RANSOMING POLICIES AND PRACTICES IN THE WESTERN AND CENTRAL BILAD AL-SUDAN cl800-1910 JENNIFER LOFKRANTZ A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAMME IN HISTORY YORK UNIVERSITY, TORONTO, ONTARIO JULY 2008 Library and Bibliotheque et 1*1 Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-46002-3 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-46002-3 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par Plntemet, prefer, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans loan, distribute and sell theses le monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non­ sur support microforme, papier, electronique commercial purposes, in microform, et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privee, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont ete enleves de cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. Canada ABSTRACT Ransoming, or the returning to freedom of a captive in exchange for payment, has been practised in many cultures and time periods throughout the world. In Africa, Muslim jurists and intellectuals had discussed the issue of ransoming from the medieval period, as reflected in the writings of Muhammad al-Maghll! and Ahmad Baba al-Tinbuktl, and in the nineteenth century, as demonstrated in the work of 'Uthman ibn FudT, 'Abdullahi ibn FudI and 'Umar al-FutL It is argued in this dissertation that the system of ransoming was integral to the institution of slavery as it operated in Islamic areas of West Africa, in particular the western and central bilad al-sudan, especially in the nineteenth century when it appears that ransoming was practised extensively. The nineteenth century was a period of intense insecurity and warfare in the western and central bilad al-sudan, which led to considerable enslavement. Enslavement was undertaken for political reasons, and was fundamental to the social and economic structure of the societies of the Muslim regions of the western and central bilad al-sudan. Warfare, even the jihads that were perpetrated in the hopes that Islamic unity would usher in a better political world, generated slaves and in regions of enslavement, there was a corresponding level of insecurity and instability. This allowed space for kidnapping and raiding that were not particularly motivated by ideology or politics but simply for the private and economic reasons of the captors. iv Ransoming served as a safety net for Muslims captured in war, or otherwise seized and threatened with sale into slavery. Hence, the prevalence of ransoming exposes the tensions between personal security and the Islamic state and religious institutions. The prevalence of ransoming demonstrates that the fragile political systems could not protect individuals from enslavement that was defined in Muslim terms as "wrongful". The practice of ransoming helped to shape the institution of slavery since ransom prices were usually about twice the amount of slave prices. This had implications for the functioning of the market in slaves. In addition to ransoming at the time of enslavement, or shortly thereafter, two related practices, which were also widespread and sanctioned by Islamic law, were third-party redemption and self- redemption. However, while ransoming and redemption shared many commonalities, the practices differed in that while the goal of ransoming was to return a captive to his or her previous social status after a short time in captivity, a redeemed slave remained in a inferior position to his or her previous owners and indeed to all free-born free members of the community. Ransoming was an option for dealing with prisoners of war. In this way, ransoming did not undermine slavery in the Islamic context but was a means to protect certain individuals from enslavement. Ransoming provided an outlet to free those who should not have been enslaved, according to Islamic legal interpretations and customary rights, and also provided the opportunity for those individuals whose status allowed his or her family and friends the means to ransom. Third-party v redemption and self-redemption, were so central to the practice of slavery in the western and central bilad al-sudan that both the French and British colonial regimes used the institutions as a means to end the practice of slavery in their respective territories. With the end of legal enslavement and captivity came the end of the legal ransoming although the practice continued into the first decade of colonial rule as long as illegal enslavement continued. Just as precolonial Islamic states and officials used ransoming to shape slavery, colonial regimes used redemption to reshape the institution of slavery, only this time with a goal of a gradual end to slavery. Colonial reform of the practice of redemption transformed the institution. Both the French and the British took the power to allow for self-redemption from the owners and put it into the hands of the slaves. While it was still difficult for slaves to raise the self- redemption fees, and many, especially in the western bilad al-sudan, left, by setting redemption prices, in the case of the French, and giving the jurisdiction to set the redemption price to the Islamic courts if an owner and an enslaved individual could not agree on a price in the case of the British, and putting the onus to self-redeem in the hands of slaves, colonial officials changed the practice of third-party ransoming and self-redemption. VI In memory of my grandparents, Willard and Corrina Stillman Vll ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In "Meditation 17," John Donne wrote, "no man [or woman] is an island entire of itself." This sentiment can be applied to the writing of a dissertation. I would like to express my thanks and appreciation to all those who helped me complete this dissertation. First, I want to thank my supervisor, Paul E Lovejoy, for his advice and guidance, for providing access to his archival collections and publications, and for providing financial support through the Harriet Tubman Research Institute on the Global Migrations of African Peoples and the Canada Research Chair in African Diaspora History. I would also like to express my appreciation to members of both my dissertation and examination committees Sydney Kanya-Forstner, Thabit Abdullah, Martin Klein, Jose Curto, Amin Alhassan, and Marcel Martel, for their comments and advice. Over the course of my Ph.D studies, Sydney Kanya-Forstner, Martin Klein, Jose Curto, David Trotman, Michele Johnson, and Thabit Abdullah have all given me useful comments and thoughts to ponder for which I thank them. I offer my appreciation to my fellow graduate students at the Tubman Institute and in the History Department at York University. Together we created a rich and stimulating intellectual environment where we were able to share our work and discuss and debate our ideas. I would especially like to thank Yacine Daddi Addoun and Ismael Montana for their help with Arabic documents and Thor Burnham, Uttam Bajwa, viii Ismael Montana, and Mohammed Bashir Salau who read and commented on various drafts of this dissertation and upon whom I tested out arguments. I further want to acknowledge my colleagues at the Faculty of Arts, Centre for Academic Writing at York University, my teaching unit at York University, for their various insights and discussions on the writing process. In Mali, I would like to acknowledge Timothey Saye and Alyadjidi Almouctar at the Archives Nationales du Mali, Koulouba who made my archival research there especially fruitful. At the Institut de Recherches en Sciences Humaines (IRSH), Universite Abdou Moumouni, Niamey, I want to express my appreciation for Seyni Moumouni of the Departement des Manuscrits Arabe et Ajami, and Abdoulaye Maga, the Director of IRSH for their friendship and for facilitating my research in Niger. I want to thank Yansambali Idrissa Maiga and Ousmane Mama of the Archives Nationales du Niger, Niamey for their friendship and for making my time in the archives very productive. In Agadez I want to thank Ibrahim Amouren, Director of the Archives d'Agadez and Sama Boulhou of CECI-PADENF for their hospitality and our informative discussions. I also wish to express my appreciation to Richard, Norma, and Amina whose friendship made my stay in Niamey incredibly enjoyable. In Nigeria, I want to thank Umar Adamu of the Kano State History and Cultural Bureau and Mustapha Gwadabbe at Arewa House, Kaduna for their kindness, generosity, and assistance in their respective archives. I am also appreciative for the friendship of Raj i Mumin Kayode and Mohammed Jibrin who facilitated my stay in Kano.