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Women's Work and Women's Property: Household Social Relations in the Maraka Textile Industry of the Nineteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Richard Roberts
Richard Roberts
Affiliation:
Stanford University
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Extract

A history of the Maraka textile industry provides a glimpse into the fitful and uneven social and economic changes taking place during the nineteenth century in the area of the Western Sudan that is now part of Mali. Although the major historical events of this period are well understood, historians know very little about the social and economic history of the West African interior. Exactly how the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade, renewed Islamic militancy, and European territorial encroachment influenced African societies remains poorly understood. This is even more apparent for the Middle Niger valley, located near the geographical center of continental West Africa. Paradoxically, the gradual end of the Atlantic slave trade and the coincident expansion of the so-called legitimate trade in agricultural crops increased the use of slaves within Africa to meet demand for all types of African goods. The nineteenth century was thus an era of commodity production and market activity which was probably unparalleled in the history of West Africa prior to this period. The inhabitants of the Middle Niger participated in these changes, and this study describes what these changes meant to one group of African men and women.

Type
Local Culture and World Economy
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , April 1984 , pp. 229 - 250
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1984

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References

An initial draft of this article was presented at the Symposium on Women in African History, Santa Clara University, May 1981. It has since benefited from considerable criticism and discussion. I would like to thank my colleagues in the Department of History at Stanford University, as well as Martin Klein, Paul Lovejoy, and Soumaila Diakite, for their help making this study intelligible to a wider audience. My research on the Malian textile industry is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

1 The debate on household structure and organization which surrounds Chayanov, A. V., The Theory of the Peasant Economy, Throner, D., Smith, R., and Kerblay, B., trans, and eds. (Homewood, Illinois: Irwin, 1966)Google Scholar is voluminous and contradictory. See, for example, Marshall Sahlins, Stone Age Economics (London: Tavistock, 1972);Google ScholarMeillassoux, Claude, Femmes, greniers, et capitaux (Paris: Maspero, 1975)Google Scholar; and, for a local Malian example, Lewis, John, “Domestic Labor Intensity and the Incorporation of Malian Peasant Farmers into Localized Descent Groups,” American Ethnologist, 8:2 (1981), 53–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar No one questions that consumer/producer ratios could diverge considerably from household to household. What is at stake is how to explain the persistence of the household through its development cycles.

2 Subsistence by no means implies simple forms or relations of production; household social relations could be quite complex. Nor should subsistence suggest autarky. In the subsistence societies of Africa, for example, surpluses were normal rather than exception, but they were stored rather than sold. The notion of a “normal surplus” was coined by Allen, William, The African Husbandman (New York, Barnes and Noble: 1965).Google Scholar For a general introduction to the systems of exchange in Africa, see two anthologies: Gray, Richard and Birmingham, David, eds., Precolonial African Trade: Essays on Trade in Central and Eastern Africa before 1900 (London: Oxford University Press, 1970)Google Scholar; and Meillassoux, Claude, ed., The Development of Indigenous Trade and Markets in West Africa (London: Oxford University Press, 1971).Google Scholar

3 The strongest versions of this perspective for the study of the African household are to be found in Boserup, Ester, Women's Roles in Economic Development (London: Allen and Unwin, 1970),Google Scholar and Goody, Jack, Production and Reproduction: A Comparative Study of the Domestic Domain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976).Google Scholar

4 Data for this study were collected during two research trips to Mali, in 1976–77 and in 1981, supported by the Canada Council and the Social Science Research Council, respectively. Transcripts of the taped interviews are available at the Institut des Sciences Humaines in Bamako, Mali, the Green Library of Stanford University, and the Archives for Traditional Music at Indiana University.

