William Cohen. The French Encounter with Africans: White Responses to Blacks (1530-1880). Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980. xxx + 361 pp. $24.95, paper, ISBN 978-0-253-21650-2.

Trevor R. Getz. Slavery and Reform in West Africa: Toward Emancipation in Nineteenth-Century and the Gold Coast. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2004. xx + 257 pp. $65.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8214-1520-7.

Reviewed by Leland Barrows

Published on H-Africa (April, 2005)

We have here two examples of very diferent sion of the Atlantic slave trade followed, some kinds of historical writing, albeit on related sub‐ years later, by the European-imposed emancipa‐ jects. The frst book, by Cohen, is the work of a tion of slaves in two distinct nineteenth-century mature scholar. It is a broad synthesis derived protocolonial areas in West Africa: French Sene‐ mostly from intellectual history that analyzes the gal (excluding Casamance) and British Gold Coast. French view of Blacks over a three-hundred-and- Both books purport to be revisionist. The frst ffty year period. The second book, by Getz, is his one, however, is spectacularly so. Its author chal‐ revised University of London, School of Oriental lenges the reputation that France had gained for and African Studies doctoral thesis. Titled "The itself (particularly among Anglo-Saxons and Most Perfdious Institution: The Slow Death of AfricanAmericans and Afro-West Indians) by the Slavery in Nineteenth century Senegal and the frst decades of the twentieth century for being a Gold Coast," it earned him his doctorate in history country virtually bereft of race and color preju‐ in 2000. Like the original, the revised version is a dice, a perception, indeed, that had come to form short, targeted monograph, an exercise in com‐ an integral part of the French self-image. The sec‐ parative history, which presents and interprets ond book, the revisionism of which is more sub‐ the dynamics of the European-imposed suppres‐ tle, applies the broad sweep of such an author as H-Net Reviews

Martin Klein in his Slavery and Colonial Rule in populations lived--until as late as the 1905 decree (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni‐ abolishing slavery in French West Africa. versity Press, 1998) and the methodologies of Can the laxness (or "pragmatism") of French those who contributed to Suzanne Miers and Mar‐ policy, as perceived by Getz, be at least partially tin Klein, eds., Slavery and Colonial Rule in Africa explained by the deeply ingrained negative view (London: Frank Cass, 1999), to the complex socio- of Africans and Afro-Caribbean peoples that Co‐ economic and political realities of the Southern hen identifes as a signifcant thread running Gold Coast and Senegal north of the Gambia Riv‐ through French intellectual history from the six‐ er. It shows how slavery persisted and even teenth century onward? (Never mind certain so‐ thrived, thanks to the initiatives and connivance cio-economic realities characteristic of plantation of both masters and slaves as well as colonial of‐ slave societies and the precariousness of the cials in both settings well beyond the convention‐ French presence in Senegal during most of the pe‐ al dates given for the ending of slavery in the riod under study.) Or was the problem in the colonies of Great Britain and France, 1833 and French case, like in that of the British, simply one 1848, respectively. of maintaining the commercial proftability and While Getz does not take direct aim at a na‐ the political stability of the respective colonies by tional myth, he does add considerable evidence of relying on the support of local slave-owning the unintended perverse results of the hopes for elites? and the realization of "legitimate trade" as de‐ Professor Cohen's study has been around for fned by European abolitionists such as Thomas some time. First published in 1980, it was intend‐ Fowell Buxton, whose African Slave Trade and Its ed to be a French-focused equivalent to Philip Remedy (1840; 2nd. ed. London: Frank Cass, 1967) Curtin's The Image of Africa: British Ideas in Ac‐ was infuential in Great Britain as well as in tion, 1780-1850 (Madison: The University of Wis‐ France. As an aside, Getz also suggests that the consin Press, 1964). Cohen's inspiration germinat‐ Gold Coast elites who generated the Mankessim ed while he was preparing his doctoral thesis at Constitution, the Fante Confederation (1868-1873), Stanford University on the French colonial ser‐ and the Accra Native Confederation were, in large vice.[1] part, slave owners who wished to conserve at The present paperback edition of The French least indigenous slavery (pp. 97, 113). This fnding Encounter with Africans, published in 2003, is is a surprise to those who view the Fante Confed‐ identical to the original of 1980 except for the ad‐ eration, in particular, as the frst step towards dition of a foreword by Professor James D. Le modern, liberal, constitutional, and independent Sueur of the University of Nebraska. The latter ex‐ government in Ghana where slavery, of course, plains how groundbreaking the frst edition was would not be tolerated, and as a precursor of the even if its central thesis, which postulates a "con‐ Gold Coast Aborigines' Rights Protection Associa‐ sensus [existing] in French thought, which rele‐ tion, founded in 1897, that would be known for its gated the black to a position of inferiority," was strong antislavery stance. vigorously rejected by such knowledgeable It would seem that the French authorities in French critics as the historian Emmanuel Todd.[2] Senegal, even more than the British authorities in Given the growing French preoccupation, since Gold Coast, allowed, indeed, collaborated in, the the initial publication of the book in 1980, with continued existence if not the expansion of in‐ immigration from the former French colonies, In‐ digenous slavery in Senegal, particularly in the diana University Press found it appropriate to re‐ protectorate areas--where most of the indigenous publish Cohen's book. (Never mind the fact that

