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Forced Labor, Resistance, and Masculinities in Kayes, French Sudan, 1919–1946*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 November 2014

Marie Rodet
Marie Rodet*
Affiliation:
SOAS, University of London
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Abstract

In this article I analyze how African gender categories have interacted with those produced and imposed by French colonization and how these forced interactions may have given rise to specific kinds of resistance from local populations. Using the case study of forced recruitment for the private agricultural firm Société Anonyme des Cultures de Diakandapé (SACD) in the region of Kayes in Mali from 1919 to 1946, I examine the complexities of resistance to forced labor from a gender perspective, with a special focus on how resistance was shaped by struggles around (re)construction and (re)definition of local and colonial masculinities.

Type
African Labor Histories
Information
International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 86 , Fall 2014 , pp. 107 - 123
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 2014 

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Footnotes

*

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Conference “Les changements dans les modèles culturels du travail en Afrique. Une approche comparative,” UCAD Dakar, December 5–7, 2011. I would like to thank Romain Tiquet, Franco Barchiesi, Stefano Bellucci, and the two anonymous reviewers for their useful feedback on this research, as well as Caroline George for translations from French into English.

References

NOTES

1. On this field, see particularly Lindsay, Lisa A. and Miescher, Stephan F., eds., Men and Masculinities in Modern Africa (Portsmouth, NH, 2003)Google Scholar; Moodie, T. Dunbar and Ndatsche, Vivienne, Going for Gold: Men, Mines, Migration (Berkeley, CA, 1994)Google Scholar; Morrell, Robert, ed., Changing Men in Southern Africa (London, 2001)Google Scholar; Morrell, Robert and Ouzgane, Lahoucine, eds., African Masculinities: Men in Africa from the Late Nineteenth Century to the Present (New York, 2005)Google Scholar; Cooper, Frederick, Decolonization and African Society: The Labor Question in French and British Africa (Cambridge, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. Two notable exceptions are Declich, Francesca, “Unfree Labour, Forced Labour and Resistance among the Zigula of the Lower Juba,” in Resisting Bondage in Indian Ocean Africa and Asia, ed. Alpers, Edward A., Campbell, Gwyn, and Salman, Michael (London, 2006)Google Scholar; Allina-Pisano, Eric, Slavery by Any Other Name: African Life under Company Rule in Colonial Mozambique (Charlottesville, NC, 2012)Google Scholar.

3. Cooper, Frederick, “Industrial Man Goes to Africa,” in Men and Masculinities in Modern Africa, ed. Lindsay, Lisa A. and Miescher, Stephan F. (Portsmouth, NH, 2003), 128–29Google Scholar.

4. Rodet, Marie, “C'est le regard qui fait l'histoire; Comment utiliser des archives coloniales qui nous renseignent malgré elles sur l'histoire des femmes africaines (archives),” Terrains & travaux 10 (2006):18–35 Google Scholar.

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6. Rodet, Marie, Les migrantes ignorées du Haut-Sénégal (1900–1946) (Paris, 2009), 107–8Google Scholar.

7. Mann, “Old Soldiers, Young Men,” 74.

8. Iliffe, John, Honour in African History (Cambridge, 2005), 111Google Scholar.

9. This concept aims to analyze the processes whereby certain categories of men impose their power upon not only women, but also other categories of men. See Connell, Robert, Masculinities (Cambridge, 1995)Google Scholar.

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11. The concept of intersectionality originates in African-American feminist theories, which, from the 1970s onward, have attempted to call into question the “white supremacy” of second-wave feminists. This concept allows us to rethink our relationships with others and with ourselves, not only through the prism of gender but by recognizing the way gender identities are shaped by other facets of identity, such as class, culture, sexual orientation, age, generation, and so on. This complexification of gender analysis throws light upon the multiple aspects of oppression and undermines essentialist conceptions of femininities and masculinities.

12. Fall, Babacar, “Une entreprise agricole privée au Soudan français: la Société anonyme des cultures de Diakandapé (Kayes), 1919–1942,” in Entreprises et entrepreneurs en Afrique au XIXe et XXe siècle, ed. Coquery-Vidrovitch, Catherine (Paris, 1983), 335–50Google Scholar; Fall, Babacar, Le travail forcé en Afrique-Occidentale française, 1900–1946 (Paris, 1993)Google Scholar.

