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Long distance trade and production: Sinsani in the nineteenth century*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Richard Roberts
Richard Roberts
Affiliation:
Dalhousie University
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Extract

This examination of Maraka long-distance trade has underlined a commercial strategy involving both exchange and production. Most of the goods the Maraka traded were either locally produced or re-exports from the desert-side trade. Once the desert-side dimension of Maraka trade was interrupted, as it was following the Umarian conquest of 1861, the linkages holding together Sinsani's economy collapsed.

Maraka long-distance trade was characterized by small exclusively male caravans which maximized time constraints in bypassing numerous local markets along the route. The Maraka usually engaged in wholesale transactions, preferring smaller profit margins per unit and a rapid turnaround of goods. The Maraka traded in such a manner because involvement in commodity production at home absorbed much of their time. Profits from Maraka trade were invested in a plantation sector which fed cotton cloth and grain to the desert-side trade and to Maraka long-distance trade southward to the land of kola and down the Niger to Timbuktu.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , April 1980 , pp. 169 - 188
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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58 Interview with Haidara, Yahaya, 30 December 1976Google Scholar, Sinsani; Kuma, Binké Baba (session I), 19 December 1976Google Scholar, Sinsani.

59 Interview with Koné, Malamine, 7 February 1977Google Scholar, Segu.

60 Interview with Turé, Cémoko, 5 March 1977Google Scholar, Segu.

61 Interview with Koné, Malamine, 7 February, 1977Google Scholar, Segu; Sako, Baba, 9 January 1977Google Scholar, Segu.

62 Interview with Sisé, Mulaye (session 1), 22 December 1976Google Scholar, Sinsani.

63 Interview with Koné, Malamine, 7 February 1977Google Scholar, Segu.

64 Interview with Sisé, Mulaye (session 3), 8 March 1977Google Scholar, Sinsani.

65 Cohen, A., ‘Cultural strategies in the organization of trading diasporas’, in Meillassoux, , Trade and Markets, 266–78Google Scholar; Curtin, , Senegambia, 81Google Scholar, 84, 274.

66 Interview with Suragassi, Demba, 18 February 1977Google Scholar, Segu.

67 Caillié, , Journal, ii, 87–8Google Scholar gives an example of this. Interviews with Turé, Cémoko, 5 March 1977Google Scholar. Segu, and Sisé, Mulaye (session 3), 8 March 1977Google Scholar, Sinsani.

68 Cohen, , ‘Cultural Strategies’, 267Google Scholar and fn. 1, 267; see also Cohen, A., Custom and Politics in Urban Africa: a Study of Hausa Migrants in Yoruba Towns (London, 1969)Google Scholar and Lovejoy, , ‘The Kambarin Beriberi’.Google Scholar

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77 Interview with Sisé, Mulaye (session 3), 8 March 1977Google Scholar, Sinsani.

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79 See for instance Commandant, fort of Bamako, letter, 1 July 1885Google Scholar, AM 1 E 18; Commandant, cercle of Bamako, letter, 1 May 1886Google Scholar, AM 1 E 18; interview with Haidara, Yahaya, 30 December 1976Google Scholar, Sinsani.

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81 Interview with Danyogo, Sanussi, 1 February 1977Google Scholar, Sinsani.

82 Interview with Suragassi, Demba, 18 February 1977Google Scholar, Segu.

83 Interview with Turé, Cémoko, 5 March 1977Google Scholar, Segu.

84 Interview with Kouyaté, Musa, 26 January 1977Google Scholar, Segu.

85 Interview with Haidara, Yahaya, 30 December 1976Google Scholar, Sinsani.

86 Curtin, , Senegambia, 290.Google Scholar

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88 Curtin, , ‘Diahanké’, 237Google Scholar. The Darbo clan diaspora along the Gambia served in part to reduce tolls through preferential treatment: Wright, ‘Darbo Jula’.

89 Curtin, , Senegambia, 140–1.Google Scholar

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93 Mollien, , Travels, 308Google Scholar. Emphasis added.