2 H-Net Reviews this particular debate in France is mostly con‐ imposed theory of the monogenism of human cre‐ cerned with immigration from North Africa even ation, placed the black African on the bottom if it has been punctuated from time to time by rung of the evolutionary ladder--or at the extreme widely publicized mass expulsions of Malians and end of a postulated chain of progressive degener‐ other Africans from the former French colonies ation--just above the orangutan, wrote Jacques and their forced repatriation in chartered air‐ Philibert Rousselot de Surgy around 1763 (p. 87). craft) and the general hardening of attitudes, not For some Enlightenment era thinkers, Voltaire only in France but in other European Union coun‐ among others, the specifc physical characteristics tries, regarding immigration not only from the of Blacks seemed to be a self-evident argument in Third World but also, since 1990, from such East‐ favor of polygenism, a theory postulating the sep‐ ern European countries as Romania. Also, repub‐ arate creation of the races of humankind, leading lication of this book would serve as a suitable to the conclusion that Blacks were a separate, not memorial to its author, given his untimely death fully human, species. Polygenism had the added in November 2002 as the result of a freak acci‐ attraction, among the more anticlerical French dent. As Professor Le Sueur claims, Cohen has thinkers, of standing in opposition to the Church- taught the French as much about their long histo‐ backed monogenism, according to which all hu‐ ry of racism as Robert O. Paxton has about their manity was descended from Adam and Eve. more recent collaboration with Nazi Germany Theory and practice intermingled in the eigh‐ and their contributions to the holocaust during teenth and early-nineteenth centuries in three the period of the Vichy regime (1940-1944).[3] venues: the French West Indies, Senegal, and If we are to believe Professor Cohen, the "im‐ France. The perceived exigencies of intensive sug‐ pulse to inequality" goes back a long way in the ar production by slave labor and the presence of history of French thought, having even been infu‐ Whites in Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Saint- enced by the negative views about Sub-Saharan Domingue, as a very small but dominant minority Africa and its inhabitants of the third-century ge‐ in a slave plantation society, led to stringent ographer, Solinus (p. 1) and by Christian tradi‐ racially exclusive laws (despite the relative hu‐ tions equating blackness with sin, dirt, and the manity of the 1685 Black Code), intended to guar‐ devil. This "impulse to inequality," once estab‐ antee the efciency of the slave production sys‐ lished, was confrmed and reinforced by the frst tem and the dominance of the white planters. contacts of Frenchmen with West Africa, particu‐ Even though the presence of Blacks in France at larly Senegal, in the development of slave-worked the time was minuscule, a perceived growing fear plantation colonies in the Caribbean and else‐ of "disorders" and miscegenation led to laws in where, and the corresponding Atlantic and Indian 1738 and 1777 that vastly restricted the presence Ocean slave trade. Early French observers, it of blacks in France. Only in the tiny French settle‐ seems, were shocked by the blackness of African ments in Senegal, particularly the islands of Saint- skin and the general appearance of Africans as Louis and Goree, where French survival depend‐ well as by their social customs, apparent religious ed on the maintenance of good relations with the practices, and material culture. surrounding African polities, did a strong but de The philosophes of the eighteenth century En‐ facto degree of racial tolerance and a sentiment of lightenment, in their search for a science of man, equality evolve along with an infuential, politi‐ gave theoretical underpinning to an assumed cally dominant, and culturally French mixed-race black inferiority. Theories regarding the "Chain of population. Being," although posited according to the Church-

