Bioliographic Information on Slavery and Colonial Rule in French West Africa by Martin Klein

Bibliographic Information: Klein, Martin A., Slavery And Colonial Rule in French West Africa, 1998, Cambridge University Press

The book bears importance in being one of the few studies about domestic slavery within the French West Africa. It contributes to the field of study, by elaborating on the importance of slavery in Senegal, Sudan and Guinea in Africa’s development. The period of the study lies from 1876 to 1922, wherein Klein ultimately shows the evolution of slavery. In the years prior to 1876, Klein argued that slavery had an economic and social significance in societies. There are two themes which form a major part of the book. They include: the conflict between the French in the metropole and the French in Africa; and the conflicts between slave and master. It is evident that Klein is liberal due to his support of pragmatists such as Ponty. There is evidence of a criticism of the conservative colonial values of keeping slaves, in that he argues against the slave masters tactics. Klein also criticizes thoroughly the administrators’ assessments of slaves, by acknowledging a lack of substantial evidence.

Klein’s main argument concerns the corruption from local administrators, with slavery being at the forefront of the argument. There is an exploration of their role in concealing evidence of slavery or preventing slaves to be free under emancipation. Klein argued that the local administrators wanted to keep the peace (due to slavery’s socio-economic importance), as well as holding self-interested values with the chiefs in wanting to benefit resourcefully. Klein explains how the domestic consensus after 1879 (during the Third Republic) was anti-slavery, which forced the local administrators to deceive France that emancipat...

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...ocial statuses to define their power over those of a slave background. This was especially true in the sense that some slaves became wealthier than their masters.

There is one main weakness of the book and it concerns where information has come from. The main problem is that throughout the book, Klein argues that the local administrators had a history to distort much of the information. However with facts that Klein present, such as the number of slaves that fled in 1905, it is hard to see them as reliable on this basis. Klein does not explain the processes that were taken to get the numbers and much of his points are based on the administrators’ “facts.” Potentially the numbers could have been fabricated for example. Ultimately, it is easier to accept the use of facts as the only information to go on (as it was the administrators who wrote most about the region).