94 Interview, Sisé, Mulaye (session 1), 22 December 1976Google Scholar, Sinsani.

95 Interview, Yahaya, Haidara, 30 December 1976Google Scholar, Sinsani.

96 Interview, Suragassi, Demba, 18 February 1977Google Scholar, Segu.

97 Interviews with Sisé, Mulay (session 1), 22 December 1976Google Scholar, Sinsani; Sanogo, Amadu, 8 January 1977Google Scholar, Sinsani; Suragassi, Demba, 18 February 1977Google Scholar, Segu; Turé, Cémoko, 5 March 1977Google Scholar, Segu. See also Penel, Julien, Coutumes soudanaises: les coutumes des Malinkés, Sarakollés ou Soninkés, Khassonkés (2 vols, typewritten copy: Bibliothèque Nationale, 1895), 1, 116Google Scholar; Wright, ‘Darbo Jula’.

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99 For example, see the issue of traders avoiding French tax stations, Payn, Captain, ‘Oussourou’, 1906Google Scholar, AM 1 D288.

100 A similar kind of argument on the heavy role of taxation in financing the state is in the older literature on the medieval states; see for instance Trimingham, J. S., A History of Islam in West Africa (London, 1962), 80Google Scholar. Caillié, however, also notes that traders were taxed at a rate of twenty kola per load. This is less than 1 per cent, but certainly adds up if assessed at every village. Caillié, , Journal, ii, 70.Google Scholar

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106 Jaime, , Koulikoro, 219–20Google Scholar. The added expense of transhipping goods, renting another canoe and having new sailors probably increased the costs and decreased the mobility of transport southward using canoes. This may account for the greater frequency of donkey caravans in that direction.

107 Binger, , Du Niger, i, 12–13.Google Scholar

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115 Jaime, , Koulikoro, 221.Google Scholar

116 Dubois, , Tombouctou, 191Google Scholar. Interview with Danyogo, Sanussi, 1 February 1977Google Scholar, Sinsani.

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118 Dubois, , Tombouctou, 192Google Scholar. It is not clear whether this includes thecostsof subsistence for the journey, Caillié noted in 1828 that feeding alone cost 300 cowries between Jenne and Timbuktu. Mulaye Sisé estimated that subsistence cost approximated 5,000 cowries on the round trip from Sinsani, , interview Mulaye Sisé (session 3), 8 March 1977Google Scholar, Sinsani; Jaime estimated food costs at 200 cowries per day for three crew, or 70 cowries a day. A 3-to 4-month voyage would cost between 6,300 and 8,400 cowries each, or slightly more than 5,000 cowries, Sisé estimated.

119 Jaime, , Koulikoro, 221.Google Scholar

120 Interviews with Sisé, Mulaye (session 3), 8 March 1977Google Scholar, Sinsani; Danyogo, Sanussi, 1 February 1977Google Scholar, Sinsani.

121 If we assume a salt bar cost between 8,000 and 15,000 cowries in Sinsani, these figures are not far off.

122 Refigured from Jaime, , Koulikoro, 221–6.Google Scholar

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124 Gallieni, , Voyage, 80–1Google Scholar; Soleillet, , ‘Rapport 1, Voyage de Paul Soleillet’, 15 October 1878Google Scholar, Segu-Sikoro, ASAOF 1 G 46, notes that ‘one hundred‘ equals eighty, ’two hundred’ equals one hundred and sixty, yet ninety-nine equals ninety-nine. See also Johnson, , ‘Cowrie Currencies’, i, 38–40.Google Scholar

125 Interview with Sisé, Mulaye (session 3), 8 March 1977Google Scholar, Sinsani. It is not clear whether these figures were for one way or for the round trip.

126 Jaime, , Koulikoro, 199, 206Google Scholar, As early as 1828 Caillié noted that large freight canoes often formed convoys at Sa to avoid the danger of pillage in the area. Caillié, , Journal, ii, 266.Google Scholar

127 I have discussed the operation of the Bamako grain market in ‘The emergence of a grain market in Bamako, 1883–1908’Google Scholar, Canadian J. of Afr. Studies, forthcoming.

128 Lenfant, Eugène, Le Niger, voie ouvert à nôtre empire African (Paris, 1903), 211.Google Scholar