1. This paper was first presented at the African Studies Association Meeting, November 1986, Madison, Wisconsin. I would like to thank the following for their helpful comments on what was a first-draft paper, and for their willingness to share materials and ideas: Myron Echenburg, David Henige, Martin Klein, Patrick Manning, and Charles Stewart.

2. Hunkanrin, Louis, Un forfait colonial: l'esclavage en Mauritanie, (Privas, Imprimerie Moderne, 1931)Google Scholar, intro, by Elie Reynier, president of the Fédération Ardéchoise de la Ligue des Droits de l'Homme. The edition referred to herein is the one reprinted with no changes (excepting the introduction, which was not included) in Etudes Dahoméennes, n.s. 3 (1964), 31–50.Google Scholar

3. Louis Ouéssou Hunkanrin, born 25 November 1886 at Porto Novo, died 28 May 1964, Dahomey. Material on Hunkanrin and his activities is drawn from the following published sources: Suret-Canale, Jean, “Un pionnier méconnu du mouvement démocratique en Afrique”, Etudes Dahoméennes, 3(1964), 5–30Google Scholar; reprinted in Hazoume, Guy-Landryet al. La vie et L'oeuvre de Louis Hunkanrin (Cotonou, 1976), 62–96Google Scholar (references to “Un pionnier méconnu” are from this reprint); articles by Guy-Landry Hazoume, “Sens et leçons d'une expérience de lutte” (7-30), Suret-Canale, “Une Vie de combat pour la liberté” (31-45), and A. I. Asiwaju, “Louis Hunkanrin: a Dahomeyan nationalist?” (46-61) in La Vie; Ballard, John, “The Porto Novo Incidents of 1923: Politics in the Colonial Era”, Odu, 2(1965): 52–75Google Scholar; Manning, Patrick, Slavery, Colonialism and Economic Growth in Dahomey, 1640–1960, (Cambridge, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sylvain C. Anignikin and Bellarmin C. Codo, “La Dimension Historique de Louis Hunkanrin” Cotonou n.d. (post-1980), unpublished. My thanks to Pat Manning for making this paper available to me.

4. Hunkanrin, along with five other prominent political figures, was exiled to Mauritania following the “Porto Novo Incidents” of 1923. Though his role in the events remains debated, it was a good opportunity for the administration to remove a longstanding thorn in its side. (Compare opinions in La Vie; Ballard, “Porto Novo Incidents,” and Anignikin and Codo, “La Dimension Historique.”) Exile in the desert was considered tantamount to the death sentence—those prisoners condemned to exile were advised to make out their wills fore departure; indeed, all but two did die. Hunkanrin was first deposited in Kiffa, then moved to Tichit, Akreijit, Tidjikja and finally, from 1930 to the end of his sentence, 1933, to Tamchakett. Suret-Canale, “Une Vie de Combat,” 41, 42.

5. Hunkanrin, , Esclavage, 32.Google Scholar

6. Suret-Canale, “Un pionnier méconnu.”

7. A few of the major works include: Meillassoux, Claude, L'Esclavage en Afrique Précoloniale, (Paris, 1975)Google Scholar and most recently his Anthropologie de l'Esclavage. Le Ventre de Fer et d'Argent, (Paris, 1986)Google Scholar; Miers, S. and Kopytoff, I., eds., Slavery in Africa: historical and anthropological perspectives (Madison, 1977)Google Scholar; Robertson, C.A. and Klein, M. A., Women and Slavery in Africa (Madison, 1983)Google Scholar; Lovejoy, Paul E., Transformations in Slavery: a history of slavery in Africa (Cambridge, 1983)Google Scholar; Miers, S. and Roberts, R., The End of Slavery in Africa (Madison, 1988).Google Scholar

8. An important exception is the study by Cooper, Fred, Plantation Slavery on the East Coast of Africa (New Haven, 1977)Google Scholar, and his discussion of slavery in Islamic societies, “Islam and Cultural Hegemony: the Ideology of Slaveowners on the East African Coast” in Lovejoy, Paul E, ed., The Ideology of Slavery (Sage, Beverly Hills, 1981), 271–307.Google Scholar

9. See for example, Robertson and Klein, Women and Slavery, passim, and the introduction to Miers, and Roberts, , End of Slavery, 3–68.Google Scholar

10. See the special edition of Revue Française d'Etudes Politiques Africains, 63 (1976)Google Scholar on the impact of the Great Depression, though no attention is given specifically to Mauritania.

