

Emphasis on the West determines the topics usually chosen...

Such a the conquest or resistance to it, the Atlantic slave trade and trade with the outside world.

States / populations that are relatively familiar: There are many on West Africa, few on the area between Lake Chad and the Nile.

And how one views geography itself: 

• Trans-Saharan exchanges brought a rise in local production that developed over centuries. Europeans arrived on the coast much later, which explains the much more primitive forest economies.

 African zones, a clear map that is no longer on the web.

• Instead, of viewing Africa as savannah and forest, we separate "West Africa" and treat as a whole. Because it is a bulge on our maps? 

# # #

The suggestions that follow come from collating

the economic data for all of the Sudanic Belt

from medieval times to colonialist's liberation of slaves,

from determining how the source of income 

affects ideas and behavior

and from examining the impact of economic growth

on communal societies.

End of this short section.

*     *     * 

Next section,
V.2.
The effects of commerce on primal societies

 

IV. AFRICA: THE CHOICE OF A BACKWATER

CHANGE THERE MUST PROVE A WIDER EVOLUTION AND NO SECONDARY FACTORS DISTRACT

I had to do field work for a doctorate in African history. When the Ivory Coast's University of Abidjan offered lodging and Ministry of the Interior support in exchange for three months of teaching, I was happy to accept.

It was assumed that the societies of the Sudanic Belt (the savannah between the Sahara and forest) fell into "decline" after a time of prosperity and great empires. Yet collating the economic facts given, mainly, by European explorers for the entire region, showed economic growth. To highlight that point I choose a place that was obscure, without particular characteristics, where change unconnected with wider transformation would be inconceivable. 

After consulting the Abidjan archives during my three months of teaching, I chose Djimini, a region on the forest fringe...

Adapted from a Google map

The light green area is the Sudanic Belt, or Sahel.

And went to Dabakala, which except for a much smaller Muslim center (Darhala) was the area's only town.

Adapted from Britannica

There were no hotels

 and I expected to stay at a "rest house..." 

that harbored two or three male travelers and a Fulani prostitute, who wore big earrings and a long red dress. I left my bag with her and wearing a huge hat to protect from the sun, walked two miles on the hot and dusty road until I came to a ranch house, set off from it as if it were a palace.

A servant answered my knock. I said I would like to see the sous-préfet (the regional government head). "He's sleeping," the servant said. "I'll wait," I answered, "Please don't wake him up." 

He woke him up.

A tall, handsome, very dark man wearing a colorful wax toga entered. He yawned and rubbed his eyes because he had just woken up, or from surprise. Occasionally French "co-opérants" (government specialists) travelled through the region, but white women never did.

I was just as surprised, and said that I had told the servant not to wake him and was very, very sorry that he had. Coming out of my confrontation with the Dean and the subsequent upheaval (and being very young), I was not always diplomatic. But my embarrassment was real and established his authority. For once, I said the right thing. 

I explained that I had come to do research on the region's history, that I hoped he would help me and handed him the letter from the Minister. He looked at it, looked at me again, and said, "I will do so. You may stay with me and my family for as long as you like."

I stayed twice for six weeks and remember Ernest Texier's beautiful, fiery wife, their two "legitimate" little boys and his 13 other children, who on returning from school would sit with perfect behavior around a large table doing their homework. 

But mostly I remember the help he gave, bringing in elderly men from distant villages to tell me what they knew of the past, having me meet a paralyzed chief in his village or groups of elders who took time away from their fields.

He also brought me a document from the archives. I will come back to it.

*    *    *

Next,

 African transformation revisited

CLASSLESS COMMUNITIES THAT ELDERS LEAD

THE TRADERS COME UPON THE SENUFO, WHO STRETCH ACROSS THE SAVANNAH FROM WESTERN MALI TO BURKINO FASO 

Senufo languages / zoom

They are subsistence farmers...

Zoom

Whose social system is based on collective ownership and use of the land. It is organized through lineages, whose elders monopolize the exchanges that pay fines and dowries.

