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‘HAVING A ROAD’: SOCIAL AND SPATIAL MOBILITY OF PERSONS OF SLAVE AND MIXED DESCENT IN POST-INDEPENDENCE CENTRAL MALI*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 September 2012

LOTTE PELCKMANS
LOTTE PELCKMANS*
Affiliation:
Centre of African Studies, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
*
Author's email: pelckmans@msh-paris.fr
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Abstract

This article examines the migration trajectories of individuals of slave descent and ‘mixed descent’ (children of slave concubines) in a royal family network from the Haayre region of central Mali. Focusing on the twentieth century, it considers the extent to which social status has defined options for mobility within this network. Its argument is twofold. First, it shows that attention should be paid not only to the slave/free divide but also to subtler hierarchical nuances such as mixed descent and royal slavery. Rather than social status per se, it is internal hierarchies within social status groups which defined a person's options for movement. Second, the mobile trajectories of people with royal slave status tended to be intertwined with and depend on the movements of their patrons. Although these dependent forms of migration hardly ever changed their social status, they improved their economic condition considerably.

Keywords

West AfricaMalislaveryabolitionmigration
Type
Mobility, Slavery, and Freedom in Mali and the Gambia
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , July 2012 , pp. 235 - 255
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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Footnotes

*

I wish to sincerely thank Benedetta Rossi for all her efforts, suggestions, and assistance. For their valuable comments I also wish to thank Paolo Gaibazzi, Felicitas Becker, Klaas van Walraven, and the three peer reviewers of this journal. A warm thanks to Ruadhan Hayes who worked on language editing and to the librarians from the African Studies Centre in Leiden (the Netherlands) and Baz Lecocq who helped with identifying newspaper archives. Research for this article was made possible thanks to a Dutch WOTRO grant (W 52-1084) and a Fernand Braudel Scholarship.

References

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2 On mobility as a way of life associated with pastoralist Fulɓe nomads in West Africa, see R. Botte, J. Boutrais, and J. Schmitz (eds.), Figures peules (Paris, 1999), 24 and 28–30.

3 For a precise geographical description of this region, see de Bruijn, M. E. and van Dijk, H., ‘Drought and coping strategies in Fulɓe society in the Haayre (central Mali): a historical perspective’, Cahiers d’études africaines, 34:133/135 (1994), 85–108CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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12 The name Dicko (also spelled as Dikko) was a praise name for the former warlords who became political leaders in various sedentary Fulɓe constituencies of Central Mali (de Bruijn and van Dijk, ‘Ecology’, 228). Dicko literally translates as ‘falcon’ and refers to the ‘hunting’ instinct of this former warrior group.

13 Klein, Slavery, 47.

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15 de Bruijn and van Dijk, Arid; Angenent, Breedveld, de Bruijn, and van Dijk, Les rois.

16 Meillassoux, L'esclavage.

17 de Bruijn and van Dijk, Arid.

18 de Bruijn and van Dijk, ‘Ecology’, 229; Angenent, Breedveld, de Bruijn, and van Dijk, Les rois, 42–56.

19 See de Bruijn and van Dijk, ‘Drought’, 99–103; Klein, Slavery, 246–7; and L. Pelckmans, ‘To cut the rope from one's neck? manumission documents of slave descendants from Central Malian Fulɓe society’, in A. Bellagamba, S. Green, and M. Klein (eds.), The Bitter Legacy: African Slavery Past and Present (Princeton, 2012).

20 de Bruijn and van Dijk, Arid.

21 Angenent, Breedveld, de Bruijn, and van Dijk, Les rois, 69.

22 Lovejoy, P. E., The Ideology of Slavery in Africa (London, 1981)Google Scholar; Manchuelle, ‘The “patriarchal ideal”’.

23 Klein, Slavery, 49–52.

24 de Bruijn, M. E. and Pelckmans, L., ‘Facing dilemmas: former Fulɓe slaves in modern Mali', Canadian Journal of African Studies, 39:1 (2005), 69–95Google Scholar.

25 de Bruijn and van Dijk, ‘Ecology’, 233–6.

26 Roberts and Klein, ‘The Banamba’.

27 Source: Archives Nationales Maliens, Bamako, (ANM), Fond Ancien (FA): 1E-123: Etats numériques de villages de liberté, Bandiagara (1897–1911); ANM FA 1E-171: Correspondances sur les villages de captifs libérés-Goundam (1897).