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The French situation in the West Indies also however, that these persons were particularly gave rise to a large mixed-race population but motivated by ideas of black inferiority. with the opposite result of increasingly stringent Still, the heritage of assumed inferiority car‐ regulations intended to prevent White-Black ried over into the nineteenth century where it unions, to exclude the children of such unions, contributed to and reinforced French theories of even when free, from the rights and privileges of scientifc racism that evolved from a preference French citizens and from positions of authority in among French anthropologists for physical rather these colonies, and to keep the Blacks separate than for cultural anthropology (pp. 219-220). As and in bondage. The intent was to safeguard the Cohen writes, "In an era worshipping scientism, operation of what was probably the cruelest but the claims racism made of being supported by the most efcient slave system in the New World, fndings of science furthered its spread and root‐ based as it was on the practical, if perverse, appli‐ ed it frmly in French culture" (p. 210). The un‐ cation of certain physiocratic theories relating to precedented rate of technical progress in nine‐ efciency in agriculture, particularly in the case teenth century Europe and the United States came of Saint-Domingue (Haiti). It is not surprising that to be viewed as proof of the racial superiority of disgruntled mixed-race persons like Vincent Oge Whites. According to Cohen, one outcome was a and Andre Rigaud laid the groundwork for the less powerful nineteenth century abolitionist slave rebellion of 1791 that led, eventually, to movement in France than in Great Britain (where Haitian independence in 1804. Quoting J. it had strong religious endorsement) and a degree Fouchard (1972), Cohen remarks that the white of doubt as to whether the freeing of slaves would planters "had dug their graves with their penis‐ actually be of beneft to them--given their as‐ es...." sumed inferiority. Of course, as Cohen further Although the urge to colonial expansion in points out, the loss of Saint Domingue, particular‐ the eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries ly the perceived brutality towards Whites of the that Cohen describes in chapter 7 was mostly rebelling former slaves, stimulated negrophobia driven by mercantilist and population theories, in France (just as the Algerian War of Indepen‐ French theories of colonial expansion, he writes, dence is said to have brought in its wake in‐ also refected French ideas of Black inferiority, of creased anti-Arab prejudice in France). Still, when persons who, because of their "backwardness," fnal slave emancipation came to France in 1848, would beneft from White French domination. In‐ its terms were ideologically determined by the deed, the frst French abolitionists, Abbe Henri discourse of a liberal bourgeois revolution. It Gregoire and Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, mandated the immediate transformation, by par‐ among others, became ardent expansionists. For liamentary fat, of all slaves on French territory to such a philosophe as Antoine-Nicolas Caritat, Mar‐ the status of free citizens of the French Republic. quis de Condorcet, "European colonial expansion The achievement was remarkable, however much [was] proof of human progress", a process that Victor Schoelcher and other French abolitionists could not help but to raise the cultural level of might have condemned slavery more for negating Africans (p. 177). The blueprint for French expan‐ the idea of civic freedom than for being a serious sion into the Western Sudan via the violation of human rights. was set during the Old Regime by Andre Brue, When in the course of the nineteenth century Louis Moreau de Chambonneau, Demonique Har‐ France developed its second colonial empire, court Lamiral, and others. It is not at all clear, "white domination was ... still regarded as a natu‐ ral result of the perceived inequality between Eu‐

4 H-Net Reviews ropeans and Africans," even if France could mar‐ Wright could state that "There is more freedom in shal the same political, strategic, economic, reli‐ one square block of Paris than in all of the United gious, and humanitarian justifcations for empire States" (Cohen, p. 285; quoted from Roi Ottley, No as those formulated by Great Britain and the oth‐ Green Pastures, 1951), his comment accurately re‐ er colonial powers of the era (p. 282). fected the reality of his experience of the United But does Cohen's detailed examination of the States as compared to his experience of France. Of racist thread in French history reveal any striking course, it is necessary to add the caveat that diferences between France and other European Wright and other African-Americans who had set‐ countries in terms of racial intolerance? This re‐ tled in Paris in the 1950s were warned by the viewer thinks not, for a reading of Philip Curtin's French authorities that if they made any utter‐ Image of Africa and of David Brion Davis's The ances against French eforts to suppress the ongo‐ Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (Ithaca: ing Algerian rebellion they would be expelled Cornell University Press, 1966) reveals that from France. French racial attitudes towards Africans, both And too, the French, at least from the era of negative and positive, were little diferent from the French Revolution onward, permitted the those of other Europeans. So far as the specifc emergence of a small but very visible number of problems of plantation societies are concerned, a blacks or mixed race persons who played major reading of Winthrop Jordan's White over Black: roles in French culture, politics, and the military. American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812 One immediately thinks of Alexandre Dumas, fa‐ (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, ther and son, nineteenth century novelists and 1969) reveals that the racial attitudes of white playwrights, but there was also the grandfather, Frenchmen in the French sugar islands were not Alexandre Davy Dumas, the Mulatto general from much diferent from those of their North Ameri‐ Saint-Domingue, who had a successful career in can counterparts. In both cases, it seems that the the French army, distinguishing himself in economics of slave plantation systems destroyed Napoleon's Egyptian campaign despite the fact most if not all chances for inter-racial tolerance. that Napoleon "appears to have sufered from a What Cohen has done is to challenge a central genuine racial phobia" and who, after Haiti had myth regarding French color blindness, one that won its independence from France, would order is, however, of relatively recent vintage. For the the Ecole polytechnique in Paris "to dismiss its good treatment that African-American GIs re‐ black and colored students" (pp. 119-120). ceived in France during and after the First and Moving ahead to the height of French colonial Second World Wars and the lionization in France expansion in Africa, one can cite the case of an‐ of such black American entertainers as Josephine other Mulatto general, Alfred Dodds of Senegal, Baker and Sydney Bechet were, after all, twenti‐ who led the French conquest of Dahomey eth century phenomena. The same is true of the (1892-1894) and, before retirement, served as mil‐ 1950 quotation that Cohen has taken from Henri itary governor of Paris; and the case of the black Blet's France d'Outre-Mer: l'Oeuvre coloniale de la governor of Chad, Felix Eboue, from French troisieme republique (Grenoble: B. Arthaud, 3. Guiana, who was the frst French colonial gover‐ vols., 1946-1950) to the efect that "Frenchmen nor to give the Free French of World War II some have never adopted the racial doctrines afrming territory when, in August 1940, he rallied Chad to the superiority of Whites over men of color" (p. General Charles de Gaulle who appointed him xvi). If, at the time that these remarks were Governor General of French Equatorial Africa. penned, the African-American novelist Richard