Such an organization is totally opposed to the individual search for profit.*

*For photos of Senufo society now, please click here and here. 

Lineage elders send young members to fetch the kola.
 Being in direct contact with the merchants
 strengthens them at first. 

 *      *      *

Next,

Traders and textiles come to Djimini

TRADERS AND TEXTILES COME TO DJIMINI

TRADERS FROM KONG (CALLED DYULA) TRAVELS OVER RELATIVELY SHORT DISTANCES WITH LITTLE CAPITAL OR ORGANIZATION AND THEIR GAINS ARE CORRESPONDINGLY SLIGHT  

 Zoom

Dyula traders, 1905

Then come long-distance traders, from the Niger (the Soninke) whose networks, capital and profits are greater. So are their ambitions. Even wealthier are traders from what is now Northern Nigeria (the Hausa), whose city of Kano is a major center for trade and production:

Adapted from a Stock map

De Saint-Louis à Tripoli par le Chad by Lt.-Col. P.L. Monteil, 1895/ zoom

"Hausa traders transporting kola"

"Large sums are expended by the natives upon this luxury, which has become to them as necessary as coffee or tea to us. [... ] The import of this nut into Kanó, comprising certainly more than five hundred ass-loads every year, the load of each, if safely brought to the market—for it is a very delicate article, and very liable to spoil—being sold for about 200,000 kurdí, will amount to an average of from eighty to one hundred millions. Of this sum, I think we shall be correct in asserting about half to be paid for by the natives of the province, while the other half will be profit."

-- Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa by Heinrich Barth, 1855, II, p. 131.

Detour:

Heinrich Barth's account of his travels in the Sahara and Sahel (in 1849-1851) is an exceptionally detailed and thoughtful explorer's accounts. He was intellectual, engaged in long discussions with erudite Muslims; kindly, giving treats to a beloved camel; not racist, finding dark skin "almost essential to female beauty"). His exceptionally interesting account is readable on the web: Here is volume II.

Kano from Mount Dala, "this glorious panorama"

-- P. 102

 Barth gives an admiring account of its production of textiles:

Barth, p. 129

"The great advantage of Kanó  is that commerce and manufactures go hand in hand, and that almost every family has its share in them. There is really something grand in this kind of industry, which spreads to the north as far as Múrzuk, Ghát, and even Tripoli; to the west, not only to Timbúktu, but in some degree even as far as the shores of the Atlantic."

-- P. 126.

These photos of 1910 show textiles' importance:

Zoom / first picture of series

Zoom / 14th photo

They introduce weaving from their village of Marabadiassa: "Maraba" means "people of the east, that is, Hausa. 

# # #

Textiles are easy to produce and transport, and the market for them is inexhaustible.* They lead to seeking dyes and dye stabilizers, beget new sources of capital and bring the emergence of weavers and dyers.

* For their role in a partly African neighborhood in Paris, please click. 

When textiles appear

 social transformation begins. 

*    *    *

Next,

The cowrie currency meets violent resistance

A DIVISIBLE CURRENCY BRINGS UPHEAVAL

THE SMALL, LIGHT SHELLS FROM ASIA SPREAD THROUGHOUT WEST AFRICA, TOWARD 1780-1850

They allow small vendors to challenge control of primitive economies, and authorities may oust traders who try to impose them.

Zoom

They coincide with the expulsion of Hausa are expelled from Macina (Mali), Oyo (southern Nigeria) and Ashanti (Ghana), toward 1800. 

-- Expelled from Macina: Heinrich Barth, Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa, 2nd ed., London, 1865, III, p. 368.

The sources do not give a reason, but in Ashanti they are driven away because "They did not know how to used the weights for weighing gold. So the Ashanti told them, if you don't want to learn how to use them, you can go." "

-- Atta Kwadwo, Keeper of the Royal Stool, Kumasi

The Hausa have traded in Ashanti for half a century and of course know how to use the weights. But demanding cowries defies the king, whose weights are one-third heavier than others.

They appear after civil wars bring stronger political control.

