Abstract
This chapter seeks to illuminate the connection between two processes: reform of the labour law in France and the abolition of slavery in French colonial Africa. Most political forces in France agreed that the new welfare state should not to be extended to the colonies, particularly in Africa. Thus, the rules governing labour relations in French Equatorial Africa evolved under the pressure of multiple influences. These included growing anti-slavery sentiment, France’s ‘civilizing mission’ and imperial economic interests, the competition in Africa between the colonial state, European companies, and settlers for local labour resources and the need to negotiate with African chiefs. In effect, regulations governing labour were established through a mix of coercion and traditional French rules governing servants.
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Notes
- 1.
See Raymond Betts, Assimilation and Association in French Colonial Theory, 1890–1914 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1960); Raoul Girardet, L’idée coloniale en France de 1871 à 1962 (Paris: Hachette, 1962); William Cohen, The French Encounter with Africans: White Response to Blacks, 1530–1880 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1980).
- 2.
François Renault, Libération d’esclaves et nouvelle servitude: les rachats de captifs africains pour le compte des colonies françaises après l’abolition de l’esclavage (Abidjan: Nouvelles éditions françaises, 1976).
- 3.
Babacar Fall, Le travail forcé en Afrique occidentale française, 1900–1946 (Paris: Karthala, 1993).
- 4.
Alice Conklin, A Mission to Civilize: the Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa, 1895–1930 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997); Ann Laura Stoler and Frederick Cooper, Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World (Berkeley: California University Press, 1997).
- 5.
Lauren Benton, Law in Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
- 6.
AEF is the French acronym for l’Afrique équatoriale française. The region’s boundaries were established in 1883 by Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, a commissioner in West Africa who was appointed Commissioner-General of the Congo in 1886. According to its 1910 boundaries, French Equatorial Africa included the Middle Congo, Gabon, Ubangi-Chari, and Chad.
- 7.
Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, Le Congo (AEF) au temps des grandes compagnies concessionnaires, 1898–1930 (Paris-Le Haye: Mouton, 1972).
- 8.
In 1895, the colonial government decided to federate its West African colonies. Thus, Senegal, French Sudan, Guinea, and Ivory Coast formed a new administrative entity called French West Africa. Dahomey was added in 1899, Niger and Mauritania in 1904, and Upper Volta in 1919.
- 9.
Jean Meyer, Histoire de la France coloniale, I: Des origines à 1914 (Paris: Colin, 1991); Jean-Marie Mayeur, Les débuts de la IIIe République, 1871–1898 (Paris: Seuil, 1973).
- 10.
Madeleine Rebérieux, La République radicale. 1898–1914 (Paris: Seuil, 1975).
- 11.
Charles-Robert Ageron, L’anticolonialisme en France de 1871 à 1914 (Paris: PUF, 1973); Emmanuelle Sibeaud, ‘Une libre pensée impériale? Le comité de protection et de défense des indigènes, c.a. 1892–1914’, Mille neuf cent 27, no. 1 (2009): 57–74.
- 12.
René Gallissot, ‘Socialisme colonial, socialisme national des pays dominés’, L’homme et la société 174, no. 4 (2009): 75–96.
- 13.
François Bédarida, ‘Perspectives sur le mouvement ouvrier et l’impérialisme en France au temps de la conquête coloniale’, Le mouvement social 86 (1974): 25–42.
- 14.
Conklin, A Mission to Civilize, 41–3.
- 15.
Coquery-Vidrovitch, Le Congo.
- 16.
David Fieldhouse, ‘The Economic Exploitation of Africa: Some British and French Comparisons’, in France and Britain in Africa: Imperial Rivalry and Colonial Rule, ed. Prosser Gifford and William Roger Louis (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971): 659–60.
- 17.
Coquery-Vidrovitch, Le Congo.
- 18.
Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, ‘Investissmements Privés, Investissements Publics en AEF, 1900–1940’, African Economic History 12 (1983): 13–31.
- 19.
FM, SG: Equatorial Africa, government (AEF-G), COG/XIV 1 & 2, Centre des Archives d’Outre-Mer (hereafter ANOM).
- 20.