13. Rodet, “C'est le regard,” 18–35.

14. Rodet, M., “Missing Migrants: The Absence of Women in the History of Rural-Rural Migrations from French Sudan to Senegambia (1900–1932),” in African Mosaic: Political, Social, Economic and Information Technologies Issues in the New Millennium, ed. Zack-Williams, Alfred B. and Udogu, Emmanuel I. (Newcastle, UK, 2009), 156Google Scholar.

15. This view is widely shared by many works from the 1960s: see especially, Berg, Elliott J., “The Economics of the Migrant Labor System,” in Urbanization and Migration in West Africa, ed. Kuper, Hilda H. (Berkeley, CA, 1965), 160–81Google Scholar; Wallerstein, Immanuel, “Migration in West Africa: The Political Perspective,” in Urbanization and Migration in West Africa, ed. Kuper, Hilda H. (Berkeley, 1965), 148–59Google Scholar. For a more general study of African societies in terms of subsistence economies, see Balandier, Georges, “Structures traditionnelles et changements économiques,” Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines 1 (1960):1–14 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Meillassoux, Claude, “Essai d'interprétation du phénomène économique dans les sociétés traditionnelles d'autosubsistance,” Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines, 1 (1960): 38–67 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Meillassoux, Claude, Femmes, greniers et apitaux (Paris, 2003[1975])Google Scholar. Manchuelle calls into question these ahistorical conceptions of an Africa based on economies of self-sufficiency in Manchuelle, François, Willing Migrants: Soninke Labor Diasporas, 1848–1960 (Athens, OH, 1997)Google Scholar.

16. Miescher, Stephen F., Making Men in Ghana (Bloomington, IN, 2005), 62–67 Google Scholar.

17. Cooper, “Industrial Man,” 128–29.

18. Ibid., 133–35.

19. Cooper, Decolonization, 1.

20. Inspection du travail, Gouverneur Tap, inspecteur du travail, Mission février 1937 au Soudan français, March 1937, National Archives of Senegal (hereafter ANS), fonds du Gouvernement général d'Afrique occidentale française (hereafter GGAOF), fonds moderne (hereafter FM) K 151(26). See also Rodet, Les migrantes ignorées, 240.

21. White, Luise, “Matrimony and Rebellion: Masculinity in Mau Mau,” in Men and Masculinities in Modern Africa, ed. Lindsay, Lisa A. and Miescher, Stephan F. (Portsmouth, NH, 2003), 177–91Google Scholar.

22. Rodet, “C'est le regard,” 18–35.

23. La mise en valeur des colonies aimed to provide a political doctrine of economic colonization whereby the colonial workforce of the French territories would participate in the Métropole's recovery. See Sarraut, Albert, La mise en valeur des colonies (Paris, 1923)Google Scholar; Andrew, C. M. and Kanya-Forstner, A. S., “France, Africa, and the First World War,” The Journal of African History 19 (1978): 11–23 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Rapport en conseil de gouvernement, 1925, ANS GGAOF 21 G 37(17); Circulaire Merlin no. 20 A/s. Révision du programme des grands travaux intéressant l'AOF, Gouverneur AOF à lieutenant gouverneur Haut-Sénégal-Niger, February 14, 1925, National Archives of Mali (hereafter ANM) Hamdallaye (FR) A 251.

24. Manchuelle, Willing Migrants, 148.

25. This was the case on certain logging and railway construction sites where, once their period of forced labor ended, some continued to work for the same company as free waged labor. Interview in Kidira with Ibrahima Dabo, November 22, 2003.

26. Rodet, Les migrantes ignorées, 248–50.

27. Gouverneur général de l'AOF Jules Carde, “Discours, Conseil de Gouvernement,” Journal Officiel de l'Afrique Occidentale Française (hereafter JO AOF) (November 1922): 845. See also Fall, , Le travail forcé (Paris, 1993), 258–59Google Scholar.

28. JO AOF 1124 (April 3, 1926):301–04.

29. Nevertheless, the French delegates at Geneva initially abstained from voting and refused to sign the Convention. At this point, the French government decided to issue its own document on compulsory labor for public purposes, the Decree of August 21, 1930. Officially adopted to prevent abusive labor requisitions, this text actually makes exceptions “in the case of force majeure” and for “customary” labor, leaving a wide margin for interpretation by local administrations. See Suret-Canale, Jean, Afrique noire occidentale et centrale. L'ère coloniale (1900–1945) (Paris, 1964), 326Google Scholar.