28 Angenent, Breedveld, de Bruijn, and van Dijk, Les rois; de Bruijn, and van Dijk, , ‘Changing’; and B. Lecocq, ‘The bellah question: slave emancipation, race, and social categories in late twentieth-century northern Mali’, Canadian Journal of African Studies, 39:1 (2005), 42–68Google Scholar.

29 The word ‘king’ is used here because informants translate the Fulfulde notion of laamiiɗo in French as roi. By the same logic, the territorial areas reigned over by several laamiiɓe will be called ‘kingdoms’.

30 See also Angenent, Breedveld, de Bruijn, and van Dijk, Les rois, 100; Klein, Slavery, 251.

31 Manchuelle, Willing, 129.

32 Moitt, B., ‘Slavery and emancipation in Senegal's peanut basin: the nineteenth and twentieth centuries’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 22:1 (1989), 27–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dougnon, I., Travail de blanc, travail de noir: La migration des paysans dogon vers l'office du Niger et au Ghana (1910–1980) (Paris, 2007), 75–83Google Scholar.

33 For an overview of literature on colonial labor migration in West Africa, see Manchuelle, Willing, 4–8.

34 Fall, B., Le travail forcé en Afrique-Occidentale française, 1900–1946 (Paris, 1993)Google Scholar; Klein, Slavery.

35 Dougnon, Travail.

36 de Bruijn, and van Dijk, , ‘Drought’; M. de Bruijn and H. van Dijk, ‘Fulɓe mobility: Migration and travel into Mande’, Mande Studies, 1 (1999), 41–62Google Scholar.

37 Breedveld, A., ‘The rejection of formal education in the 5th region of Mali’, Mande Studies, 8 (2006) 145–67Google Scholar; Brenner, L., Controlling Knowledge: Religion, Power, and Schooling in a West African Muslim Society (Bloomington, IN, 2001)Google Scholar; Jézéquel, J.-H., ‘Histoire des bancs, parcours d’élèves: pour une lecture “configurationnelle” de la scolarisation à l’époque coloniale’, Cahiers D’Études Africaines 43:169/170 (2003), 412Google Scholar; Jézéquel, J.-H., ‘Les enseignants comme élite politique en AOF (1930–1945)’, Cahiers d’études africaines, 45:178 (2005), 519–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 539.

38 Elsewhere, other logics were pursued. The Fuuta Tooro elites appropriated education for themselves. See J. Schmitz, ‘Islamic patronage and republican emancipation: The slaves of the Almaami in the Senegal River valley’, in Rossi, Reconfiguring, 85–115, esp. 101.

39 Lovejoy, P. E., ‘Concubinage and the status of women slaves in early colonial northern Nigeria’, Journal of African History, 29:2 (1988), 245–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 246.

40 E. A. McDougall, ‘Dilemmas in the practice of rachat in French West Africa’, in K. A. Appiah and M. Bunzl (eds.), Buying Freedom: The Ethics and Economics of Slave Redemption (Princeton, 2007), 158–77, esp. 173.

41 Lovejoy, ‘Concubinage’, 247.

42 Klein, M. A., ‘The concept of honour and the persistence of servility in the western Soudan’, Cahiers d’études africaines, 45:179/180 (2005): 831–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Villesante-de Beauvais, ‘La question’, 298.

43 E. K. Hahonou, ‘En attendant la décentralisation au Niger…: dynamiques locales, clientélisme et culture politique’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Ecoles de Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales Paris, 2006), 198; P. Valsecchi, ‘My dearest child is my slave child: personal status and the politics of succession in south-west Ghana (nineteenth and twentieth centuries)’, in A. Bellagamba, C. Brown, S. Greene, and M. Klein (eds.), Voices of Slavery in West Africa (Trenton, NJ, 2012).

44 Wane, Y., Les Toucouleur du Fouta Tooro (Sénégal): Stratification sociale et structure familiale (Dakar, 1966), 119Google Scholar; Igbafe, P. A., ‘Slavery and emancipation in Benin, 1897–1945’, Journal of African History, 16:3 (1975), 409–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 410.

45 See Valsecchi, ‘My dearest’; and Hahonou, ‘En attendant’.

46 Lovejoy, ‘Concubinage’, quote on 263.

47 Often references to mixed descent individuals in West Africa are about their political success, see Hahonou ,‘En attendant’, 198; Valsecchi, ‘My dearest’. Cooper, however, noted that the official equality between children sharing the same father was tempered by racism on the Swahili coast: Cooper, F., Plantation Slavery on the East Coast of Africa (New Haven, CT, 1977)Google Scholar.