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The above-mentioned success stories were newly acquired slave-holding indigenous allies, certainly not unknown to Professor Cohen. Like‐ both the colonial government and the Paris au‐ wise, in his analysis of the thoughts on race of thorities contrived to delay the full application of Georges-Louis Leclerc Comte de Bufon, Abbe An‐ the Emancipation Decree of 1848. toine-Francois Prevost, Charles de Secondat Baron That negative racial theories were not part of de Montesquieu, Condorcet, and many others, Co‐ the French equation in Senegal seems to be con‐ hen shows that these thinkers, even if they did, frmed by the existence of a similar paradigm in from time to time, draw certain negative conclu‐ the Gold Coast, even after the 1874 application by sions as to Black and African capabilities, more of‐ the local British governor, George Strahan, of the ten than not wavered between negative and posi‐ British Emancipation Act of 1833 to British colo‐ tive, often, fnally, coming down on the positive nial and protected territories in this territory. In‐ side. When evoking Arthur de Gobineau, the cen‐ deed, a rather passive form of emancipation was tral theoretician of French racism in the mid-nine‐ adopted in Gold Coast, the so-called Indian model, teenth century, Cohen points out that this person‐ which left indigenous slavery in place in the so- age "was irritated that his work was used to sup‐ called protectorate for many years, thus avoiding port proslavery opinion in the United States" and problems with indigenous allies or any disruption that despite his insistence on Black inferiority, of the local economy, dependent to a greater or Gobineau believed "that race-mixing was neces‐ lesser extent on unfree labor. sary for the creation of civilization (p. 181); the Getz intends his study to be a contribution to artistic abilities of the blacks [being] necessary to the growing body of studies on slavery and eman‐ fertilize the European imagination" (p. 218). What cipation in Africa. Its "most important feature ... is upsetting (and what seems to have annoyed re‐ and greatest innovation," he says, is that it is a viewers of his book, like Professor Emmanual comparative study of two regions that "under‐ Todd), is that although Cohen marshals evidence went comparable transformational processes re‐ pro and con in terms of his thesis, he persists in sulting in both divergent and similar results" (p. maintaining his verdict of guilty even though he xvi). could have derived the opposite verdict from sub‐ stantially the same body of evidence. Comparative studies in history, like interdisci‐ plinary studies in all felds, are in vogue even if Cohen's thesis as to the relative racial toler‐ both varieties are more easily talked about than ance and intermingling characterizing relations actually executed. Getz, this reviewer under‐ between Frenchmen and Africans in Senegal, re‐ stands, was infuenced by a comment made by the sulting from the precariousness of the French historian Paul Lovejoy, to develop a comparative presence, dependent for survival on Africans, ap‐ study on slavery and emancipation in West pears to underpin Getz's picture of a colonial ad‐ Africa, rather than one strictly on the Gold Coast. ministration that, at the start of the nineteenth According to Lovejoy, in Transformations in Slav‐ century, was less than keen about having to end ery (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, the Atlantic slave trade and then of slavery itself 1983), the many local studies on slavery in Africa because of ties of blood and of economic and po‐ that had recently appeared had sufered "from a litical interest to local slave-owning Euro-African failure to place the particular case in the context and indigenous elites. Given the importance of of Africa as a whole, or even in specifc regions in slavery to both groups, its role in the local econo‐ Africa" (p. xiii). So Getz added a Senegalese com‐ my, and the wish of the metropolitan government ponent to a very competent study of problems of to ensure peace and prosperity, and, once expan‐ slavery and emancipation in nineteenth century sion got underway after 1854, the need to placate

