III. CURBING GROWTH: KINGS AND WARFARE WITH LIMITS

 MENU: 3. Curb growth: kings & limited war

THESE KINGS ARE STATIC AND WEAPONS OR SYMBOLS OF POWER SYMBOLS KEEP THEM FROM USING THEIR HANDS

Rulers contain the search for profit and are contained themselves.  

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King of Benin, 16th century

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Emperor of Byzantium, 11th century 

• Kings' function: 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; Kings' images change as the economy grows; Commercial peoples' subordination

• Ritualized warfare, another barrier to growth 

Both change as economies expand. 

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Next,

III.1.

Kings' function, maintain the status quo 

AFRICAN SLAVE RAIDS, CONTROLLED VIOLENCE

RAIDS DESTROY SOME PRODUCTION, SEIZE A LIMITED NUMBER OF CAPTIVES... AND MAINTAIN IMMUTABILITY

While putting on a tremendous show.

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The king's horsemen emphasize his glory, and disperse his revenues.

Capturing too many slaves would lower their price. Then local producers would acquire them and increase their labor force, revenues and menace.

This page summarizes the description of warfare in Aubin, pp. 487-90.

Proof of limiting slave capture: The Bornu army (in Northern Nigeria) kills adult male prisoners by chopping off a leg.

-- Heinrich Barth, an explorer who accompanies the expedition:
Narrative of a voyage in North and Central Africa, 1855, II, pp. 324-86.

Efficiency, and so the number of captures, is braked by...

• The crowds of civilians who accompany some of the armies. They make rapid movement and manoeuvers impossible, but reinforce the system:

In parts of Mali, Northern Nigeria, Chad, Darfur and Ethiopia, much of the capitals' population join the campaigns. Bivouacs are organized to represent palace, capital and kingdom, or the head, hands and feet of the king.

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

• Attacking villages from one side only.

In Cayor (Senegal) that practice keeps most of the victims' harvest from being trampled, and lets villagers flee. 

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

	Using ritual to slow things down.  The Ashanti consider only one day in three propitious for war. They halt an advance that threatens the English, so as not to fight 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 advance "in a kind of parade," shoot and retire to reload, each in turn. -- Carrère and Jolle, p. 70.
Using horses for prestige, show —  and flight.

They let nobles exhibit sumptuous accoutrements, perform individual exploits and tower over commoners. But they are not used for rapid advance or to surround and annihilate the enemy.  

If the leader is captured or killed, riders bolt.

Should victory matter, horsemen may fight on foot — when Galla (in Ethiopia) are ordered to dismount, "they fought desperately for their lives" and win; Mossi (in Burkina Faso) come to the battlefield riding asses, three fighters to an ass, dismount and win.

-- Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile by James Bruce, 1791, III, p. 233;

 Dakar archives, 1 p.892;

More examples in Aubin p. 486, n.197.

     -- Voyage au Soudan français, 1879-81 by the Commandant Galliéni, Paris, 1885, p. 127.

The fete contrasts the wild cavalry charge with foot soldiers' discipline.

• Using firearms to limit success.

• The efficiency of traditional weapons amazes Europeans...

A hunter shoots five arrows in succession with such speed and precision that several appear to strike the target at the same time. 

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

• Who find using guns absurd:

Throwing stones would be more effective than shooting, and bullets do not pierce wooden shields or even European uniforms — an officer is merely knocked down by a bullet shot at 20 meters.

-- Stones: H. Barth, Travels and Discoveries in North Central Africa, 1865 ed. II, 393;

-- Uniform: A. Raffenel, Voyage en Afrique occidentale, 1846, I, 28
Comments similar to these appear for the whole savannah belt until the end of the 19th century:

Aubin pp. 487-9, n. 195-199

Like horses, firearms can be cast aside when victory counts: In Nigeria, Oyo troops overcome those of Ibadan by throwing away their guns and charging with sabres.

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

• The ineffective "trade guns" come from African demand.

They are manufactured in Birmingham, specifically for the North American Indian and African markets.  

-- The Fur Trade Role in Western Expansion: Indian Trade Guns by Ned Eddins, © 2025.

That choice comes from local demand, which evolves when savannah economies become more commercial and the purpose of slave raids changes (from about 1870, please read on).

Muskets' smoke and fracas contribute to war as a ritual, whose purpose is to keep things as they are:

Raids must not succeed too well —

"We only want to keep you in your little 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,

French warfare has similar limits

"ABSURD" SUCCESSION PRACTICES

-- "Absurd:" Anne Raffenel, Voyage en Afrique occidentale, 1846, p. 280

TO PREVENT THE RISE OF POWERFUL DYNASTIES, AVERT THE TRANSMISSION OF WEALTH 

Throughout Africa kings cannot leave their riches to sons, a prohibition that encourages them to distribute treasure and keeps monarchies weak, until about 1800.

• On the Senegal and Middle Niger rivers, succession goes from brother to brother and since a "vicious principle" extends the term to cousins, it is "impossible that he who governs not be of an advanced age" (on the Senegal and Middle Niger).

-- Anne Raffenel (mentioned above), p. 280.