In Bornu, cowry use coincides with overthrowing the most ancient nobility (in 1846), as Heinrich Barth explicitly states.

-- Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa, 1855, II, 55

Such direct information is rare

because explorers do not understand its importance. 

One grasps it by connecting 

different parts of their narratives, 

or by comparing accounts of the same place 

at different times.

*    *    *

Next:

Introducing a pattern of change

INTRODUCING A PATTERN OF CHANGE

MORE TRADERS COME. A CHIEFTAINCY APPEARS. WAR BREAKS OUT. A STRONGER CHIEFTAINCY TAKES OVER

 

Aubin, p.431.

The villages in oral tradition are all on a trade route.

Narrators do not know when cowries came to Djimini, saying that their use was widespread before the arrival of Samory (in 1894).

Comment that and other absences: My elderly informants might personally remember the terrifying transformation by Samory or know of it through their parents.* What came before him did not seem important. 

* They generally liked the French conquest for getting rid of him and of slavery, adding that the colonialists replaced it with forced labor.

# # #

Djimini's story of conflict and transformation 

Narrators' statements are in italics.

When traders arrive from Kong, at Kondougou a chief replaces the elders: His wives grow provisions for the traders and his sons fetch the kola (toward 1700?)  

That arrangement lasts as long as he controls exchanges. 

• Later — toward 1800? — fighting breaks out. Kondodugu's chief, Tofanga, is captured but a warrior, Gnapon, rescues him.

His opponents take him to their village. But he has a friend, the warrior Gnapon. Gnapon hides behind a tree and signals his presence by singing a pagan song. Tofanga sings back. 

• The "pagan" song:

Interlocutors do not remember who the enemy was or what caused the conflict. But though the story's details change from village to village, all mention the "pagan" song. So Tofanga and Gnapon were animists, their opponents Muslims. Since Muslims were merchants by definition, their village was a market that functioned, or wanted to function, by sales that were outside Tofanga's control. The only explanation is their wish for an easily divisible currency, which would eliminate his monopoly of exchanges.  

• Tofanga voluntarily cedes power to Gnapon, who as a warrior represents might.

Gnapon hides behind a tree and howls. When residents of the enemy village leave to see what is happening, Tofanga escapes. He tells Gnapon that he could give [the traditional reward] but as"a woman might come between us," he cedes power instead.

Here too the words are always the same: "A woman might come between us." The defeated Tofanga has no power to cede, but insisting on the voluntary transfer shows that the animist population approves the stronger authority.

• Gnapon's village, Bokhala, becomes a market, which a marabout strengthens with his prayers.

The marabout [an erudite Muslim, by definition a trader] sells beads and other articles of little value.  

So he is a Dyula, or petty local trader. The Soninke and Hausa have no importance yet.

• Why place the change toward 1800:  

Peasant time is based on seasons, not on a linear series of years. So unless dates are connected with events, such as after traders come from Kong or before the advent of Samory, narrators do not know when they took place other than, for us, sometime in the 19th century.

A document in the Dakar archives, however, says that Gnapon's son was killed in 1878, when he was "too old to fight." So one can place those events at the time when he would have been young and energetic, between 1780 and 1820. 

 -- Death Gnapon's son, Dakar archives, 1878

Summing up: New forces oppose a control that has become archaic. Their victory brings a more dynamic commercial system, but also a compromise. The merchants are subject to boycotts, thefts, the closing of routes, ambushes. They need a Senufo power that will protect them, while the Senufo need the same to keep profit-seeking under control. 

That story of violence, victory and centralization will repeat itself in Djimini, in much of the savannah, in France and, one assumes, wherever economic growth threatens an archaic economy.

# # #

The last page showed Hausa traders expelled 

from certain kingdoms at about the same time, 

and we will see that is also 

when millenarian movements begin. 

The upheaval in Djimini is part of wider change, 

which takes place at the turn of the 18th century.

End of this section.

*     *     *

The next section,

.IV.3.

Cycles of growth, conflict and new power