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Gold Coast and thus has derived valid compara‐ forts in 1872. At the same time, the British had to tive conclusions about the two situations in West operate in a complex African-defned socio-politi‐ Africa. cal situation of interacting coastal African polities Getz begins by introducing the reader to the and to contend with the power of Ashanti, the ma‐ particularities of the two regions under study as jor African polity to the North, that they defeated well as to the institutions and the efects of the At‐ militarily in the so-called Serengeti War of lantic slave trade prior to its "criminalization," at 1873-1874. In this complex situation, the British the beginning of the nineteenth century. He then authorities could do little to end indigenous slav‐ turns to the immediate efects of criminalization ery in the Gold Coast, nor did they really wish to and suppression in both regions, phenomena that do so until goaded into action by increasingly mil‐ he labels as the "crisis of abolition." itant abolitionism at home. How did French and British ofcialdom and Chapter 4 deals with the efects of the Decree traders and the African elites linked to them of April 27, 1848, abolishing slavery in all French adapt to the new situation? In Senegal, French at‐ territories everywhere and conferring French citi‐ tempts to develop plantation agriculture in Walo, zenship on the former slaves. Embodied in the De‐ next door to Saint-Louis, from 1822 to 1831, failed. cree, which was promulgated in Senegal on Au‐ In the Gold Coast, production of palm oil, albeit by gust 23,1848, was the provision that merely set‐ slaves, as a response to the call for "legitimate ting foot on French territory conferred immediate trade," was more successful. And a contract labor liberty. What then would happen if the thousands scheme (regime des engages a temps) introduced of captives in the independent African polities by the French in 1823, evolved into a de facto within the French sphere in Senegal were to es‐ slave system, including transportation to the West cape to Saint-Louis, Goree, or to the few French Indies and to Reunion, that lasted until 1846. posts in the hinterland and claim their freedom? Obviously, without a revolution in the French- Chapter 3 deals with the special situation of African relationship, this aspect of the 1848 De‐ the Gold Coast following the 1833 Parliamentary cree could not be applied in Senegal any more Act abolishing slavery in much of the British Em‐ than could the British 1833 Act be applied in Gold pire (the crown colonies).[4] Given the situation Coast. Thus, chapter 5 explains how the French here in which Britain could only claim sovereign authorities in Senegal during the period of expan‐ rights in the coastal forts that it occupied, the Act sion associated with the administration of Gover‐ could not be applied in Gold Coast until 1874. In nor Louis Leon Cesar Faidherbe (1854-1861 and the intervening period, the British government, 1863-1865) managed to emasculate the Act while that, in 1828, had transferred responsibility for extending their sway over slave-holding African the administration of the Gold Coast forts to a populations.[5] The British in the Gold Coast London Committee of Merchants (similar to the would employ similar "pragmatic" means to avoid situation before 1821), resumed direct control interfering with indigenous slavery and its role in over them in 1843. The British, both formally and the economy of the Gold Coast. informally, extended their infuence and adminis‐ tration in the Southern Gold Coast, purchasing the Given the stepped up pressure coming from Danish forts in 1850, attempting to exchange forts London to extend the Emancipation Act into a with the Dutch in 1867 so that both powers could strengthened British protectorate system, chapter hold unbroken stretches of the Atlantic coastline, 6 describes how the so-called Indian model of and fnally, because of African opposition to this emancipation was applied and assesses the re‐ exchange, buying out and taking over the Dutch sults that it yielded. According to this model,

