An African Khipu System?

Reading about the khipu system of recording information in the Andean world reminded us of what was a similar way of using cords and knots to record numerical information in parts of precolonial West Africa. Unfortunately, finding details on the system used in what is now Benin, but previously the kingdom of Allada and parts of the Slave Coast in the 17th century, is difficult. The tradition appears to have largely disappeared, although the ambiguous references to it in precolonial European sources might also have picked up on the Yoruba aroko system of symbolic communication. However, the Yoruba system, which has survived in parts of rural Yorubaland, does not use, at least from the little we could uncover, or rely, on knots and cords to send messages. Instead, the system of knotted cords used in Allada was more akin to the khipu used in the Andes, particularly for accounts, keeping track of dates or time, and meetings. 

There are primarily 3 sources which mention the "khipu" of the kingdom of Allada. Two date from the 17th century (Barbot and the Sieur d'Elbée), while the 18th century journal of the Chevalier des Marchais appears to be largely derived from these 17th century sources). Indeed, the published journal of the Chevalier des Marchais even asserts that the fidalgos of Allada, who sometimes spoke Portuguese, also learned how to read and write in that tongue. While some may have been literate in Portuguese or European languages, the more detailed account from 1670 by Elbée suggests that the vast majority of people in Allada were illiterate, but cords with knots were used for recording (numerical?) information. That alphabetic literacy in precolonial Allada was likely minimal can be affirmed by other sources, too. For instance, the accounts of Allada from the Capuchin missionaries sent there in the mid-1600s mention the Allada king's opposition to the foundation of a Catholic-run school there. Indeed, the Allada king seemed to have little or no interest in spreading literacy to the ordinary people. If Elbée is to be relied upon, it seems very unclear or uncertain that most of the fidalgos of Allada were literate in Portuguese, either. 

So, what can one say about the "khipu" of Allada? Very little, sadly, without any ethnographic evidence on its use in more recent times or artifacts to examine. Since, as previously mentioned, the account from the Chevalier des Marchais is too brief, one must focus on Elbée and Barbot. The former specifies that the knots on cords had different meanings, such as the date for meetings and the price for merchandise. In fact, it is explicitly compared to the way knots on cords were used by various Amerindian peoples of the Americas. Barbot, on the other hand, places more emphasis on Allada "khipu" as comparable to pocket-books used by Europeans. Like Elbée, the Allada "khipu" are compared to those used by Amerindian people and he claimed they were used to observe time, places, numbers, and meetings. From the little one can gleam from these sources, the "khipu" of Allada were mainly numerical, with nothing akin to the narrative khipu used by the Incas or khipu for historiographical purposes. This is intriguing, since Allada and later Dahomey were powerful kingdoms which one might expect would need to develop further genres of "khipu" semiosis for recording detailed information.

For an example of how non-Andean South American groups used knots to record information, one can find references to groups from Venezuela and the Lesser Antilles. The Jesuit, Gumila, for instance, wrote about the use of cords with knots to send messages by indigenous groups living in the Orinoco Basin. Other Spanish and Dutch sources attest to the use of cords with knots to send messages between indigenous villages or communities for meetings. According to Rochefort, the Kalinago ("Island Caribs") used knots on cords to record the number of days leading up to a scheduled meeting. Outside of the Andes, none of these fleeting references to the use of knotted cords suggests more semiotic heterogeneity. Was the "khipu" of Allada similar to these? And why weren't "khipu" developed in Allada and the Slave Coast to record information for additional genres or types? 

One wonders if part of the reason may have been due to the use of Ifa divination (which required memorization of 256 binary signs), sculptures, and textiles for other types of information. Likewise, one wonders if the widespread influence of the Yoruba language and other Yoruba influences may have led to the adoption of a semiotic system akin to aroko by subjects of Allada and Dahomey. Evidence for this must be sought, but it certainly seems plausible. Alternatively, the example of the nearby Gold Coast provides similar use of symbolic communication through objects such as cowries, grass, beads, clay, and other materials to communicate messages, per Reindorf. Perhaps the "khipu" of Allada remained only in use for numerical data and record-keeping, with other means of conveying and recording information through oral tradition, art, or objects used in other domains.