5 I use the term economic sphere in the sense of Barth's, Frederick “Economic Spheres in Darfur,” in Themes in Economic Anthropology, Firth, Raymond, ed. (London: Tavistock, 1967).Google Scholar The term was originally applied to circulation. I have, however, broadened the concept to include production. I take the term to mean more than occupation; intimately tied to the economic sphere are social boundaries which set apart a resource for the exclusive benefit of one group. In the Maraka division of labor, women's control over the resource “dyeing” differed from mere gender-related tasks because of the women's control also over circulation of the finished product. By economic sphere, then, I understand the oftentimes complex gender-task/gender-property relationships associated with changing patterns of work. For a similar situation, see Etienne, Mona, “Women and Men, Cloth and Colonization: The Transformations of Production-Dis-tribution Relations among the Baule (Ivory Coast),” Cahiers d'etudes africaines, (No. 65), 17:1 (1977), 41–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 I admit that these dyadic relations, men and women, fathers and sons, do not encapsulate the totality of household social relations. Mothers certainly maintained considerable control over their children, especially over their daughters, through dowries, presents, and the possibility of bequeathing to them the accumulated maternal possessions. Sons and daughters among the Muslim Maraka, however, seem to have had different bargaining strategies during the period when household relations were being redefined. Certainly daughters could become wives, pawns, or prostitutes; sons, however, could enter the expanding wage and commercial markets in ways young women could not. Much more work needs to be done on complex dyadic and triadic relations within the household. The example of rapid social change, such as that attending the exodus of the slaves, may provide exactly the kind of situation which reveals the historical character of institutions and the resolution of their particular tensions.

7 Abderrahmen ben Adullah ben Imran ben Amir es Sa'di, Tarikh es Soudan, Houdas, O., trans. (Paris: Maisonneuve, 1900), 418.Google Scholar

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9 See especially Meillassoux, , Femmes, greniers, et capitaux.Google Scholar

10 The Maraka were originally Muslim Soninke. By the nineteenth century the Maraka spoke only Bambara and, while they maintained a social boundary clearly articulated from the Bambara traditionalists, they seem to have used Bambara kinship classifications modified through the Islamic idiom basic to their identity. For more detail, see N'Diaye, Bokar, Groupes ethniques au Mali (Bamako: Editions Populaires, 1970)Google Scholar; Cisse, Diango, Structures de Malinkes de Kita (Bamako: Editions Populaires, 1970)Google Scholar; and Lewis, John, “Descendants and Crops: Two Poles of Production in a Malian Peasant Village” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1980).Google Scholar For a comparison with the Soninke of the Upper Senegal and Gajaaga region of Western Mali, see Pollet, Eric and Winter, Grace, Société Soninké (Bruxelles: Editions de l'lnstitut de Sociologie, 1972).Google Scholar Kinship classification systems as ideological blueprints may misrepresent the dynamic of social relations. For all its functionalism, Goody's, Jack “The Evolution of the Family,” in Household and Family in Past Time, Laslett, Peter and Wall, Richard, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972)Google Scholar, remains a stimulating beginning for the study of the complexity and interrelationships within households. Some of the most interesting new work on the family in African history comprises the special issue of the Journal of African History (24:2 (1983)),Google Scholar “The History of the Family in Africa,” edited by Shula Marks and Richard Rathbone; as they note, studies on West Africa cases are conspicuously absent (p. 16).

11 See, for instance, Klein, Martin and Lovejoy, Paul, “Slavery in West Africa,” in The Uncommon Market: Essays in the Economic History of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, Gemery, Henry and Hogendom, Jan, eds. (New York: Academic Press, 1979)Google Scholar; Lovejoy, Paul, “Indigenous African Slavery,” Historical Reflexions/Reflections historiques, 6:2 (1979), 19–61Google Scholar; idem, Transformations in African Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983);Google ScholarEltis, David and Walvin, James, eds., The Abolition of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1981)Google Scholar; Person, Yves, Samory, 3 vols. (Dakar: Institut Fondemental de l'Afrique Noire, 1973–1978).Google Scholar

12 Roberts, Richard, “The Maraka and the Economy of the Middle Niger Valley” (Ph.D. diss., University of Toronto, 1978).Google Scholar

13 Roberts, , “Long Distance Trade,” 173–76.Google Scholar

14 Notice historiques et géographiques du cercle de Bamako, 1800–1900, 1903, Republic of Mali, National Archives, Bamako (hereafter cited ANM), 1 D 33#1D1.