7 H-Net Reviews slaves would have to take the initiative them‐ French West Africa. Even then there would be ex‐ selves to obtain freedom by going to a colonial ceptions, as in Mauritania, where the French ad‐ magistrate to have themselves declared free. Thus ministration was still tolerating indigenous slav‐ they themselves became responsible for their ery in the 1950s (Getz, p. 190). own emancipation, a situation providing a "formi‐ A fnal chapter on the eradication of the most‐ dable roadblock against wholesale emancipa‐ ly Dioula-operated overland slave trade into Gold tion..." one that allowed the colonial administra‐ Coast and Senegal from the far interior of West tion to have its proverbial cake and eat it too. Ex‐ Africa argues that the British in the Gold Coast amining this ambiguous situation, Getz identifes were more successful in suppressing this trade the role of the slave owners themselves in "reeval‐ than the French in Senegal. By the 1890s, so Getz's uat[ing] their relationships with their masters argument goes, the British Gold Coast frontiers through individual solutions negotiated largely had been more-or-less set, thus permitting the outside the formal judicial system" (p. 112). British to consolidate their rule and to make a In the case of French Senegal, as we see in concerted efort to end slavery. The French, on the chapter 7, the retrenchment, associated with the other hand, were still conquering the much larger administration of Francois-Xavier Michel Valiere area of what became French West Africa, albeit from 1869 to 1876 that followed the expansionist now operating far beyond the borders of Senegal. administrations of Governors Faidherbe and Jean- They still needed to mollify slave-owning African Marie Emile Pinet-Laprade, gave way, in turn, to allies in protectorate relationships with France by renewed French expansion under the nascent leaving indigenous slavery as untouched as they Third Republic and an expansionist governor, could get away with doing. Louis-Alexandre Briere de Lisle, who took over in The reader of this book is left with the clear 1876. At the same time, renewed abolitionist pres‐ understanding that the course of emancipation in sures came from Paris, spearheaded by a Protes‐ Senegal and Gold Coast was driven by a number tant Pastor, Villeger, and the old 1848 abolitionist, of factors of which "the impact of European met‐ Victor Schoelcher. Republican-sponsored expan‐ ropolitan initiatives [was] just the beginning of sion, the abolitionists felt, must also include re‐ [the] story" and certainly had very little to do in newed eforts to stamp out slavery wherever it ex‐ the case of the French experience in Senegal with isted in the French empire. any perceived notions of African inferiority (p. Examining the spate of administrative slave 180). For both France and Great Britain, "to please freeing that followed in the 1880s, Getz argues audiences at home, slavery had to be abolished. that they resulted much more from the actions of But to keep colonies safe and proftable, slave slaves and owners themselves than from any de‐ owners could not be alienated" (p. 183).[6] liberate eforts in favor of emancipation on the Both books are fascinating and informative part of the French administration. The latter con‐ additions to the history of French (and English) tinued, as in the past, to avoid any frontal attacks relations with Africa and Africans. Although Co‐ on indigenous slavery, even to the point of disan‐ hen's writing style and anecdotal approach make nexing territories like Walo and Dimar, near for a pleasant reading experience, one must not Saint-Louis, giving them protectorate status, so as forget that he remains very selective regarding to shield their slave-owning and peanut-cultivat‐ his elucidation of given French authors and ing inhabitants from the full force of French anti‐ thinkers and their ideas, always hammering away slavery legislation. Such situations prevailed until at his basic thesis that the French conception of the 1905 decrees abolished slavery in most of the Black person has always been far more nega‐

8 H-Net Reviews tive than positive. Time and again, however, [1]. Cohen published this thesis in 1971 as when he can demonstrate that given thinkers Rulers of Empire: The French Colonial Service in were ambivalent about blacks or may have Africa and followed it up in 1977 with a volume changed their views for the better over time or as on the career and the writings of Robert Louis the result of personal contacts with blacks, partic‐ Delavignette (1897-1976), considered to have been ularly in Senegal, Cohen still never fails to stress one of the most humane and enlightened of twen‐ the negative rather than the positive feelings tieth-century French colonial administrators about Blacks of these thinkers. Thus his basic the‐ (Robert Delavignette on the French Empire. Chica‐ sis appears, in part, to be forced, if not fawed. go: University of Chicago Press, 1977). On the other hand, Getz has developed a fully [2]. Todd, in a review published in Le Monde sustainable thesis, even though his social science- (19 February 1982) wrote that "L'ouvrage est con‐ infuenced writing style lacks the polish of Co‐ struit comme un dinosaure. Le corps est gros, la hen's style, and his politically correct approach to tete minuscule; les faits sont nombreux, la refex‐ the spelling of certain (but not all) Senegalese per‐ ion est mince", and that Cohen "...est surpris en sonal and place names may annoy certain read‐ fagrant delire historique, soufrant simultane‐ ers.[7] It is also clear that Getz has a better mas‐ ment de simplicite conceptuelle et d'amnesie tery of colonial Gold Coast/Ghanaian history than factuelle". he has of colonial Senegalese history as proven [3]. At the moment of his fatal accident, Pro‐ both by the more ample listing of British/Gold fessor Cohen was completing a book on The Alge‐ Coast archival materials in his bibliography than rian War in French Memory and Politics, of similar materials concerning France and Sene‐ 1962-2002 that, if posthumously published, will no gal and, unfortunately, by the large number of er‐ doubt attempt once again to remind the French rors appearing in his treatment of the French/ that--like Monsieur Jourdain--they have been Senegal component of his study.[8] speaking in prose all their lives. Regarding the mechanics of publication, both [4] We note that in his listing of those British books embody the annoying characteristic that Crown colonies to which the 1833 act was applica‐ extensive sets of bibliographical and explanatory ble, Getz has failed to include Jamaica that at the notes are printed, in separate sections, at the ends time was the wealthiest of the British West Indian of the respective texts rather than at the bottom of possessions. He has also omitted Canada--surpris‐ the relevant pages. Such a presentation is hardly ing for an American scholar given the importance acceptable given the page-formatting possibilities of Canada as the terminus of the Underground ofered by computers and publication software. Railroad, a role it acquired thanks, in great part, Moreover, Cohen's book lacks a bibliography, and to the act in question. Getz's book, although providing one, omits the [5]. The essence of Faidherbe's pragmatism is dates of publication of the published materials captured in his 1855 instructions to Captain Jean that he cites in his notes. Parent, the newly appointed Commandant of Still, this reviewer recommends both books to Bakel: "Favorisez l'evasion et recueillez comme interested readers but with the caveat that of the hommes libres, dans nos etablissements, les es‐ two, Cohen's book will appeal to the broadest claves des pays avec lesquels nous serons en readership and will provide the most entertaining guerre. Rendez au contraire scrupuleusement reading experience. ceux des pays avec lesquelles nous sommes en Notes paix," from ANS 3B77, piece 9, October 3, 1855, quoted in note 30, p. 129, of Andrew F. Clark,