Francisque dit Omore

We are always on the hunt for more information on Borno and its Diaspora across the world, especially before the 19th century. Whilst perusing digitized French National Archive records of the 18th century slave and free people of color population living in metropolitan France, we encountered Francisque dit Omore. He was, by 1777, a free man, married to a white laundress, and working as a domestic in Paris for the marquis de la Solard. Unfortunately, piecing together more of his life and origins in Borno is difficult. However, it is exceedingly likely that he was a victim of the trans-Saharan slave trade. However, unlike many black Africans trafficked to Tripoli, he did not end up shipped to the Levant or Turkey. Instead, he was sold or transported to Malta, where a Frenchman, Pons-François de Rosset de Fleury, purchased him. This European man brought him to France by 1757, where he continued to work for Fleury until his death in 1774. By 1777, it is clear that Francisque was a free man, married to a European woman, and could sign his name. Intriguingly, he chose to sign it as Omor instead of Francisque or Francois. If Omor was an attempt at writing his name in Borno, perhaps Umar, then he still preferred to identify by his original name despite 20 years of living in Europe as a baptized man.

Sadly, trying to uncover more of Francisque dit Omore's Bornoan origins will be very difficult. His age is difficult to establish with certainty. If he truly was 39 years old in 1777, then perhaps he was born in 1738. Alternatively, if he was registered in 1762 as "Francois" of "Borno" as a "lackey" and slave of Fleury, he may have been born in or around 1734. It is probable that he was indeed from Birni Gazargamo, Borno's vast capital city with an even vaster district that encompassed many settlements. Regardless of when in the 1730s he was born, Francisque dit Omore was lived through troubled times in Borno. According to Nur Alkali, a drought that lasted several years coveredthe period of 1738-1753. With drought came famine, including one remembered during the reign of Dunama Gana (r. 1744-1747). Moreover, the drought led to population shifts of nomadic populations like the Jetko, Tubu, Koyam, and Fulani. Undoubtedly, a period of continued drought, famine, and pressure on both nomadic and sedentary agriculturalists probably triggered conflicts, including some that led to slave raids and kidnappings. When one considers the signs of weakness in the face of Tuareg and other raiders or the eventual loss of Borno control of the salt trade at Bilma by 1759, it is perhaps understandable how Francisque dit Omore of Birni Gazargamo may have been captured or sold into slavery during such an unstable time.

The Empire of Wagadu: The State of the Question

Boubacar Séga Diallo's L’empire du Wagadu: état de la question was rather underwhelming. We were expecting a condensed version of his thesis that draws more heavily on Soninke oral traditions, linguistics, and archaeology to sketch a fuller picture of the historical state of Ghana (Wagadu) known from external Arabic sources. However, the reader mainly receives a summary on the history of Wagadu with occasional references to oral traditions, archaeological evidence from Kumbi or Mali, and some undefended assertions about topics like the antiquity of caste or the prevalence of slavery in ancient Soninke society. Perhaps, if Diallo's thesis is published, the reader can benefit from a West African scholars deep exploration of Soninke tradition in light of other types of evidence. Without that, we are sadly left with a very brief summary that also repeats the typical line of Almoravid victory over Ghana. It would also have been interesting if the author tried to speculate about the magico-religious powers of the rulers of Wagadu and how that shaped the political structure of the state.

Amina of Zaria

The Kano Chronicle (in Palmer's translation) mentions her and her conquests in the context of tribute in kola nuts and eunuchs. She probably did exist, lived sometime in the 1400s, and must have contributed to the growing importance of the trade in kola, slaves, and horses in Hausaland. It is also interesting to note that the Kano Chronicle references Amina of Zaria at the same time as Dagachi, a Borno prince who came to Kano in the 1400s. According to the Diwan, Dagachi was probably Uthman ibn Dawud, who reigned for a year (1421-1422) in Borno before being deposed. The Borno sources tell us that he died in Kano, making him likely the same person as the Dagachi of the Kano Chronicle. If the Kano Chronicle and the Diwan are reliable on the chronology, then Amina of Zaria must have been conquering and demanding tribute during the 1400s.

On the other hand, other sources suggest Amina lived during the 1500s, which seems less probable to me. The Emirates of Northern Nigeria: A Preliminary Survey of Their Historical Traditions by Kirk-Greene and Hogben claim she came to the throne in 1576, but that seems far too late and is harder to reconcile with other events in the region during the late 1500s.

Sources

Lange, Dierk. Le Dīwān Des Sultans Du (Kānem-)Bornū: Chronologie Et Histoire D'un Royaume Africain (de La Fin Du Xe Siècle Jusqu'à 1808). Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1977.

Palmer, H. R. “The Kano Chronicle.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 38 (1908): 58–98. https://doi.org/10.2307/2843130.