30. Rapport sur le travail et la main-d'œuvre indigène, undated, ANS GGAOF K 66(19).

31. Circulaire no. 525 AP/1. A/s. Application du décret du 12 août 1937 mettant en vigueur la convention sur le travail forcé ou obligatoire adoptée en 1930 par la Conférence internationale du travail, Gouverneur général AOF à gouverneurs des colonies du groupe et gouverneur Dakar et dépendances, September 27, 1938, National Archives of Outre-Mer (hereafter ANOM), fonds ministériel, Affpol 2808.

32. Particularly following the publication of Londres, Albert, Terre d'ébène (Paris, 1929)Google Scholar, which, following an investigation in Africa lasting several months, denounced the use of forced labor in the colonies.

33. In French West Africa, women were exempt from 1918 onward. See Arrêté relatif au régime des prestations dans les colonies et territoires de l'AOF, September 23, 1918, ANOM Affpol 2808.

34. These Decrees can be found in ANS GGAOF K 192(26).

35. Cooper, Decolonization, 93.

36. Circulaire De Coppet, November 4, 1936, ANS K 192(26).

37. Rapport Demaret, 1919, ANOM Affpol 3049.

38. Rapport sur la visite des camps et chantiers du consortium, du STIN, et de l'Office du Niger, March 10, 1937, ANS K 151(26).

39. “Soudan—La condition morale des travailleurs dans le problème de la main d'œuvre au Soudan Français,” Bulletin service intercolonial d'information, October 22, 1937, ANOM Commission Guernut 50 B 12.

40. Fall, “Une entreprise agricole,” 335–50.

41. For more information on the structure of the SACD, see Rodet, Les migrantes ignorées, 224.

42. Rapport sur le prix de la main-d'œuvre, Soudan français, 1936, ANS GGAOF K 212(26): Gouverneur du Soudan français Rougier à secrétaire général Desanti, March 12, 1938, ANS GGAOF 15 G 22.

43. Administrateur cercle de Kayes à gouverneur Soudan français, September 3, 1923, ANM S 50.

44. Étude sur la question de la main d'œuvre, Cercle de Bafoulabé, 1923, ANM S 50.

45. The colony of Upper Volta was dissolved in 1932 and divided between the Côte d'Ivoire, French Sudan and Niger. It was revived in 1947.

46. Inspecteur des affaires administratives à lieutenant gouverneur du Soudan français, A/s. Main d'œuvre contractuelle dans la région de Kayes, December 15, 1929, ANM Koulouba S 25.

47. The French colonial authorities used a number of the colonial conscripts, the second portion, to work on colonial public and private building sites. See Inspection du travail, Rapport annuel sur l'emploi de la main d'œuvre, Soudan français, 1942, ANS GGAOF 2 G 42/23; Société des Cultures de Diakandapé à gouverneur Soudan français, 10 July 1942, Société des Cultures de Diakandapé à gouverneur Soudan français, A/s. Recrutement demandé à l'administration, 22 September 1942; télégramme-lettre confidentiel 51/c, Cercle de Kayes à gouverneur, 31 May 1946, ANM Hamdallaye 1 R 2763.

48. Rapport 3, 1937, ANOM Commission Guernut 13; Tournée Coppet, 1937, ANS GGAOF 17 G 377(126); Rapport 14 sur la tournée du 8 au 14 novembre Kayes—Tamba-Counda—Kaolack, Inspection du travail, November 22, 1937, ANS GGAOF K 274(26); Rapport de mission du gouverneur général Tap, inspecteur du travail, Cercle de Kayes, January 1939, ANS GGAOF K 217(26).

49. Babacar Ndiaye, “La culture du sisal au Sénégal et au Soudan français (1920–1959): essai d'une histoire des entreprises impériales,” (Mémoire de maîtrise, Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar, 1995), 84.

50. Rapport 3, 1937, ANOM Commission Guernut 13;Tournée Coppet, 1937, ANS GGAOF 17 G 377(126); Rapport 14 sur la tournée du 8 au 14 novembre Kayes—Tamba-Counda—Kaolack, Inspection du travail, 22 November 1937, ANS GGAFO (FM) K 274(26); Rapport de mission du gouverneur général Tap, inspecteur du travail, Cercle de Kayes. Janvier, 1939, ANS GGAOF K 217(26).