11. McDougall, , “A Topsy-Turvy World: clients and captives in Colonial Mauritania” in Miers, and Roberts, , The End of Slavery, 362–88.Google Scholar

12. René Hector Emile Chazal, governor 3rd class, appointed Lt. Governor par interim 27 January 1928; promoted to Governor 3rd class 21 November 1929; replaced by Gabriel Omer Descemet, Governor 3rd class, Lt. Governor par interim 19 June, 1931. His replacement took place just two months after Hunkanrin's damning brochure was sent to Dakar. I have yet to uncover anything but circumstantial evidence suggesting a direct connection between the two events, but at least one other scholar is convinced of a causal link (Suret-Canale, , “Un pionnier méconnu,” 29Google Scholar).

13. See Appendix II, “Investigation of the Hunkanrin Affair”. It is unfortunate that the “attached pieces” referred to in the 1934(?) summary are not included--Chazal's report about “taxing slaves,” Descemet's address on “Slavery in Mauritania,” and his instructions regarding the implementation of “slavery laws.” While it might be expected that more references to the affair would turn up in local political reports, especially in the Tagant, I have worked through a considerable number of them for the appropriate years and have not yet found any mention of Hunkanrin or the problems he allegedly caused.

14. The first is dated 15 april, 1933, entitled “Reponse à la communication de 1 fev., 1932 par Hunkanrin, Louis, ‘Un Forfait Colonial: l'esclavage en Mauritanie’,” El: 18, Esclavage, Archives Mauritanien, Nouakchott, (hereafter Arch. R.I.M.); the second 11 May, 1934, Chazelas' report transmitted without commentary by Lt. Governor Antonin “Des Affaires Administratives sur la question des haratines et serviteurs dans l'Assaba”, Arch. R.I.M. B1 Esclavage; the third, undated, unsigned, from the Direction des Affaires Politiques et Administratives, with the object of “The state of captivity in Mauritania; the propaganda of Hunkanrin”, Arch. A.O.F., Dakar 2K 113(26).

15. While not necessarily agreeing with Chazelas' conclusions in the case, it is true that Hunkanrin's concerns about slavery were directed solely towards women and their daughters. Out of all his cases, only one mentioned the fate of a young male slave, and this only in the context of concern about his mother and sister. (See Appendix I) From an other point of view, however, it could be argued that as a political detainee, it was this element of Mauritanian slavery that he would have been in closest contact with, and as I have argued elsewhere (McDougall, “A Topsy-Turvy World”), Mauritanian masters were especially concerned to retain control over women and children as male slaves began to run away or be manumitted as haratin.

16. Chazelas, “Haratines et Serviteurs”, Arch. R.I.M. B1 Esclavage.

17. Ibid.

18. Hunkanrin, , L'esclavage, 34.Google Scholar

19. Personnel communication Sidi Mohammed would Ali, Kunta, September 1984, Tidjikja. This man was my assistant during two and a half months' fieldwork in central Mauritania. His uncle had been imprisoned by the French for his participation in witchcraft trials. Also Arch. R.I.M E2 118, Rapport Politique d'Ensemble, 1936 “Note sur la sorcellerie,” and my discussion in “Slavery, Sorcery and Ethnicity: towards a Better Understanding of Slavery in Colonial Mauritania,” paper presented at the Canadian Association of African Studies meeting, Queens University, May 1988.Google Scholar

20. Descemet, 15 avril 1933, Arch. R.I.M. E1: 18, Esclavage.

21. When guilt was proved, these procedures could involve the death of the slave, though there were other possibilities for resolution. A purgative was sometimes used and compensation arrangements made, a more practical solution than destroying valuable property. Arch. R.I.M. E2 118, Rapport Politique, Adrar, 1936 “Note sur la sorcellerie”; personal communication Sidi Mohammed wuld Ali, Tidjikja, Sept. 1984. On the importance of Bambara slaves ca. 1890-1900, ech Chenguiti, Ahmed Lamine, El Wasît, (Etudes Mauritaniennes), 5 (1953), 138.Google Scholar

22. McDougall, “Slavery, Sorcery and Ethnicity”. Unfortunately, sorcery is a subject few Mauritanians are willing to discuss. I appreciate the information my assistant wuld Ali shared with me about his uncle, but was also instructed that I should not pursue the issue further.