La Dépêche coloniale, 23 December 1903; Coquery-Vidrovitch, Le Congo, 103.
- 21.
AEF-G, L’Afrique Équatoriale Française (AEF), Série 8Q: Compagnies et sociétés concessionnaires, 58, ANOM.
- 22.
Libreville, Rapport d’inspection de la Société du Haut-Ogooué, 1908, GG AEF, 8Q/59, ANOM.
- 23.
William G. Clarence-Smith, ‘Business Empires in Equatorial Africa’, African Economic History 12 (1983): 3–11.
- 24.
Governor of Cameroon to the Minister of Colonies, 14 September 1917, AEF-G, G 1 AEF, 2H/8, ANOM.
- 25.
Governor of Cameroon to the Minister of Colonies, 14 September 1917, AEF-G, G 1 AEF, 2H/8, ANOM; Fall, Le travail forcé; Suzanne Miers and Richard Roberts. eds., The End of Slavery in Africa (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988); François Renault, ‘L’abolition de l’esclavage au Sénégal: L’attitude de l’administration française, 1848–1905’, Revue française d’histoire d’outre-mer 58, no. 1 (1971): 5–80.
- 26.
Dennis Cordell, ‘The delicate balance of force and flight: the end of slavery in Eastern Ubangi-Shari’, in The End of Slavery in Africa, ed. Suzanne Miers and Richard Roberts (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988), 150–171.
- 27.
Jean-Louis Boutiller, ‘Les captifs en AOF (1903–1905)’, Bulletin de l’IFAN 30, série B, no. 2 (1968): 520.
- 28.
AEF-G, G 1 AEF, 2H/8, ANOM.
- 29.
François Renault, L’abolition de l’esclavage au Sénégal, l’attitude de l’administration française, 1848–1905 (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1972).
- 30.
AEF-G, G 1 AEF, 2H/8, ANOM.
- 31.
Journal officiel du Congo français, 15 July 1900, no. 10.
- 32.
Ministry of Colonies to Albert Grodet, May 1901, AEF-G, G AEF, 8Q/XIV-1, ANOM.
- 33.
Ministry of Colonies to Albert Grodet, May 1901, ANOM.
- 34.
FP, PA/16(V)/5 (mission Brazza, notes), ANOM; FP/PA/16(V)/3 (criminal cases, women), ANOM.
- 35.
AEF-G, G AEF, 2H/8, ANOM.
- 36.
Correspondance du Commissaire général du Gabon au Commissaire général dans les possessions françaises et dépendances, 1907, AEF-G, GG AEF, 2H/15, ANOM.
- 37.
François Zuccarelli, ‘Le recrutement de travailleurs sénégalais par l’État indépendant du Congo, 1884–1896’, Revue française d’histoire d’outre-mer 47, 168–9 (1960): 475–81.
- 38.
Eisa Assidon, Le commerce captif: les sociétés françaises de l’Afrique noire (Paris: l’Harmattan, 1989).
- 39.
E. de Dampierre, Un royaume Bandia du Haut Oubangui (Paris: Plon, 1967).
- 40.
FM, 2AFFPOL/21, sociétés concessionnaires, Société des Sultanats, ANOM.
- 41.
FM, 2AFFPOL/4, compagnies concessionnaires, ANOM; FM, 2AFFPOL/21, ANOM.
- 42.
FM, 2AFFPOL/25, sociétés concessionnaires, recrutement de la main d’œuvre indigène, ANOM; 2AFFPOL/29, Société des Sultanats, ANOM.
- 43.
FM, 2AFFPOL/1, commission des concessions, réclamations formulées par des collectivités indigènes, ANOM.
- 44.
FM, 2AFFPOL/13, compagnies concessionnaires, ANOM; 2AFFPOL/29, Société des Sultanats, ANOM.
- 45.
Simon Deakin, ‘Contrat de travail’, in Dictionnaire historique de l’économie-droit, XVIIIe-XXe siècles, ed. Alessandro Stanziani (Paris: LGDJ, 2007), 289–98.
- 46.
Raymond Vacquier, Au temps des factoreries, 1900–1950 (Paris: Karthala, 1986), 247.
- 47.