15 See Daniel, Fernand, “Etude sur les Soninké,” Anthropos, 5 (1910), 23–49Google Scholar; Pollet, and Winter, , Société SonintéGoogle Scholar; Perinbam, B. Marie, “The Julas in Western Sudanese History: Long Distance Traders and the Developers of Resources,” in West African Dynamics: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives, Swartz, B. K. and Dumett, R. E., eds. (The Hague: Mouton, 1980), 455–75.Google Scholar

16 Mollien, Gaspar Theodore, Travels in the Interior of Africa to the Sources of the Senegal and Gambia Performed by the Command of the French Government in the Year 1818 (London: Frank Cass, reprint 1967), 256.Google Scholar

17 Louis-Henri-Ernest-Edmond-Gaston Tellier, Autour Kita: Etude soudanaise (Paris: H. Lavauzelle, 1902), 238.Google Scholar

18 Mage, M. E., Voyage dans le Soudan Occidental (Paris: Larose, 1868), 150.Google Scholar

19 Cowrie equivalences are difficult to determine, for the nineteenth century witnessed a massive inflation in the value of cowries in West Africa. The data on Nyamina cloth are from Mage, , Voyage, 483Google Scholar; data on daily subsistence are from Park, Mungo, Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa (London: W. Bulmer and Company, 1816),Google Scholar estimated at 100 cowries a day for a man and his horse (I, p. 298), and from Jaime, Lieutenant G., De Koulikoro à Tombouctou sur la cannoniire “le Mage” (Paris: Les Librairies Associes, 1894),CrossRefGoogle Scholar estimated variously at 70 cowries a day for a sailor to 250 cowries a day for a travelling merchant (pp. 221–26). See also corroborative data from 1828 in Caillie, Rene, Journal d'un voyage à Tombouctou et a Jenne, 3 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1830), II, 203.Google Scholar For a fuller discussion of cowrie currencies in West Africa, see Johnson, Marion, “The Cowrie Currencies of West Africa,” Parts I and II, Journal of African History, 11:1,3(1970), 17–41, 331–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Lovejoy, Paul, “Inter-regional Monetary Flows in the Precolonial Trade of Nigeria,” Journal of African History, 15:4 (1974), 563–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 Hafkin, Nancy and Bay, Edna, eds. Women in Africa: Studies in Social and Economic Change (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1976), 6.Google Scholar

21 Bosman, Willem, A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea, Divided in the Gold, Slave, and Ivory Coasts (London: Frank Cass, reprint 1967), 202,Google Scholar quoted in Goody, Jack, Production and Reproduction, 6.Google Scholar

22 Robertson, Claire, “Ga Women and Socio-economic Change in Accra, Ghana,” in Women in Africa, Hafkin, and Bay, , eds., 117, 121, 124.Google Scholar

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24 See, for instance, Barkow, Jerome, “Hausa Women and Islam,” Canadian Journal of African Studies, 6:2 (1972), 317–28.Google Scholar

25 Rougier, , Enquête sur l'lslam, Banamba, 1914, ANM 1 D 33#3.Google Scholar

26 The idea of the household as a firm is suggested by Hopkins, A. G., An Economic History of West Africa (London: Longmans, 1973), 21.Google Scholar For the strongest defense of the family/household in terms of neoclassical theory, of which the theory of the firm is part, see Becker, Gary, A Treatise on the Family (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981).Google Scholar See Guyer, Jane, “Household and Community in African Studies,” African Studies Review, 24:2/3 (1981) 97–102,CrossRefGoogle Scholar for a review of the more general issues.