51. See ANM S 25. See also Fall, “Une entreprise agricole.”

52. Gouverneur de l'AOF à Monsieur Renoux Directeur de la Société des cultures de Diakandapé, Mesures à prendre pour protéger les manœuvres contre les piqûres d'épines de feuilles de sisal, November 27, 1937, ANS GGAOF K 311(26).

53. Rapport d'inspection no. 4/I.T. au sujet de l'application de la réglementation en matière de travail indigène sur la plantation des Sisaleraies et Carburants Africains du Samanko, janvier 12, 1938, ANS K 212(26).

54. Administrateur des colonies, chef subdivision Kayes à délégué du gouverneur, September 13, 1929, ANM S 25.

55. Inspecteur affaires administratives à lieutenant gouverneur Soudan français, A/s. Main d'œuvre contractuelle dans la région de Kayes, 15 December 1929, ANM S 25.

56. Rodet, Les migrantes ignorées, 212.

57. Rapport 3, 1937, ANOM Commission Guernut 13.

58. See ANS, K 192(26).

59. Enquête sur la main d'œuvre, Soudan français, 1926, ANS GGAOF K 92(26).

60. Rapports politiques Soudan français, 4th term 1922, ANS 2 G 22/11.

61. Rapport Savineau, 36, ANS GGAOF 17 G 381.

62. Rapport TAP, Kayes, 1939, ANS K 217(26).

63. This term is borrowed from the title of Scott's, James C. famous work, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven, CT, 1985).Google Scholar

64. For a summary of this historiography, see especially Ranger, Terence, “The People in African Resistance: A Review,” Journal of Southern African Studies 4 (1977):125–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Coquery-Vidrovitch, Catherine, “Révoltes et résistance en Afrique noire: une tradition de résistance paysanne à la colonisation,” Labour, capital & society 16 (1983):34–63 Google Scholar.

65. Crummey, Donald, ed., Banditry, rebellion and social protest in Africa (London, 1986)Google Scholar; Isaacman, Allen F., “Peasants and Rural Social Protest in Africa,” in Confronting Historical Paradigms: Peasants, Labor, and the Capitalist World System in Africa and Latin America, ed. Cooper, Frederick, Isaacman, Allen F., Mallon, Florencia E., Roseberry, William, and Stern, Steve J. (Madison, WI, 1993)Google Scholar; Ortner, Sherry B., “Resistance and the Problem of Ethnographic Refusal,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 37 (1995):173–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Abbink, Jan, de Bruijn, Mirjiam, and van Walraven, Klass, Rethinking Resistance. Revolt and Violence in African History (Leiden, NL, 2003)Google Scholar; Allina-Pisano, Eric, “Resistance and the Social History of Africa,” Journal of Social History 37 (2012):187–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

66. Scott, Weapons of the Weak and “Everyday Forms of Resistance,” The Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies 4 (1989):33–62 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an accurate and critical analysis of this historiography relating to Africa, see also Cooper, Frederick, “Conflict and Connection: Rethinking Colonial African History,” American Historical Review 99 (1994):1516–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar (1994) and Allina-Pisano, “Resistance,” 187–98.

67. Asiwaju, A. I., “Migrations as Revolt: The Example of the Ivory Coast and the Upper Volta before 1945,” The Journal of African History 17 (1976):577–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68. Rapport sur la tournée effectuée du 12 septembre au 25 septembre 1918, Cercle de Bafoulabé, ANM Koulouba 1 E 17.

69. Rapport 3, 1973, ANOM Commission Guernut 13.

70. Romain Tiquet, “Resistance or Adaptation? A New Approach to Forced Labour Analysis in the Senegalese Context (1930–1946),” ASA Conference Baltimore, unpublished paper, November 2011.

71. Scott, “Everyday Forms of Resistance.”

72. Ndiaye, “La culture du sisal,” 77–81.

73. Rapport annuel sur le travail de la main-d'oeuvre au Soudan, 1937, ANS GGAOF 2 G 37/38.

74. The Société des Sisaleraies et Carburants Africains had committed the following infractions: depriving ill men who were not present at morning roll call of their ration and salary; reducing the salary of daily laborers from two and a half francs to two; violence toward employees by M. Lochon, company director. See Rapport d'inspection au sujet de l'application de la réglementation en matière de travail indigène sur la plantation des Sisaleraies et Carburants Africains du Samanko, Soudan français, 1938, ANS K 212(26).