Suzanne Miers and Igor Kopytoff, Slavery in Africa: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives (Madison, WI: Wisconsin University Press, 1977); Martin Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule in French West Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); R.C. Law, From Slave Trade to Legitimate Commerce: the Commercial Transition in Nineteenth-Century West Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
- 48.
AEF-G, G 1 AEF, 2H/8, ANOM.
- 49.
Commanding Administrator of the Ogooué region to the Commissioner-General of FEA, 20 June 1901, AEF-G, G1 AEF, 2H/8, ANOM.
- 50.
AEF-G, G1 AEF, 2H/8, ANOM.
- 51.
Planters and the Deputy Lieutenant of the Ogooué region, several documents, 1901–1902, AEF-G, G 1 AEF, 2H/8, ANOM.
- 52.
Commanding Administrator of the Ogooué region to the Commissioner-General of FEA, 20 June 1901, ANOM.
- 53.
Planters and the Deputy Lieutenant of the Ogooué region, several documents, 1901–1902, ANOM.
- 54.
Mr. Janselme to the Governor-General of the Congo, 26 September 1901, AEF-G, G 1 AEF, 2H/8, ANOM.
- 55.
Note on labour relationships by the Commanding Administrator of the Ogooué region, AEF-G, G 1 AEF, 2H/8, ANOM.
- 56.
Reports concerning the Mayumba and Loango regions (and several documents), 1901, AEF-G, G 1 AEF, 2H/8, ANOM.
- 57.
Reports concerning the Mayumba and Loango regions (and several documents), 1901, ANOM.
- 58.
Reports from the Brazzaville and Libreville regions, 1901, AEF-G, G 1 AEF, 2H/8, ANOM.
- 59.
AEF-G, G 1 AEF, 2H/8, ANOM.
- 60.
Ministère des affaires étrangères, Note to the attention of the Président du Conseil, 27 February 1906, FM, SG, GCXIX/4, ANOM.
- 61.
Henri Brunschwig, ‘Brazza et les scandales du Congo (1904–1906)’ in L’Afrique noire au temps de l’Empire français (Paris: Denoël 1988), 265–80.
- 62.
AEF-G, G 1 AEF, 8Q/XV-39, ANOM.
- 63.
Coquery-Vidrovitch, Le Congo.
- 64.
Société du Haut Ogooué, Compagnie française au Congo occidental, Ochounka plantation, AEF-G, G 1 AEF, 2H/8, ANOM.
- 65.
Report from the lieutenant-governor of the Middle Congo to the governor-general of the Congo, 27 May 1909, AEF-G, G 1 AEF, 2H/8, ANOM/
- 66.
AEF-G, G 1 AEF, 2H/8, ANOM.
- 67.
Lieutenant-Governor of the Middle Congo to the Governor-General of the Congo, 13 June 1909, AEF-G, G 1 AEF, 2H/8, ANOM.
- 68.
Report from the Office of Agricultural Inspection to the Governor-General of the Congo, 23 December 1908, AEF-G, G 1 AEF, 2H/8, ANOM.
- 69.
Draft labour law in the colonies, October 1910, AEF-G, G 1 AEF, 2H/8, ANOM.
- 70.
Draft labour law in the colonies, October 1910, ANOM.
- 71.
Draft labour law in the colonies, October 1910, ANOM.
- 72.
Governor-General of FEA to the Minister of Colonies, 17 February 1911, AEF-G, G 1 AEF, 2H/8, ANOM.
- 73.
Letter to the Governor, October 1911, AEF-G, G 1 AEF, 2H/8, ANOM.
- 74.
Justice of the Peace of Libreville to the Governor, August 1911, ANOM, AEF-G, G 1 AEF, 2H/8.
- 75.
Letter from the administrator of the district of Ouroungous to the Justice of the Peace with jurisdiction over Libreville, 31 August 1911, ANOM, AEF-G, G 1 AEF, 2H/8.
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Stanziani, A. (2019). The Abolition of Slavery and the ‘New Labour Contract’ in French Equatorial Africa, 1890–1914. In: Campbell, G., Stanziani, A. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Bondage and Human Rights in Africa and Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95957-0_11
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