27 Etienne, , “Women and Men.”Google Scholar

28 Guyer, Jane I., “Food, Cocoa, and the Division of Labour by Sex in Two West African Societies,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 22:3 (1980), 364.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Changes in Beti farming are part of the widespread feminization of subsistence, which is a consequence of capitalism in colonial and neocolonial situations. Depending upon the region, men either spent more time producing cash crops or selling their labor power. Women's production of subsistence guarantees the extraction of surplus value in capitalist enterprises on a higher level because it reduces the costs of social reproduction. Meillassoux, , Femmes, greniers, et capitaux;Google ScholarDeere, Carmen, “Rural Women's Subsistence Production in the Capitalist Periphery,” in Peasants and Proletarians: The Struggles of Third World Workers, Cohen, Robin, Gutkind, Peter, and Brazier, Phyllis, eds. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1979).Google Scholar See also Wolpe, Harold, ed., The Articulation of Modes of Production (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980).Google Scholar

29 Corviaux, Louis, “Les produits du cercle de Ségou et Territoires de Sansanding,” Revue de cultures coloniales, 8 (1901), 299.Google Scholar

30 Rapport sur l'Association Cotonnière Coloniale, campaign 1912–1913, dossier 1913, ANM 1 R 118.

31 Note coton, sur le, Segu, 28 April, 1897,Google Scholar ANM 1 R 116; Rapport commercial et agricole, 4th Quarter 1902, Segu, ANM 1 R 69; Vuillet, F., “L'agriculture du pays de Ségou,” Renseignements coloniaux (1920).Google Scholar

32 This was to be an important variable when the French began their cotton colonization schemes in the late nineteenth century because metropolitan firms were experiencing real concern over diminishing world supplies of cotton for their mills. The French tried to introduce long-fiber cotton, but met with poor results. Note sur le coton, 1 May 1905, ANM 1 R 116. For more detail on the activities of the Association Cotonniere Coloniale, see Saint-Martin, Adolphe, “La Compagnie du Cotonniere du Niger, 1919–1929” (these de troisième cycle, Université de Montpellier, 1976).Google Scholar

33 Raffenel, Anne, Nouveau voyage au pays des Negres (Paris: N. Chaix, 1856), I, 407.Google Scholar For the 1897 description, see Note coton, sur le, Segu, 28 April 1897, ANM 1 R 116.Google Scholar

34 Barbier, Louis Le, Etude sur les populations Bambaras de la Vallée du Niger (Paris: Dujarric, 1906), 33.Google Scholar The same point is made by Monteil, Charles, Le coton chez les Noirs: Etat actuel des nos connaissances sur I'Afrique Occidentale Française (Paris: Publications du comité d'études historiques et scientifiques de l'AOF), p. 53.Google Scholar

35 Raffenel, , Nouveau voyage, 1, 385.Google Scholar Among the Fulbe, weaving was a major activity of a caste, called mabo. Monographie du cercle de Jenne, 20 November 1909, ANM 1 D 38#3.Google Scholar

36 Daniel, , “Etude sur les Soninké,” 40.Google Scholar

37 Monographie du cercle de Jenne, 20 November 1910,Google Scholar ANM 1 D 38#3; interviews with Mulaye Sise (session 1) 22 December 1976, Sinsani; Jare, Massitan and Berete, Nya, 18 February 1977Google Scholar, Segu; Haidara, Ba, 8 March 1977Google Scholar, Sinsani; Kuma, Baba (session 2), 13 March 1977, SeguGoogle Scholar; Kuma, Tatace, 20 February 1977Google Scholar, Sinsani; Tunkara, Tata, 3 January 1977, Segu.Google Scholar