• In Futa Toro (Senegal) reigns last only two years.

• In Borgu (Nigeria) and in many other regions, succession struggles disperse treasure.

-- Jacques Lombard,  Structures de type féodale en Afrique noir, Paris, 1965, pp. 289-290, 318-340. 

• Among the Mossi (in Burkina Faso) when a chief dies his wives, slaves and horses are sent to his superior.

-- Dakar archives, 1 G 145/10, 1890.

• In many regions, generalized pillaging follows a ruler's death:

-- For Benin (Nigeria) in the 17th and 18th centuries, Olfert Dapper, Description de l'Afrique, Amsterdam, 1686, p. 312 and Capitaine Landolphe, Mémoires du Capitaine Landolphe, 1823, p. 55.

-- For Bonduku and Anno (Ivory Coast), Emmanuel Terray, La Captivité dans le royaume abron in Claude Meillassoux, ed. Paris 1975, p. 408 and Gustave Binger, Du Niger au golfe de Guinée par le pays de Kong, Paris, 1892, II, p. 30.

• Kings' riches can be buried with them:

-- Along the Senegal at the end of the 17th century, F.J.B. Gaby, Relation de la Nigritie, Paris, 1689, p. 71.

-- In Atta (on the lower Niger); Richard & John Lander, Landers' Discovery of the Termination of the Niger, II, p. 170.

• In Oyo (Nigeria) a ruler's favorite wife destroys all he owns and then takes poison herself. 

 -- Lander (reference on preceding page), I, p. 112. He mentions a wife who tries to survive.

More references: Aubin, pp. 473-4, n.148-156.

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A famous painting concerns an Assyrian king who has all his property destroyed before committing suicide.

The Death of Sardonopolus by Eugene Delacroix, 1827

Rather than accept defeat, as the Bible says? Or an example of the need to destroy wealth, to keep it from strengthening forces that menace? 

Such stories usually point to something deeper than the immediate drama.

In Europe, 

the practice of having rulers' eldest sons

inherit the throne and its wealth

indicates stronger kingship and economies. 

The exception is Poland,

which was particularly far 

from the main centers of commerce.

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Next,
Kings of medieval Europe are also restrained

DID MEMORY OF FEUDAL VALOR ADD TO THE CARNAGE OF WORLD WAR 1?

THE IDEAL WAS TRANSMITTED, THE BRAKES WERE NOT

The cult of frontal mass attacks — "l'offensive à l'outrance" —  

dominated France's High Command from the start of the war in August 2014 to April 1917, though barbed wire and machine guns made significant success impossible. 

 A tattered poster found at a flea market. The battle of Verdun (February-December 1916) was the longest and one of the most murderous of World War I.

Most French army officers were nobles, and had grown up with the emphasis on valor.

  

  

The Splendors of Glory

The baron of Mortemart* Boisse, Captain of the 2nd Infanterie

"My friends, let us arm our comrades with the muskets of the enemy!" 

* Descendant of a ninth-century feudal lord.

Carrying the flag into battle recalled the Crusades.

Crusaders Conquering the City of Zadra in 1202 by Andrea Vincinto, toward 1600 / zoom

Uniforms were decorative and dangerous, like the accoutrements of knights.

Magazine cover, April 1915 (also found in a flea market)

• No helmets: caps only, for cheering.

• Red trousers, ideal targets. The uniform was adopted in 1830, when shots that covered only 200 meters made concealment pointless. But when a change to grey-green was proposed in 1912, the  Minister of War bellowed, "the red trousers are France!"

-- The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman, 1979

In August 1915 the color did change — to light blue.

One-fourth of young French noblemen

 were killed in World War I.

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Does feudal admiration for reckless courage explain four years of hopeless attacks by the European armies, and their initial rejection of tanks? 

Americans, on the other hand, changed strategy after a single blood bath (the battle of Belleau Wood, in July 1918): but they had no nobles or feudal past.

The least sensible uniforms and most lyrical declarations were French. An attempt to make the absurd doctrine rational: emphasis on élan, the wish to win, and cran, courage, as replies to Germany's greater population and more advanced industry. 

-- Tuchman, p. 48.

The small farms that underlie France's relatively slow industrialisation help explain the ancestral mentality's persistence.  

 

The offensives stop only when mutinies affect half the French army.

Paths of Glory

Three films deal with shootings "as examples:" Paths of Glory by Stanley Kubrick (1957, forbidden in France until 1975) ; Pantalon (1997;  French video);  Les fusillés by Yves Boissent (2015).

The plots of these movies take place

 before the mutinies of 1917:

A choice? 

End of this chapter.
The next chapters apply an economic and anthropological approach
to transformations in precolonial Africa and preindustrial France.

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Next chapter,
IV.

Africa: Why choose a backwater?

THE LEGENDARY EMPIRES OF THE MEDIEVAL SAVANNAH

MODERN GHANA AND MALI TAKE THEIR NAMES FROM THE STATES THAT CONTROLLED THE TRANS-SAHARAN TRADE 

(FROM THE 4TH TO THE 16TH CENTURIES) 

The modern story suggests complex, developed economies, which medieval European maps and iconography seem to confirm:

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                                                                       Andalusian map of the 14th century / zoom (click to enlarge.)

