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Notes on French Sources for African History in the Later Nineteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2022

John D. Hargreaves
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Extract

These notes are published at the request of the editor, but with great diffidence on the part of the author. In 1982, when I was completing a study of the European partition of West Africa — begun quarter of a century earlier, in what seems a different historiographical era — I agreed at short notice to offer some reflections on my French sources to a symposium of the African Studies Association (UK). This was in no sense a systematic survey. Manuscript sources in France are covered supremely well in the two volume Guide published in 1971 by the International Council on Archives, and any attempt to survey printed sources would have been a major bibliographical exercise. My own research was essentially a study of relations between European and African politics in the later nineteenth century, and what I offer here are essentially user's notes and comparisons with British sources.

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Articles
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African Research and Documentation , Volume 36 , 1984 , pp. 1 - 6
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1984

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References

Notes

1 International Council on Archives: Guide to the Sources of the History of Africa: Sources de l'Histoire de l'Afrique au Sud du Sahara dans les Archives et Bibliothèques francaise, Vol.III, Archives, (Zug, 1971) pp 146-50. See also Vol.IV, Bibliothèques, 1976.

2 Carson, P., Materials for West African History in French Archives (1968).Google Scholar

3 See, for example, Ministère du Commerce, de PIndustrie et des Colonies (Sous-Secretariat d'Etat des Colonies) Statistiques Coloniales pour l'année 1891 (1894). This provides farily detailed trade figures for Senegal in the 1880s; but those for 1888 simply repeat those for 1887, and none'at all are given for 1889. Global figures are given for Golfe de Guinée et Congo, from 1884 only.

4 Manning, Patrick, Slavery, Colonialism and Economic Growth in Dahomey, 1640-1960, (Cambridge 1982) p xvi.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 The standard guide to these sources (which I have had little occasion to use) is Julian Witherell, French-Speaking West Africa: a Guide to Official Publications (Washington, 1967). But compare the comments of Denise Bouche, L‘enseignment dans les territoires francais de l'Afrique Occidentale de 1817 à 1920 (Lille, 1975) Vol.1, pp 31ff. For a later series of commercial statistics, see M. Michel, L ‘appel à l'Afrique (Paris, 1982) p.l50, n 1.

6 Ministère de la Marine et des Colonies, Sénégal et Niger: la France dans l'Afrique occidentale, 1879-83 (1884).

7 Person, Y., Samori: une Revolution dyula, III (Dakar, 1975), p.2171.Google Scholar

8 Gallieni, J.S., Voyage au Soudan francais (1885); Deux Campagnes au Soudan francais (1891).Google Scholar

9 Cohen, W.B., Rulers of Empire: the French Colonial Service in Africa (1971), pp. 15-17, and chap II.Google Scholar

10 Archives of Societé des Missions Africaines, Rome; Fonds Dorgere. Manuscript life of Dorgere by Fr R.F. Guilcher, XI, 33. cf Hargreaves, John D., West Africa Partitioned, Vol.11, The Elephants and the Grass (1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 See e.g. Revue Maritime et Coloniale, I, 1961, pp 477-92.

12 Pasquier, R., “Les débuts de la presse au Sénégal”, Cahiers d'Etudes africaines, 7, 1962.Google Scholar

13 A.I. Asiwaju et al, La Vie et l'Oeuvre de Louis Hunkaurin (Cotonou, n.d.) p.73, refers to L ‘Echo du Dahomey, founded by a Frenchman in 1900. There is a thesis, which I have not seen, by Clement K. Lokossou on “La Presse au Dahomey, 1894-1960” (Paris I, 1976).