Chapter 5 deals extensively with tutelle in the late nineteenth century by concentrating on the working lives of minors, mostly as apprentices and domestics. Minors performed a wide variety of tasks, some of them gender-specific. Young girls did mostly household and domestic tasks; boys became apprentices and learned artisanal crafts. Of the artisanal crafts, carpentry was the most popular, but masons, blacksmiths, tailors, seamstresses, and grain pounders took wards as apprentices. In the 1880s and 1890s, the state confided minors to institutions including Catholic missions, though not always to serve as apprentices. Case studies detail the ways in which their labor was exploited and how they responded to coercion and abuse. They reveal considerable delinquency and misery, which sometimes led to incarceration. The relationship between minors and their guardians in work settings was often characterized by discord, even violence. The chapter explores abuses in tutelle including the hiring out of minors without informing French authorities and the refusal of guardians to compensate minors for their labor when warranted. The chapter analyzes complaints lodged by guardians about minors and the ways in which minors exercised agency. It ends with an exploration of sexual exploitation and prostitution.

Chapter 4 focuses primarily on the French colonial administration’s enactment of and measures to enforce legislation aimed at regulating tutelle. It argues that legislation failed due to disregard for the laws enacted in 1857 and 1862 that the colonial administration adopted to regulate and oversee guardianship by providing a legal framework for the process of liberating minors brought to Saint-Louis after 1848 and by outlining the state’s responsibility in finding suitable placements for them. Negligence and poor record-keeping on the part of French authorities led Camille Guy, the French Governor of Senegal, to declare that the management of tutelle was scandalous in 1904 when he discovered the gravity of the damage that has been done for decades. The chapter analyzes the Act of 1862, which officially abolished the Conseilles de Tutelle, whose functions were henceforth carried out exclusively by the Procureur Général. Drawing on data from the Liberations Registers and other sources, the chapter ends with the impact on tutelle stemming from active slave trading that occurred between the 1860s and the 1880s in areas of Senegal where it was still legal, the movement of enslaved people into urban Senegal, and the pick-up in liberations in the 1880s.

To describe the transition from slavery to freedom, Chapter 2 centers on the evolution and development of tutelle and its relationship to other forms of servility in nineteenth-century Senegal. It begins with an exploration of slavery in highly stratified Wolof society, and the use of slaves in urban Senegal where domestic labor was pervasive before 1848. Some slaves became part of French naval operations manning garrisons. Others worked as domestics, stevedores, and boat hands. Still others worked as helpers in the construction industry. Slaves were artisans and laptots (sailors). Enslaved minors, mostly female, were largely confined to domestic tasks in urban households headed by signares and others. The chapter traces the roots of engagement à temps – a form of indentured labor to which a significant number of women and children were subjected under the same conditions in Saint-Louis. It deals with the process of redemption from slavery through rachat (ransom), and highlights judicial cases and rulings which demonstrate how the process was abused. The chapter ends with the 1849 decree under which Governor Baudin created guardianship councils for boys and girls in Saint-Louis and Gorée simultaneously.

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.

This study ends with the decline of tutelle and its aftermath. It posits that guardianship declined after 1905 – the year that French law made the alienation of a person’s liberty illegal – thus bringing an end to slavery in areas of Senegal where its existence was still legal after 1848. Thus, the conclusion reinforces the position taken throughout about the correlation between tutelle and slavery. In the absence of the 1905 law, tutelle would likely have continued to function as before. This points to limitations in the 1848 Abolition Act and subsequent legislation that led to the liberation of minors and fostered their integration into society through adoption without assurance of outright freedom from coercive labor that adversely impacted the lives of the majority of adoptees. In 1905, the French made no pronouncements about the fate of tutelle. Since tutelle was not considered slavery, and slavery did not legally exist in urban Senegal after 1848, the alienation of the liberty of minors was not deemed to be an issue. But tutelle held on unofficially beyond 1905, demonstrating the tenacity and entrenchment of coercive labor systems in Africa.