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From Frontier to Backwater: Economy and Soci‐ phone scholars who generally prefer the tradi‐ ety in the Upper Senegal Valley (West Africa), tional French spellings. Barry, it should be added, 1850-1920 (Lanham and Oxford: University Press although francophone, is not Senegalese but of America, 1999). Guinean, originally from Fouta-Djalon. A better [6]. This simple statement of pragmatism re‐ guide to Senegalese spelling might have been the minds the reader of the case of Abbe Henri Gre‐ usage of the Senegalese archivist, Oumar Ba, as goire, a founder in 1788 of the Societe des Amis demonstrated by his edited and published compi‐ des Noirs, who, at the start of the French Revolu‐ lation of documents on the French invasion of tion, as Cohen reminds us (p. 14), argued that in Cayor, La Penetration francaise au Cayor du reg‐ Saint-Domingue the sizeable free Mulatto popula‐ ne de Birima N'Gone Latyr a l'intronisation de tion "should be given rights as good loyal slave Madiodio Deguene Codou (: Oumar Ba, owners, on whom the whites could depend 1976). against slaves." Likewise, as Cohen also indicates, And Getz himself is very inconsistent. While Leger Felicite Sonthonax, the French Jacobin Com‐ he insists on spelling Cayor "Kajoor," and its na‐ missioner in Saint-Domingue, decreed the libera‐ tional hero, Lat Dior, "Lat Joor," he adopts the tra‐ tion of the slaves on August 29, 1793, fve months ditional spelling for Gandiole, the Cayor village before the National Assembly in Paris abolished facing (from time to time) the moving and hard- slavery in all the French colonies. Sonthonax to-cross bar at the mouth of the Senegal River, hoped to rally the majority population of the is‐ rather than "Ganjool," the revised spelling. Like‐ land to France given that the White slave owners, wise, he accepts "" rather than "Bawol" as the who had formerly been supported by the Old correct spelling of the name of the Wolof polity in Regime against all the other social categories in which the founder of the Mourides, Ahmadou Saint-Domingue, were resisting revolutionary Bamba, was born. Yet he refers to the traditional France and were preparing to hand over the ruler of Baol as "teen" rather than as "." colony to the British, as the planters had done in Even in dealing with the analogous problem Martinique, hoping that the British would help of spelling in anglophone Gold Coast/Ghana, Getz them retain slavery. has found it necessary to spell Akwapim [7]. Like many Anglo-Saxon writers on Sene‐ "Akuapem," but to retain the traditional orthogra‐ galese history, Getz has a problem with the con‐ phy for Akwamu. If it is really essential for Profes‐ ventional French spelling of Senegalese place sor Getz to decolonize the orthographies of Sene‐ names and names of historical personages, never gal and Ghana, despite the ofcial languages be‐ mind the fact that the ofcial language of Senegal ing French and English, respectively, why has he is French. Also, as he explains (pp. xix-xx), he sup‐ not been consistent the way Philip Curtin was in ports the eforts of post-independence Africans "to preparing his Economic Change in Precolonial reclaim their own locales and histories," and thus Africa (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, favors "the spellings preferred by African aca‐ 1975)? demics of note"--Professor Boubacar Barry in the [8]. Although it would go beyond the scope of case of Senegalese history. True, in 1971 the Sene‐ this study to list all the errors that appear in galese government approved a set of rules for the Getz's, book, a few representative examples will phonetic spelling of Senegalese names using the be pointed out in what follows. Latin alphabet (Journal Officiel de la Republique We note, for instance, on p. 33, that in refer‐ du Senegal 116 (1971): pp. 623-628), but it has not ring to Baron Mackau's inspection mission to been widely used by Senegalese and other franco‐ Senegal of 1819, here and everywhere else in his