Slavery in the Cape

Too Close for Comfort: Master and Slave Relations in the Colonial Cape

            The effects of propinquity on the nature and development of slavery in colonial Cape society were profound. Unlike the large plantations that evolved in parts of the Americas, where enslaved Africans could develop slave cultures without the incessant supervision of whites, close contact between white masters and slaves in the Cape led to constant supervision that created intimately oppressive conditions. Therefore, slavery developed into an institution of extreme regulation and monitoring of slaves for social control with the appearances of benign paternalism, which was weaker in Cape Town than in the countryside.  These aforementioned intimately oppressive conditions entailed a form of slavery mixing physical and psychological forms of domination, domestic affection and the threat of violence, and paternalism and overseers to ensure slave subordination while also creating conditions for more cultural and racial mixing.

            Conditions of white supervision varied for slaves in both Cape Town and rural areas, depending on various factors. The similarities persist, however, for all of the above in several key ways. First, in both the countryside and Cape Town, the Dutch East India Company, the VOC, never enforced its laws against concubinage, so white males and ‘black’ female slaves produced mixed-race children throughout the colonial period, partly because of the uneven sex ratios for whites.[1] But despite the prevalence of miscegenation, there was no “mulatto escape hatch” for Cape slaves and slave children of white fathers, meaning few slave women gained freedom from relationships with white males. Few of their children with white males were manumitted or given burghership.[2] Nevertheless, the frequency of interracial sex between white men and slaves exemplifies another use of white males controlling the bodies and sexual freedom of female slaves, adding another layer of force for social control, which can be seen in Willem Menssink’s penchant for sex with his slave women.[3] Like many other male settlers, it was not unusual to have sex with slave women, although the church never condoned it.[4]

In addition to sex, white males often controlled their slaves across the Cape because the household slept under the same roof. A shortage of living space led to higher amount of intimacy between slaves and masters, rural and urban.[5] Indeed, even in Cape Gentry homes, slaves often lived inside the house.[6] Thus, slaves were not only vulnerable to slaveholders’ sexual power, but also within reach of them and their families, decreasing chances for autonomy and, especially in rural areas, limiting socialization with other enslaved peoples on neighboring small farms.[7] Moreover, slaves in both rural areas and Cape Town were vulnerable to physical violence and the threat of it, although slaveholders who took the law into their own hands with cruel punishments of their slaves instead of relying on the VOC to chastise them could be shunned by Cape society and penalized by the Company.[8]

            Despite the shared characteristics of slavery in Cape Town and rural areas, the peculiar institution developed differently from slavery in Cape Town in multiple ways. For instance, slaves on Cape farmsteads outside of the arable southwest, on the frontier or small estates, were often very few in numbers on their plantations.[9] These Cape slaves on small estates would then mostly socialize with their white masters who oversaw them personally or had a knecht or mandoor. Regardless, slaves on these small farms outside of the arable Cape were very close with their masters, and, in some cases, with Khoikhoi laborers and women, often the only available sexual partners for the mostly male enslaved workforce.[10] As mentioned previously, the mixed-race offspring of slaves and their masters were usually not freed, but a Creole culture based on the Indische culture of VOC holdings in the Indian Ocean world and European culture developed on larger estates. This was aided by the larger estates featuring more slaves from common origins, facilitating communication and socialization among slaves and developing a unique slave culture influenced by European culture, too.[11] Larger estates also featured more skilled slave craftsmen, likely better treated.[12]

While being spread out in small numbers with their white masters and some Khoikhoi workers, rural slaves also lacked privacy needed to maintain their own family units, being seen as part of the patriarchal family unit as perpetual children in need of white paternalism.[13] Despite cases intense domestic affection that could arise from paternalism between master and slave, their membership in the family included the master’s children having the right of beating slaves, indicating the unequal and hierarchical structure of master-slave relations embedded within the family.[14] Rural slave resistance, and slave resistance generally throughout the Cape, was likely undermined by slave diversity, since the population came from all over the Indian Ocean and linguistic hurdles and ethnic rivalry may have caused slave resistance to take on a more individualized form.[15] However, some forms of group resistance appear in slaves running away beyond the frontier to join Khoikhoi groups or to inaccessible areas to form small maroon bands, which are just some of the options available to rural slaves. Drosters, or gangs of fugitive slaves, such as the one Pieter of Madagascar was part of in early 18^th century Land van Waveren, were also common forms of slave resistance on the frontier.[16]