Mansa Musa (d.1388), ruler of the empire of Mali, dominates trade in the Western Sahara.

 

       By Taddeo Gaddi, Florence, toward 1330 / zoom                 By Jan de Beer, Belgium, toward 1510 / zoom

Images that begin in the 14th century show the youngest of the Three Kings as handsome, elegant and Black. He vanishes in the 16th century, when the Atlantic slave trade begins.

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The last of those empires, that of Songhay in modern Mali, succumbs to a Moroccan attack in 1591. No comparable empire replaces it, and the area is thought to "decline."

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But:  

• The famous "silent trade" of the kingdom of Ghana, where Blacks and Arabs exchange salt for gold to the sound of drumbeats but without speech, suggests simple transactions that concern a small number of people, which a rudimentary  oligarchy can control. 

Gone from the web

Arabs who break the silence are beaten, Blacks, who threaten the system more directly, impaled.

 -- Histoire des conquêtes de Moulay Archy by Germain Mouëtte, Paris, 1683, pp. 316-17.

• By the 16th century that system is gone. Timbuktu is a flourishing center production, trade and Islam. The oligarchy has a currency of gold, but cowrie shells allow ordinary people to sell everyday wares (for the implications please click here).  

-- Jean-Léon l'Africain, Description de l'Afrique, trad. Epaulard, 1956, II, pp. 465-471:

 First published in 1526.

• The most moderate estimate for the population of Gao, capital of the 16th-century empire of Songhay, is 75,000 people.

-- Tableau géographique de l'Ouest Africain au Moyen Age by Raymond Mauny, Dakar, 1961, pp. 487, 499.

 The estimate is based on the report of 7,626 stone houses. But estimates in traditional sources are meant 

to show importance, and are usually greatly exaggerated.

A town of such importance, about that of London at the same time, supposes considerable development in the surrounding region. Around London were a multitude of burgs of 600-2,000, but there is no reason to think there were such agglomerations around Gao. 

-- The Marketing of Agricultural Produce by Alan Everett in The Agrarian History of England and Wales, ed. Joan Thirsk, IV (1500-1600), London, 1967, pp. 478-479. Archeological digs have discovered the remains of villages dating from very distant times, but since a 19th-century explorer states that he found none of the villages mentioned by a predecessor 40 years before, one can surmise that villages often move. (Archeology, The Inland Niger Delta before the Empire of Mali Evidence from Djenne-Jeno by Susan Keech and Roderick J. McIntosh, "Journal of African History," 1981, 22, pp. 1-22. Explorer, Anne Raffenel, Voyage dans l'Afrique occidentale en 1843 et 1844, Paris, 1846, I, p.  218). 

 

• But the currency of Djenne is iron, which obstructs such exchanges. The area remains primitive: The population is unclothed, houses are thatched, river transportation is by canoe and armed troops accompany caravans. 

• Nineteenth-century explorers show that people are clothed, houses built of baked clay, boats are made by sewing boards together and that traders travel alone or in small groups* and the currency is cowries. 

*Heinrich Barth enlivens his narrative by stressing danger, but nothing happens to him or to other explorers. In the region where I did field work, traders were left alone unless they were a threat: please read on.

-- Houses and boats: 

Journal d'un voyage à Tombouctou et à Djenne, by René Caillé, 1830, Paris, pp. 342 and  241;

 Travels and discoveries in North and Central Africa by Heinrich Barth, London, 1965 (first ed. 1855).

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Only a power ruler could demand a tomb like this...

Grégoire Lyon

A royal Songhay tomb in its capital of Gao (in modern Mali).

But a "revolted slave" challenges his master by ostentatiously distributing wealth:

Misakullah, a slave of the ruler, must send him 4000 bags of grain each year, of which he himself must furnish 1000. But one day he gives as many bags from his own stock to the producers themselves as alms, plus 50 to the men who carry them. Then he organizes a public presentation of these gifts. The ruler can vie with him only until he inherits the wealth of another subordinate. 

The chronicle says this is an hommage to the king, but an oral tradition calls Misakullah a "revolted slave" and that he proclaims himself king.

-- Story, Mahmud Kati, Tarikh-el-Fettach, trad. Houdas and Delafosse, Paris, 1913, pp. 179-187. This passage is not among those added later (Levtzion, 1971). Oral tradition:  Dakar archives AOF  1 G 194/31, 1896

# # #

The Songhay Empire falls under Moroccan attack in 1591. Did that liberate the sudden expansion of commercial energy? 

• The first effect is social: "The lowest class of the population has become the highest. The worst rabble has taken the place of the nobility." 

-- Kati, p. 308.

• But then, "God spread his benediction over the lands and waters [...] and so augmented the wealth of Timbuktu that the inhabitants almost forgot the government of Songhay."

• That prosperity takes place in spite of the region drying up, bringing famines and epidemics. By the 19th century Timbuktu is a center for commerce not production, but Segu on the Middle Niger and Kano in what is now Northern Nigeria take its place.

 Merchants go south for kola.

 

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Next,

Trade strengthens social systems,

then transforms them