38 Joseph, Marietta, “West African Indigo Cloth,” African Arts, 11:2 (1978) 34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 Catalogue, , Français, Soudan, Exposition de Bordeaux, 1895 (Bordeaux, 1895),Google Scholar Republic of France, National Archives, Section Outre-Mer, Soudan II 3; Notice sur l'agriculture au Soudan, , 1896, ANM 1 D 12.Google Scholar

40 Park, Mungo, Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa (London: William Bulmer and Company, 1807), 421.Google Scholar

41 Interviews with Tunkara, Tata, 3 January 1977, SeguGoogle Scholar; Kuma, Tatace, 20 February 1977, SinsaniGoogle Scholar; Haidara, Ba, 8 March 1977, SinsaniGoogle Scholar; Jare, Massitan and Berete, Nya, 18 February 1977, Segu.Google Scholar

42 Park, , Travels (1807), 410.Google Scholar Park's estimate was based on the mithgal, a unit of measure and value of gold, which he converted to cowries during his second trip to the Niger River in 1805 at the rate of 3,000 cowries to one mithgal. Park, Mungo, Journal of a Mission to the Interior of Africa in 1805 (London: John Murray, 1815), 276–78.Google Scholar For more discussion on the mithgal, see Johnson, Marion, “The Nineteenth-Century Gold Mithgal in West and North Africa,” Journal of African History, 9:4 (1968), 547–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43 Interviews with Haidara, Ba, 8 March 1977, SinsaniGoogle Scholar; Jare, Massitan and Berete, Nya, 18 February 1977.Google Scholar At these rates, women could earn a net income of between 62,500 and 133,000 cowries per year at the very least. In 1906, Le Barbier estimated that a pagne measuring 13 bands, each of which was about 15 centimeters wide, contained 86 threads in the warp and required about 2,100 meters of thread on the average. A pagne which measured ten bands was considered quite good, so the one Le Barbier described was probably of superior quality; the ten-band variety required about 25 percent less thread. Ducurni-fin were even shorter. See Barbier, Le, Etude, 32–34.Google Scholar

44 Meillassoux, Claude, “Etat et conditions des esclaves à Gumbu (Mali) au XIXe siècle,” in Esclavage en Afrique precoloniale, Meillassoux, Claude, ed. (Paris: Maspero, 1975), 249–50.Google Scholar

45 Caron, Edmond, De Saint Louis au port de Tombouctou: Voyage d'une canonnière (Paris: Augustin Challemel, 1892), 326.Google Scholar

46 Interviews with Jare, Massitan and Berete, Nya, 18 February 1977, SeguGoogle Scholar; Haidara, Ba, 8 March 1977, SinsaniGoogle Scholar; Tambara, Sane, 22 February 1977, SeguGoogle Scholar; Ture, Cemoko, 5 March 1977, Segu.Google Scholar

47 Interview with Ture, Cemoko, 5 March 1977, Segu.Google Scholar Such rectification through theft may have been quite common; see a similar point on stealing made by Mage, , Voyage, 407.Google Scholar

48 Interviews with Tambara, Sane, 22 February 1977, SeguGoogle Scholar; Mangane, al hajj Moktar, 19 February 1977, SinsaniGoogle Scholar; Haidara, Ba, 8 March 1977, Sinsani.Google Scholar

49 Interviews with Kone, Sidi Yahaya, 1 February 1977, SinsaniGoogle Scholar; Kuma, Baba (session 2), 13 March 1977Google Scholar, Segu; Tambara, Sane, 22 February 1977, SeguGoogle Scholar; Haidara, Ba, 8 March 1977, Sinsani.Google Scholar

50 Interview with Ture, Cemoko, 5 March 1977, Segu.Google Scholar This original commercial capital was often the most difficult to acquire. See Amselle, Jean-Loup, Négociants de la savanne: Histoire el organisation sociale des Kooroko, Mali (Paris: Anthropos Editions 1977).Google Scholar