Overall, slaves in the countryside, unfortunately, were mostly concentrated in smaller farms, slept in the same home with the master, and because central authority weakened the further away from Cape Town one was, slaveholders could use more violence or brutality as they saw fit without much control from VOC authority. Unlike their urban counterparts or those in bondage on large estates, their options for socialization were primarily with European masters and Khoikhoi, so slaves and trekboers both adopted elements of Khoi culture, such as a pastoralist economy, or their Khoi-styled shelters.[17] The overly close quarters between slave and free ultimately developed into the perfect conditions for the use of paternalism as well as brute force to discipline and subordinate slaves in the Cape.

Similar to conditions of slavery in the rural Cape, urban slaves, who comprised a significant portion of all slaves in the Cape, were also under close regulation by colonial society.[18] Brutality, public beatings, and widespread abuse of slaves were common, particularly for Company slaves housed in the Slave Lodge, which also functioned as a brothel.[19] Company slaves, however, were not representative of all slaves in the Cape, particularly because of the draconian measures taken by the Company to control them with overseers since they were organized into large work gangs for various forms of labor in Cape Town.[20] Company slaves gradually became a very tiny proportion of the total slave population, hitting rock-bottom by 1795, the year of the first British occupation, with almost all reported slaves being privately owned.[21] Before the Company’s decline, the VOC managed their slaves through overseers, often slaves themselves.[22] The Company also relied on Kaffers, Eastern convicts from their Asian possessions, imported as slaves to monitor, police, and apprehend Cape Town’s slave population.[23] Like rural areas and privately-owned slaves, miscegenation at the Lodge was also frequent. In fact, an estimate for mixed-race children born there in 1671 was ¾ having mixed ancestry.[24] The case of slaves at the Lodge, however, were slightly different in that sex ratios approached a balance, so these additional women were targets for European bachelors and sailors employed by the VOC.[25] Despite the increased surveillance of the Company’s slaves, they were still able to interact with each other and socialize with other urban populations, such as males seeking prostitution, or with other slaves and residents of Cape Town, so their enslavement differed in some key respects from the rural slaves’ on small estates living inside the homes of their masters.

Besides the Company’s slaves in Cape Town, the rest of the urban slave population enjoyed comparatively much more freedom. Though attempts to limit and monitor their movement and keep them under the paternalistic slave-master relationship were utilized, urban slaves were often rented by their masters, giving them a degree of mobility and autonomy from their masters.[26] Slaves in Cape Town hired out were also more likely to pay for their own accommodation, providing additional distance between themselves and the paternalism of domestic slavery associated with living in the same home as slaveholders.[27] Predictably, these urban slaves had far more opportunities to mingle with others in Cape Town’s markets and their various types of work led to increased chances of socialization and occasions for horizontal acculturation with other subordinate peoples in Cape society.[28] These relatively mobile, unfettered Capetonian slaves also did not have to deal with an efficient or strong police force in Cape Town, allowing another degree of relative freedom.[29] Furthermore, slaves’ relative autonomy surfaced in the frequency of slave theft of white property and forming their own sub-cultures and spaces within the city visiting taverns.[30]  Urban slaves also resisted attempts under British rule for Christian conversion and moral education, preferring Islam, which spread rapidly because the port received Muslim slaves, exiles and convicts from India and Southeast Asia, exemplifying the cosmopolitan culture of Cape Town and slave society.[31]

Naturally, there were multiple measures taken by Cape Town’s slaveholders and the government to curtail the freedom of movement enjoyed by urban slaves. For instance, Cape Town’s curfew laws attempted to reduce slave autonomy and retain control of the streets for European authority.[32] The aforementioned Kaffers served as auxiliary police as well, assisting in the maintenance of the social order and symbolizing slave disunity and internal stratification.[33] The threat of sale and the public military rituals and presence in Cape Town also served as deterrents to slave autonomy and resistance in the city, showing the powers of colonial authority authority in urban space.[34] The threat of violent punishment and public beatings strengthened white authority by adding spectacle to what in the countryside would have been largely private affairs of disciplining slaves.[35] Although the authority of slaveholders was augmented in some ways in the city, slaveholders of Cape Town lacked direct political power because of elite divisions and British colonialism introduced ameliorative legislation to limit the extent of cruel punishment, thereby improving the lot of slaves in the 19^th century.[36]

