Chapter 7 offers a glimpse of minors confined to institutions. It delves into the experiences of minors in carceral and non-carceral institutions. It begins with the incarceration of minors in the Saint-Louis prison, mostly for indiscipline, insubordination, and petty crimes, primarily theft. Both the pre and post emancipation carceral population was mostly enslaved and formerly enslaved people. Some liberated minors were housed at the École Pénitentiare de Thiès (the Thiès Penitentiary School) – a reformatory institution run by the Catholic Fathers who worked in conjunction with the colonial state and were stern disciplinarians. Some minors died there; others who rebelled were put in chains. The orphanage at Ndar Toute operated by the Soeurs de Saint-Joseph de Cluny (The Sisters of Saint-Joseph) – a Catholic order, also took in liberated minors, as did the L’orphelinat de Sor (Orphanage at Sor), which housed liberated minors released from prison and minors who lacked kinship ties, among others. In addition to orphanages, minors were sent to the Ėcole Professional Pinet-Laprade (the Pinet-Laprade Professional School) which engaged in active recruitment of liberated minors. The chapter ends with liberated minors who were confided to the Tirailleurs Sénégalais (the Senegalese Rifles) – the Black colonial army.

Flight and other aspects of life in tutelle, such as marriage, abuse, and death, are taken up in Chapter 8. The chapter analyzes flight from the 1870s. Many minors fled after alleging mistreatment by their guardians. Others absconded to rid themselves of unhappy circumstances. The legal authorities normally acted and launched searches, often to no avail. Guardians generally disregarded the laws and regulations governing guardianship with impunity, including the requirement to notify the authorities when leaving Senegal with their wards. Some moved to other parts of Senegal; others to other parts of Africa; still others to France, temporarily or permanently. Although guardians had the upper hand in their dealings with minors and prevailed with the administration, the latter lodged complaints against them for poor treatment, deprivation, and abuse with police commissioners. Guardians often kept wards in tutelle well beyond the age of eighteen. While in tutelle, some wards, mostly females, got married following proposals mainly from newly emancipated slaves, predominantly Tirailleurs Sénégalais. In all cases, guardians took charge, made the arrangements, and notified the authorities. The chapter ends with the death of liberated minors in tutelle in both Senegal and France.

In the year when France commemorated the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of its territory from Nazi rule by the Allied Forces, President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal initiated a commemoration of the contribution that the Tirailleurs sénégalais made to this military victory. Inviting the heads of different African states whose colonial subjects had joined the colonial army of Tirailleurs, the Day of the Tirailleur was celebrated on 23 August 2004 to commemorate the day of the landing at Toulon. In the Senegalese media, the ‘blood debt’ of France to its African liberators was widely debated, and the discrimination in pensions that African veterans have experienced since political independence was widely condemned. During the day, a statue of the soldiers Demba and Dupont was unveiled at its new location to recognize the contribution Africans have made to France’s military history. This colonial statue was first inaugurated in 1923 to recognize the role played by Tirailleurs in the First World War; it is now recycled to remind France of its colonial debt. The Day of the Tirailleur reminded France of its obligations towards the Senegalese migrants in France whose legal status was very much debated at the time. By reinstating a colonial statue and recycling the social capital made by sacrifice, the Senegalese government appropriated and reinterpreted African history, recycling its colonial legacy as a technique of repair.