10 H-Net Reviews text, Getz misspells Mackau's name, rendering it The origins of the development of peanuts as an as "Mackam." export crop are amply traced on pages 222-238. Colonel Julian Schmaltz, the frst Restoration In general, Getz wants to attribute to Senegal governor of Senegal (1817-1820), never held the ti‐ an earlier commercial development of peanuts as tle of Baron, even though Getz attributes it to him. an export cash-crop than seems to have been the Contrary to what Getz tells us on p. 36, Baron case. He claims that "by 1840 the administration Jacques-Francois Roger was not the "frst French had begun to grant groundnut concessions to commander and administrator of Senegal." Count‐ habitants," citing an 1848 report by M. Herice on ing as of the Restoration, Roger was the third, improvements to be made in the Colony of Sene‐ Schmaltz being the frst, and Jean-Baptiste gal (p. 42). Herice's report had been published in Lecoupe (1820-1821), the second. Roger was def‐ 1847 as Memoire presente a M. le Ministre de la nitely the frst civilian French governor of Senegal Marine et des Colonies sur quelques ameliora‐ in the post-1817 period, serving from 1821 to tions a apporter a la Colonie du Senegal (Paris: 1827, not Rene Servatius, Governor from 1888 to Plon Frères, 1847). In it, the author does plead 1899, as Getz claims (p. 144). for the granting of agricultural concessions, but Given the dates of Roger's governorship of not necessarily for the cultivation of peanuts. Senegal, 1821-1827, it is surprising to see Getz re‐ Herice particularly promotes the agricultural de‐ fer to Roger's "ofcial memoirs," dated 1821, in velopment of Sor Island, opposite Saint-Louis to which he purportedly "retrospectively noted" the the East, so as to provide occupational outlets for important role of the gum trade (p. 37). Getz has the young habitants who were being squeezed misunderstood the meaning, in French, of "mem‐ out of the gum trade. He envisioned truck farm‐ oire," which in the context in which Roger was ing, as a means to supply Saint-Louis with vegeta‐ writing refers, not to an elder statesman's refec‐ bles, and cash cropping. But in regard to the latter tions on his life's achievements (which Roger, at possibility, although Herice cites peanuts as a pos‐ any rate, would not have written at the start of sible cash crop, he stresses the need to produce in‐ his mandate as governor), but to the sort of "state digo and cotton, still, and for several years to of the colony" report that a governor might write come, ofcial French priorities (Herice, pp. 13-20). for his minister on taking over or on leaving. A A fnal example of confusion leading to error few pages later, Getz again misspells the name of is Getz's reference, on p. 163 to Jaureguiberry, the a French governor, Jean-Guillaume Jubelin, who commandant of Podor from 1866 to 1868, to served in 1827 and 1828, writing it as "Jean Quil‐ whom he refers in note 14 on page 230 as the "lat‐ laume Jubelu." er Governor and Minister of the Navy." This Jau‐ It is also surprising to learn, again on p. 42, reguiberry, however, was a diferent person. He that in 1828 a group of merchants urged Governor was Pierre Jaureguiberry, a nephew of Jean- Jubelin to set up a peanut oil press in Saint-Louis Bernard Jaureguiberry, the governor of Senegal, even though it was not until the late 1830s and who had served from 1861 to 1863 and who early 1840s that the French had begun to be inter‐ would serve twice as Minister of the Navy and ested in the commercial possibilities of the Colonies in 1879 and 1880 and again in 1882 and peanut. (Worth reading on the economic develop‐ 1883. Also, just as Rene Servatius was not the frst ment of Senegal in the nineteenth century is civilian governor of Senegal, the Direction of the Roger Pasquier's gargantuan University of Paris Interior that Servatius created was not the frst at‐ 1987 doctorat d'etat thesis, "Le Senegal au Milieu tempt on the part of the French authorities to set du XIXe Siecle: La Crise Economique et Sociale"). up such an organizational unit in Senegal. During

11 H-Net Reviews his governorship, Jaureguiberry had attempted to do the same thing with a result that was equally short-lived. He had also hoped to staf the French posts in Senegal with civilian commandants, but his nephew, Pierre Jaureguiberry, the Comman‐ dant of Podor mentioned by Getz (and confused with his uncle), was the only civilian administra‐ tor Governor Jaureguiberry could fnd who was willing and able to assume such duties. (See Yves- Jean Saint-Martin, Le Senegal sous le Second Em‐ pire: Naissance d'un empire colonial, 1850-1871 [Paris: Editions Karthala, 1989], pp. 481-482, and Leland C. Barrows, "Trois Biographies Senegalais‐ es,", in Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies_ 19.1 [2001-2002]: pp. 79-85.)

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Citation: Leland Barrows. Review of Cohen, William. The French Encounter with Africans: White Responses to Blacks (1530-1880). ; Getz, Trevor R. Slavery and Reform in West Africa: Toward Emancipation in Nineteenth-Century Senegal and the Gold Coast. H-Africa, H-Net Reviews. April, 2005.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=10397

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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