51 Interview with Tambara, Sane, 18 February 1977, Segu.Google Scholar

52 See, for instance, Maher, Vanessa, Women and Property in Morocco: Their Changing Relation to the Process of Social Stratification in the Middle Atlas (London: Cambridge University Press, 1974)Google Scholar; Smith, M. G., “Introduction,” Baba ofKaro by Smith, Mary F. (London: Faber and Faber, 1964)Google Scholar; Goody, , Production and Reproduction;Google ScholarTillion, Germaine, Le harem et les cousins (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1966).Google Scholar

53 Barkow, , “Hausa Women,” 327.Google Scholar This is also the basis behind Polly Hill's notion of ”hidden trade.” Hill, Polly, “Hidden Trade in Hausaland,” Man, 4:3 (1969), 392–409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

54 Interviews with Haidara, Ba, 8 March 1977, SinsaniGoogle Scholar; Kone, Sidi Yahaya, 1 February 1977, SinsaniGoogle Scholar; Tambara, Sane, 22 February 1977, Segu.Google Scholar

55 Interview with Tambara, Sane, 22 February 1977, Segu.Google Scholar

56 Interview with Ture, Cemoko, 5 March 1977, SeguGoogle Scholar. See also Monteil, Charles, Un métropole soudanais: Djenne, métropole du delta central du Niger (Paris: Société d'Editions Géographiques, Maritimes, et Coloniales, 1932), 162;Google Scholar For a parallel case, see Cohen, Abner, Custom and Politics (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), 66–68.Google Scholar

57 Interviews with Jare, Massitan and Berete, Nya, 18 February 1977, SeguGoogle Scholar; Haidara, Ba, 8 March 1977, SinsaniGoogle Scholar; Kuma, Baba (session 2), 13 March 1977, SeguGoogle Scholar; Tambara, Sane, 22 February 1977.Google Scholar

58 Interviews with Tunkara, Tata, 3 January 1977, SinsaniGoogle Scholar; Mangane, al hajj Moktar, 19 February 1977, Sinsani.Google Scholar

59 Interview with Tambara, Sane, 22 February 1977, Segu.Google Scholar

60 Interviews with Tunkara, Tata, 3 January 1977, SeguGoogle Scholar; Haidara, Ba, 8 March 1977, SinsaniGoogle Scholar; Kuma, Binke Baba (session 2), 21 March 1977, Sinsani.Google Scholar

61 Interviews with Jare, Massitan and Berete, Nya, 18 February 1977, SeguGoogle Scholar; Ture, Cemoko, 5 March 1977, Segu.Google Scholar

62 Interview with Kuma, Binke Baba (session 2), 21 March 1977, Sinsani.Google Scholar

63 Interview with Haidara, Ba, 8 March 1977, Sinsani.Google Scholar

64 Interview with Sumare, Karamoko, 6 January 1977, Segu.Google Scholar Karamoko Sumare's grandmother, Nanu Kone, inherited many slaves. Muslim inheritance provided a share for daughters, albeit a smaller share. For West African practice, see Ruxton, F. H., Maliki Law: Being a Summary from French Translations of the Mukhtasar of Sidi Khalil (London: Luzac and Company, 1916).Google Scholar

65 In Nyamina during the 1860s, the wealthiest inhabitant was a woman, Kolotigi Fili, who used her wealth to organize the Bambara resistance against the Umarians. See Mage, , Voyage, 483Google Scholar, and Kamara, Cheik Moussa, “La vie d'el hadj Omar,” Bulletin Institut Fondemental de l'Afrique Noire, Series B, 32:2 (1970), 391–92.Google Scholar

66 Interviews with Jane, Seydu (session 1), 4 January 1977, SinsaniGoogle Scholar; Jare, Massitan and Berete, Nya, 18 February 1977, SeguGoogle Scholar; Haidara, Ba, 8 March 1977, SinsaniGoogle Scholar; Ture, Cemoko, 5 March 1977, Segu.Google Scholar

67 Interviews with Sylla, Tijani and Sylla, Mambi, 3 August 1981, BaraweliGoogle Scholar; Berete, Juma, 3 August 1981Google Scholar, Baraweli. Jealousy, however, may not have been the motivation behind the increased tensions over disposable income. With the coming of the French, the Maraka had to pay taxes in cash, and usually at a rate substantially higher than their more agricultural neighbors.

