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The Malian National Archives at Kuluba: Access and Applicability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Stephen A. Harmon
Stephen A. Harmon*
Affiliation:
Arkansas State University
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Extract

The Malian National Archives are located at Kuluba, an administrative suburb of Bamako. The collection is remarkable because of its vast scope. While for the post-independence period only materials from the Republic of Mali are included, for the colonial period the collection includes documents from what was then called the French Sudan, of which Bamako was the capital. At various times the French Sudan comprised, besides all of modern Mali, portions of Mauritania, all of Burkina Faso, and for brief periods portions of Senegal, Guinea, Ivory Coast, and Benin. In addition, documents from the military department of Niger (now Republic of Niger) also came into Kuluba.

Among the documents one might not expect to find at Kuluba is a collection from the southeastern portions of Mauritania, including territory that at one time formed parts of the cercles of Kayes, Nioro, and Timbuktu, as well as the entire cercle of Nema. These districts, comprising the modern Mauritanian centers of Walata, Timbedra, and Aiun el-Arms, an area of nearly 300,000 square kilometers, were removed from the Sudan and appended to Mauritania in 1945. Many documents from what is today the nation of Burkina Faso are also found at Kuluba. All of what was later to be called Upper Volta was part of the Sudan until 1914, when it was made a separate colony. In 1932 the cercles of Wahiguya and Tugan were reattached to the Sudan, and again removed in 1947 when Upper Volta was reconstituted.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 19 , 1992 , pp. 441 - 444
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1992

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References

Notes

1. The French Sudan (Soudan Français) was created in 1890 out of what had been known as Upper Senegal. The territory was renamed Upper Senegal and Middle Niger (Haut-Sénégal et Moyen-Niger) in 1899. With the 1904 reorganization, which saw France's West African colonies formed into the federation of French West Africa (A.O.F.), the Sudan colony was again renamed Upper Senegal and Niger (Haut-Sénégal et Niger). The name French Sudan was not restored until 1920. Imperato, P. J., Mali: A Search for Direction (Boulder, 1989), 48–49.Google Scholar

2. Traore, A., Islam et colonisation en Afrique: Cheikh Hamahoullah, homme de foi et résistant (Paris, 1983), 194.Google Scholar The transfer of territory from Sudan to Mauritania came in the wake of the so-called Nioro-Assaba affair of 1940, after which the colonial government attempted to crush the Tijaniya splinter group led by Cheikh Hamallah of Nioro. The Hamallist movement was centered in Nioro and its followers were concentrated in the Malian sahel and what is now the Mauritanian Hohd. The boundary change was effected partially in an attempt to cut many Moorish adepts off from the the movement's base at Nioro. Additional reasons for the boundary change are outlined in McDougall, A., “Colonial Boundaries and Frontier Economies: Tishit, Mauritania, and the French Sudan.” Paper presented at the 34th annual meeting of the African Studies Association, St. Louis, November, 1991.Google Scholar

3. Konare, A. and Konare, A., Grandes dates du Mali (Bamako, 1983), 122, 131, 135Google Scholar; Ajayi, J. F. A. and Crowder, Michael, History of West Africa, II (London, 1974), 519Google Scholar; Imperato, , Mali, 49.Google Scholar

4. Konare, /Konare, , Grandes dates, 88Google Scholar; Imperato, , Mali, 48–49.Google Scholar

5. Some changes have taken place in the structure of Mali's government since the coup d'etat of March 1991. Further changes may occur after expected elections in January, 1992. The former Director of culture, M. Soumaila Diakite is no longer serving in that capacity, but most likely M. Onguiba is still director of the archives and will remain at that post.

6. The UDPM, Union Democratique du Meuple Malien, founded by former president Moussa Traore, was overthrown in the March 1991 coup. L'Essor ws originally founded in 1959 as the press organ of the USRDM (Union Soudanaise Rassemblement Democratique Africain), the party of Mali's first president Modibo Keita, but was later adopted by the UDPM after its formation in 1979.

7. Conrad, David C., “Archival Research in Mali,” HA 3 (1976): 175–80.Google Scholar

8. Traore, Islam; Dicko, S. O., “La politique musulmane de l'administration coloniale au Soudan Français dans la prèmiere moitié du XXe siècle, 1912-1946.” Mémoire, Ecole Normal Supérieure, Bamako, 1978.Google Scholar