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49 Although slave groups generally had no single and fixed patronym as freeborn status groups do, informants from Dalla refer to this particular slave family by the name of their common slave ancestor Kau. Kau literally means ‘uncle’ in Fulfulde language. Ancestor Kau was a war captive who became a domestic slave for the royal court.

50 de Bruijn and Pelckmans, ‘Facing’, 78.

51 Meillassoux, Anthropology, 134.

52 McDougall, ‘Dilemmas’, esp. 172.

53 Interview with Allay Jangine, Dalla, 27 Jan. 2002. This is confirmed in interviews with Penda, sister of slave concubine Faata Legal, Dalla, 18 Dec. 2001 and with Burra Yero Cisse, Douentza, 12 May 2007.

54 Jézéquel, ‘Histoire’, 419.

55 ‘Hamadoun Dicko, pionnier des indépendances’, in L’Écho du Mali: Trimestriel d'Information des Maliens de France (Ambassade du Mali en France), 20 (2006), 18.

56 PSP was considered the party of traditional elites that maintained the ideology of slavery. Rassemblement Democratique Africaine (RDA), in contrast, was known as the party of the teachers. See Jézéquel, ‘Les enseignants’, 524.

57 Based on archival research by Anonymous, ‘Hamadoun’.

58 ‘A Bamako Mouvement de protestation contre la reforme monétaire’, Le Monde, 24 juillet 1962, 7; ‘Deux personnalités politiques Soudanais arrêtées à Bamako’, Le Monde, 27 juillet 1962, 7.

59 Interview with Mawludu Dicko, Bamako, 13 Nov. 2005; Interview with Muusa Dicko, Douentza, 2002; Interview with Samba Dicko, Bamako, 2006; L'Essor special issue, ‘Mali 2000’, (1999), with a picture of Hamadoun Dicko on p. 23. See also, ‘Hamadoun’, 18–19; ‘Le PSP et le 20 juillet 1962, Rappeler aux Maliens les crimes commis’, Soir de Bamako, 9 août 2005; ‘Evènements du 20 juillet 1962, le PSP réclame la vérité’, L'Essor, 10 août 2005.

60 Based on Muusa Dicko's life history. Personal correspondence between Dicko and De Bruijn and van Dijk, 1991.

61 Interview with Mawludu Dicko.

62 This echoes Meillassoux's argument about the slave as an ‘anti-kin’: Meillassoux, Anthropology, 139.

63 R. Zondag, ‘Douentza: the dynamics of a rural centre in the semi-arid Sahel’, in M. E. de Bruijn, H. van Dijk, M. Kaag, and K. van Til (eds.), Sahelian Pathways: Climate and Society in Central and South Mali (Leiden, 2005), 174–6.

64 For a similar argument in the Ghanaian context, see Valsecchi, ‘My dearest’.

65 Personal correspondence between Dicko and de Bruijn and van Dijk, 1991.

66 Ahmadou Hamidou Dicko (Junior), Feb. 2009; P. E. Lovejoy and T. Falola (eds.), Pawnship, Slavery, and Colonialism in Africa (Trenton, NJ, 2003); Lovejoy, P. E. and Richardson, D., ‘The business of slaving: pawnship in Western Africa, c. 1600–1810’, Journal of African History, 42:1 (2001), 67–89Google Scholar.

67 For an example of Muusa's ideas about how the ‘rope of slavery is still there’, see de Bruijn and Pelckmans, ‘Facing’, 79.

68 For more on domestic workers among the Dicko family in Bamako, see Pelckmans, Travelling, 217–20 and Pelckmans, ‘Memoryscapes of slavery? dependent mobility by ‘related’ domestic workers in Fulɓe elite families in Mali’, in J. Quirk and D. Vigneswaran (eds.), Slavery, Migration and Contemporary Bondage in Africa (Trenton, NJ, 2012), 149–80.

69 This corresponds more or less to ‘subordinate movement’ in Niger, described by Rossi, ‘Slavery’, 183.

70 Manchuelle, Willing, 144, 186.

71 Phone interviews with Muusa junior Dicko, Demba Dicko, and Ahmadou Hamidou Dicko (Junior), 12 May 2008, 24 Apr. 2009, 10 Sept. 2009.