75. Lettre 422/B.T., A/s. Incidents survenus sur les plantations de Diakandapé, Gouverneur p.i. Soudan français à gouverneur général AOF, April 27, 1938, ANS GGAOF K 13(1).

76. Lettre 7670/B.T., A/s. Main d'œuvre, Gouverneur p.i. Soudan français à directeur Société des Cultures de Sisal de Diakandapé, November 15, 1939, ANS K 274(26).

77. Extrait du procès-verbal de la session du conseil des notables, Cercle de Nioro, septembre 3, 1923, ANM Koulouba S 50.

78. Rapport sur la tournée effectuée du 12 septembre au 25 septembre 1918, Cercle de Bafoulabé, ANM 1 E 17.

79. See Manchuelle, Willing Migrants.

80. Rapport sur l'application de la réglementation du travail indigene, AOF, 1933, ANOM CG 50 B 12; Rapport politique trimestriel, Cercle de Nioro, 1st term 1933, ANM 1 E 36. The administrator of Nioro repeated similar fears in his report from the second trimester of the same year, emphasizing that half of all migrants who left for Senegal did not return. Similar phenomena were observed in Satadougou, Kayes, and Bafoulabé. In Bafoulabé, the Commander of the cercle estimated in 1932 that more than one in ten navétanes had not returned from the previous season. Rapport économique, Subdivision de Satadougou, 2nd term 1935, ANM 1 S 2684; Rapport politique trimestriel, Cercle de Kayes, 2nd term 1934, ANM 1 E 19; Rapport économique trimestriel, Cercle de Bafoulabé, 2nd term 1932, ANM 1 E 68. Reports on the region of Sine Saloum in Senegal from 1926 to 1935 regularly note the creation of new villages in the region by former navétanes. See Rapport politique annuel, Cercle de Kaolack—Sine-Saloum. Senegal, 1926, ANS GGAOF 2 G 26/68; Rapport politique annuel, Cercle de Kaolack—Sine-Saloum, Sénégal, 1927, ANS 2 G 27/85; Rapport politique annuel, Cercle de Kaolack—Sine-Saloum, Sénégal, 1935, ANS 2 G 35/82.

81. Administrateur des colonies Levasseur à lieutenant gouverneur Soudan français, mars 17, 1934, ANS GGAOF 21 G 36.

82. See Rodet, Les migrantes ignorées, 166.

83. Annexe II PV des séances tenues par la sous-commission au cours de son voyage, 1937, 59, ANOM Commission Guernut 13.

84. See Manchuelle, Willing Migrants.

85. See Burrill, Emily, “Disputing Wife Abuse. Tribunal Narratives of the Corporal Punishment of Wives in Colonial Sikasso, 1930s,” Cahier d'Etudes Africaines 187–88 (2007): 603–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

86. See in particular the numerous divorce procedures initiated for abandonment and desertion and brought to the provincial courts of Kayes from 1908 to 1920 in ANM Koulouba 2 M 123.

87. Rodet, Marie, “Continuum of Gender Violence: The Colonial Invention of Female Desertion as a Customary Criminal Offense, French Soudan, 1900–1949,” in Domestic Violence and the Law in Colonial and Postcolonial Africa, ed. Burrill, Emily, Roberts, Richard, and Thornburry, Elisabeth (Athens, OH, 2010), 74–93 Google Scholar.

88. Lettre inspecteur affaires administratives, December 15, 1929, ANM S 25.

89. Note au sujet de l'installation de famille de travailleurs sur les plantations de Samé, Cercle de Kayes, November 2, 1944, ANM S 800.

90. Rapport annuel sur le travail et la main-d'œuvre, Cercle de Kayes, 1944, ANM Hamdallaye S 800; Rapport No. 40/IT. de tournée à gouverneur Soudan français, A/s. Expérience de sédentarisation entreprise à Kayes par la Société des Cultures de Diakandapé, March 13, 1946, ANM Koulouba 1 R 2763.

91. Télégramme-lettre 90/c, Cercle de Kayes à gouverneur Soudan français, 1945, ANM 1 R 2763.