23. Hunkanrin, , Esclavage, 34, 44.Google Scholar

24. “Tent” or khaima normally refers to a social unit consisting of immediate blood-related family—a husband, wife, children, older relatives, domestic slaves, or servants. However, the term seems to have acquired a broader meaning during colonial times when it became important to establish a claim over particular hartani families and clients.

25. “Fraction” or fakhadh: several “tents” recognizing a common ‘ancestor.’

26. Descemet, 15 avril 1933, Arch. R.I.M. E1: 18 Esclavage.

27. Indeed, individuals (especially women) were often ‘shared’ between masters; inheriting ‘a quarter slave,’ for example, meant that said slave would live and work for you for three months per year, taking her services elsewhere the rest of the time. Children conceived during this period would belong to the master involved. McDougall, , “A Topsy-Turvy World,” 376.Google Scholar

28. For a more detailed discussion of these issues and the ambiguity of slave and hartani status, see McDougall, , “A Topsy-Turvy World,” 364–66.Google Scholar

29. Hunkanrin, , Esclavage, 41.Google Scholar

30. From the late 1920s, the issues of labor shortages, commercial and agricultural decline, and virtual famine dominate local political reports. By 1940 haratine and slaves who left Tichit in the wake of internal dissent and attacks by Grandes Nomades prior to the arrival of the French, are being encouraged to return from the Soudan (Mali). (Arch. R.I.M. E2 122 Rapport Politique Ensemble, 4 ème Tri., 1930; E2 109 Rapport Politique Ensemble, 3 ème Tri., 1935. “Rapport de Lt. Larroque sur le Ksar Tichit et la situation des Massna”; E2 145 Letter 26 March 1940, Tidjikja, Cdt. Cercle Tagant to the Gov. General de l'AOF, Dakar. For material on the history of the Massna and Tichit, see: Meunié, Jaques, “Cités caravanières de Mauritanie: Tichit et Oualata”, Journal de la Société Africaine (1957): 19–36Google Scholar; idem., Cités Anciènnes de Mauritanie: provinces du Tagant et du Hodh (Paris, 1961); Hanson, Jan, La vie d'un village isolé du Sahara mauritanien (Nouakchott, 1971)Google Scholar; Darmendrail, J., Tichitt: présence et actualité d'un anciènne provence de l'empire de Ghana(Mémoire, Centre des Hautes Etudes d'Administration Musulmane, Paris, 1955).Google Scholar

31. Hunkanrin, , Esclavage, 41–43.Google Scholar

32. McDougall, , “A Topsy-Turvy World,” 370–73Google Scholar; the account of Yassa,” cited above.

33. McDougall, , “A Topsy-Turvy World,” 375–76Google Scholar; Arch. R.I.M. E2 70, E2 122, E2 109 Rapports Politiques, 1925-1930s; E2 82 “Les Palmeraies du Tagant”, especially Tidjikja 1929.

34. See 12 above.

35. My thanks to Charles Stewart for sharing his interest in, and information on, Descemet; background material on Descemet's family and suggestions for how to further our knowledge of his career (he drops out of our historical vision after leaving office in Mauritania in 1934 and we need to know more about his years in Haut-Sénégal-Niger, for example) was in turn supplied to both of us by François Manchuelle, University of California, Santa Barbara. Manchuelle's thesis deals with early twentieth-century labor movements from Haut-Sénégal-Niger into Senegal, and the socio-economic connections with southern Mauritania. He has a particular interest in the métis families of Saint-Louis, especially the Descemets.

36. Charles Stewart, personal communication. Sheikh Hamallah was exiled from Nioro to Mederdra (southwestern Mauritania) following disturbances in 1923,1924; in 1930 further problems in Kaedi convinced authorities to move him to Ivory Coast for the remainder of his ten-year sentence. Suret-Canale, , French Colonialism in Tropical Africa, (New York, 1971).Google Scholar

37. Manning, , Slavery, 189–93.Google Scholar Though the charge may have been specious, one of Hunkanrin's political associates who came from an important “slave owning” family was indicted for accepting a slave girl as a pawn in 1935, (ibid., 272). Recent research shows that domestic slavery continued in many parts of colonial French West Africa, and that pawning, in particular, flourished once again during the depression years. See Miers and Roberts, The End of Slavery, passim, and Klein, Martin and Roberts, Richard, “The Resurgance of Pawning in French West Africa during the Depression of the 1930s,” African Economic History 16 (1988).Google Scholar

38. His feelings towards the Mauritanians are made patently obvious in the first few pages, where he refers to their laziness and cruelty towards their slaves (33-37). Later he argues that certain of them, in league with slave merchants from the Tagant, have prepared a formidable attack against him and against those “poor children of the Soudan and Senegal, kept in a state of captivity, whom they desire to see forever under their yoke” (37). In his letter concerning the slave girl he “rescued” from certain death, he begins with reference to interference with his mail, then goes on to note that so great were her problems, that “his personal sufferings were nothing in comparison” (47).

