Slavery and Colonial Rule in French West Africa

A history of slavery during the 19th and 20th centuries in three former French colonies.

Martin A. Klein (Author)

9780521593243, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 28 July 1998

382 pages, 9 b/w illus. 7 maps 21 tables
23.5 x 15.5 x 3 cm, 0.727 kg

'… a profound, comprehensive, facts rich overview, based on several years of research by the author in African and European archives, collecting of oral records and reports by missionaries … Martin Klein brought to the reader a book which helps in understanding not only of African slavery itself, but due to its persistence in the minds of many former slaves even long after is abolition, in understanding a lot about the African present as well.' Asian and African Studies

Martin Klein's book is a history of slaves during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in three former French colonies. It investigates the changing nature of local slavery over time, and the evolving French attitudes towards it, through the phases of trade, conquest and colonial rule. The heart of the study focuses on the period between 1876 and 1922, when a French army composed largely of slave soldiers took massive numbers of slaves in the interior, while in areas near the coast, hesitant actions were taken against slave-raiding, trading and use. After 1900, the French withdrew state support of slavery, and as many as a million slaves left their masters. A second exodus occurred after World War I, when soldiers of slave origin returned home. The renegotiation of relationships between those who remained and their masters carries the story into the contemporary world.

1. Slavery in the Western Sudan
2. Abolition and retreat: Senegal, 1848–1876
3. Slavery, slave-trading and social revolution
4. Senegal after Brière
5. Conquest of the Sudan: Desbordes to Archinard
6. Senegal in the 1890s
7. The end of the conquest
8. The imposition of metropolitan priorities on slavery
9. With smoke and mirrors: slavery and the conquest of Guinea
10. The Banamba exodus
11. French fears and the limits to an emancipation policy
12. Looking for the tracks: how they did it
13. After the war: renegotiating social relations
14. A question of honour.

Subject Areas: 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], African history [HBJH]