Colonial labour, Tawdenni and 'L'enfer du sel': the struggle from slave to free labour in a Saharan salt mine
Can we understand the arrival of Capitalism in Africa by tracking labour - from unfree to free, from slave to wage? The question supposes slavery to lie at its heart, yet the conversation between labour and slave studies is in early stages. The sources are problematic: the colonial 'language of...
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Published in | Labor history Vol. 58; no. 2; pp. 185 - 200 |
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Main Author | |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
New York
Routledge
01.05.2017
Taylor & Francis Ltd |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Can we understand the arrival of Capitalism in Africa by tracking labour - from unfree to free, from slave to wage? The question supposes slavery to lie at its heart, yet the conversation between labour and slave studies is in early stages. The sources are problematic: the colonial 'language of labour' was often political rhetoric camouflaging ongoing forms of slavery. Then, there was the question of how the metropole-incorporated colonies into its economy: French West Africa's sun and sand offered few economic resources. One was salt. The Niger Bend economy depended on Tawdenni, a desert salt mine controlled by Saharans and exploited by their slaves. In 1910, it was predicted that the French abolition of slavery would spell the end of Tawdenni: "Never will a man from the South - unless a slave - give himself to this work"; what, therefore, was to be done? The paper challenges the view that engagement with colonial capitalism necessarily led directly or even inevitably from slavery to wage labour by exploring how Tawdenni's servile labour system responded to French colonial attempts to combine political abolition and economic sustainability. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 0023-656X 1469-9702 |
DOI: | 10.1080/0023656X.2017.1285528 |