39. Hunkanrin, , Esclavage, 34–37.Google Scholar

40. Hunkanrin, , Esclavage, 41.Google Scholar

41. The affair over which he eventually lost his job concerned the Director of the school, who wanted him to “cherchez les femmes” on his behalf. He apparently refused. How ironic that some twenty years later Chazelas would accuse him of being a ‘pimp.’ The notation on his record read that he was dismissed for “violent and calumnious denunciations against his director [M. Rolland].” After this he was closely watched, which seemed to invite further trouble. In 1911 he received a suspended sentence for “violence and insult against a customs collector,” and in 1912, eighteen months' (reduced to one year) imprisonment in Dakar plus a 25F fine for “abuse of confidence” vis-à-vis the company for which he worked, the CFAO. (Anignikin and Codo, “Dimension Historique”; Asiwaju, , “Dahomeyan Nationalist?,” 50–52Google Scholar).

42. Suret-Canale, , “Un pionnier méconnu,” 17Google Scholar; idem., “Une vie de combat,” 40; Asiwaju, , “Dahomeyan Nationalist?” 52–53.Google Scholar According to Asiwaju, Hunkanrin at first impressed the authorities and he was given administrative functions, including the role of advisor to the commissariat in matters relating to Dahomey. Soon, however, he was being called a “militant anarchist” who refused to respect discipline toward his superiors.

43. This aspect of his career is well-covered by most of the authors referred to in note 3. For divergent opinions on his role in the Porto Novo incident, see especially: Suret-Canale, , “Un pionnier méconnu,” 20–22Google Scholar; Manning, , Slavery, 266Google Scholar; Ballard, , “Incidents,” 64–73.Google Scholar Anignikin and Codo, 7-8, argue that while the administration was looking for an opportunity to strike at the évolués, in effect by orchestrating the major voices of opposition (like the chapter of the Ligue des Droits des Hommes he organized in Dahomey), Hunkanrin “had put in place the support system essential to the movement and was therefore responsible for the events of 1923”.

44. Anignikin and Codo, “La Dimension Historique;” Asiwaju has a similar view of Hunkanrin during this period, though he still argues that he remained an effective “protonationalist” (“Dahomeyan Nationalist?” 55-61). Suret-Canale, on the other hand, views him as the unceasing campaigner against injustice, an honorable man who could not be tainted by politics, who would prefer death to compromising with dishonesty --“one of the rare precursors to the contemporary national liberation movement, not only in Dahomey but for all of Africa,” (“Une vie de combat”, 44-45).

45. Suret-Canale, , “Un pionnier méconnu”, 26–28Google Scholar; Anignikin and Codo, “La Dimension Historique.” Manning sees the political developments of the 1930s, and Hunkanrin's role in them, from a different perspective, arguing that the La Voix investigation brought international support and ultimately the nationalist movement was ‘rehabilitated’ as a consequence. He agrees, however, that the process generated a strong critique from the right. (Slavery, 268-75)

46. Anignikin and Codo, “La Dimension Historique.”

47. Asiwaju, , “Dahomeyan Nationalist?” 48–49.Google Scholar

48. Revelations about France's use of forced labor in French Equatorial Africa had recently sparked controversy; Chazelas' report, though aimed specifically at satisfying the administration's concerns about Hunkanrin's accusations, also dealt with general questions about how servile labor and slavery were being ‘handled’ in the Mauritanian context. It was one of several similar investigations being carried out throughout French West Africa. Conclusions drawn from Chazelas' findings and expressed by Brévié to the Minister of the Colonies were that all the “orders already put in place” with respect to “all forms of servile labor and servility,” and the “perseverance over a long time of a serious critique” of the situation “demonstrates that the line of conduct traced by the Governor General [to date] plainly suffices to respond to the legitimate pre-occupations manifested by International Opinion.” Arch. AOF 2K 113(26)