68 Interviews Sylla, Tijani and Sylla, Mambi, 3 August 1981, BaraweliGoogle Scholar; Berete, Juma, 3 August 1981, BaraweliGoogle Scholar; Suragassi, Demba, 18 February 1977, SeguGoogle Scholar; Kouyate, Musa, 26 January 1977, SeguGoogle Scholar; Danyogo, Sanussi, 1 February 1977, SinsaniGoogle Scholar; Dukure, Bakary, 30 January 1977, SeguGoogle Scholar; Kuma, Binke Baba (session 1), 19 December 1976, SinsaniGoogle Scholar; Kuma, Tatace, 20 February 1977, SinsaniGoogle Scholar; Kouyate, Musa, 26 January 1977, Segu.Google Scholar

69 Roberts, Richard and Klein, Martin, “The Banamba Slave Exodus and the Decline of Slavery in the Western Sudan,” Journal of African History, 21:3 (1980), 375–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

70 Rapport commercial et agricole, 1st quarter 1901, Segu, ANM 1 R 69. Demand for Segu cloth in Senegal is also cited in Fama Mademba, no title, 9 December 1903, Republic of Senegal, National Archives, Section l'Afrique Occidentale Francaise, 1 G 319.

71 Compare this situation with the freed men and women of the postbellum American South, especially in Ransom, Roger and Sutch, Richard, One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences of Emancipation (London and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977).Google Scholar

72 The interrelationship between the changing ideology of state power and the structure and performance of the economy is the basis of my forthcoming study, “Warriors and Merchants: The State and the Economy in the Middle Niger Valley, c. 1710–1905.”

73 Lenz, Oskar, Timbuktu Reise durch Marokko, die Sahara und den Sudan (Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1884), II, 150–51.Google Scholar

74 Rapport commercial et agricole, 1891, ANM 1 R 31. In June of that year 54,000 meters of cloth were imported.

75 Pitt, Carol, “An Economic and Social History of the Senegambia Textile Industry” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1978);Google ScholarShea, Philip, “The Development of an Export Oriented Dyed Cloth Industry in the Kano Emirate” (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1975).Google Scholar Northern Nigerian textiles had a brief florescence until the 1920s.

76 I have discussed this somewhat in “The Emergence of a Grain Market in Bamako, 1883–1905,” Canadian Journal of African Studies, 14:1 (1980), 37–54.Google Scholar

77 Hopkins, , Economic History of West Africa, 21.Google Scholar

78 Rapport politique, Bamako, , November 1911,Google Scholar ANM 1 E 19; Rapport politique d'ensemble du Soudan, , 1910,Google Scholar ANM 1 E 12. See also Pollet, and Winter, , Société Soninké, 371, 394.Google Scholar

79 Shea, , “Development of Export Oriented Dyed Cloth Industry.”Google Scholar

80 The most influential work on West African textile industry has been that of Johnson, Marion, “Cotton Imperialism in West Africa,” African Affairs, 82 (1974), 178–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, “Calico Caravans: The Tripoli Kano Trade after 1800,” Journal of African History, 16:1 (1976), 95–117Google Scholar; idem, “Technology, Competition, and African Crafts,” in Imperial Impact: Studies in the Economic and Social History of Africa and India, Dewey, C. and Hopkins, A. G., eds. (London: University of London Press, 1978), 259–69.Google Scholar

81 Caughman, Susan, Women at Work in Mali: The Case of the Marakala Cooperative, Working Papers in African Studies, Boston University, 1981.Google Scholar