In summation, slavery in both rural and urban Cape society clearly depended on the degree of propinquity to imbue it with alternative forms of social control. The high degree of paternalism, evident in the smallholdings of rural Cape society, was one form of social control that also continued to rely on physical coercion and intimidation. The Company slaves in Cape Town received less paternalism and more of the direct, constant physical, sexual, and supervision that characterized slavery on the large plantations of the Caribbean or the American South, partly because of the large numbers of slaves organized into specific work crews. Other urban slaves, exemplified by those whose labor slaveholders rented out, were more likely to live outside of their master’s accommodations and socialize with other slaves and urbanites across the city, further developing slave sub-cultures influenced by the diversity of slave origins as well as European culture. However, in all areas of slave distribution in the Cape, cultural and racial miscegenation occurred, extending to the creation of a new language, Afrikaans, a development that could only arise from oppressively close relations and contact between the masters and the slaves. Thus, the close relations of master and slave imbued slavery in the Cape with a façade of benevolence and ensured widespread miscegenation and cultural mixing through paternalism and factors such as location in the Cape.

Bibliography

Armstrong, J. and Worden, N. “The Slaves, 1652-1834,” in Elphick and Giliomee (eds), The Shaping of South African Society ( 2^nd ed., Cape Town, 1989).

Bank, Andrew. The Decline of Urban Slavery at the Cape, 1806-1843 (Cape Town, 1991).

Elphick, R. and Shell, R. “Intergroup Relations: Khoikhoi, settlers, slaves and free blacks, 1652-1795,” in Elphick and Giliomee (eds), The Shaping of South African Society (Cape Town, 1989).

Penn, Nigel. “The Fatal Passion of Brewer Menssink: Sex, beer and politics in a Cape family, 1694-1722,” in Rogues, Rebels and Runaways (Cape Town, 1999).

“The wife, the farmer and the farmer’s slaves: adultery and murder on a frontier farm in the early eighteenth century Cape,” Kronos: Journal of Cape History, 28, Nov. 2002.

Ross, Robert. Cape of Torments: Slaves and Resistance in South Africa (London, 1983).

Shell, Robert. “The Family and Slavery at the Cape, 1680-1808,” in W. James and M. Simons (eds), The Angry Divide: Social and Economic History of the Western Cape (Cape Town, 1989).

“The Tower of Babel: The Slave Trade and Creolization at the Cape, 1652-1834,” in E. Eldredge and F. Morton, (eds), Slavery in South Africa: Captive Labour on the Dutch Frontier (Boulder, Colorado, 1994), pp.11-39.

Worden, Nigel. Slavery in Dutch South Africa (Cambridge, 1985).

---

[1] R. Elphick and R. Shell, “Intergroup Relations: Khoikhoi, settlers, slaves and free blacks, 1652-1795,” in Elphick and Giliomee (eds), The Shaping of South African Society (2^nd ed., Cape Town, 1989), 194.

[2] Ibid, 203.

[3] Nigel Penn, “The Fatal Passion of Brewer Menssink: Sex, beer and politics in a Cape family, 1694-1722,” in Rogues, Rebels and Runaways (Cape Town, 1999), 18.

[4] Ibid, 19.

[5] Robert Shell, “The Family and Slavery at the Cape, 1680-1808,” in W. James and M. Simons (eds), The Angry Divide: Social and Economic History of the Western Cape (Cape Town, 1989), 26.

[6] Ibid, 25.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid, 20-21

[9] Ibid, 22.

[10] Elphick and Shell, “Intergroup Relations: Khoikhoi, settlers, slaves and free blacks, 1652-1795,”  200.

[11] Ibid, 225.

[12] Nigel Worden, Slavery in Dutch South Africa (Cambridge, 1985), 87.

[13] Ibid, 95.

[14] Shell, “The Family and Slavery at the Cape, 1680-1808,” 26.

[15] Robert Shell, “The Tower of Babel: The Slave Trade and Creolization at the Cape, 1652-1834,” in E. Eldredge and F. Morton, (eds), Slavery in South Africa: Captive Labour on the Dutch Frontier (Boulder, Colorado, 1994), 21.

[16] Nigel Penn, “The wife, the farmer and the farmer’s slaves: adultery and murder on a frontier farm in the early eighteenth century Cape,” Kronos: Journal of Cape History, 28, Nov. 2002, 14.

[17] Elphick and Shell, “Intergroup Relations: Khoikhoi, settlers, slaves and free blacks, 1652-1795,”  227-228.

[18] Robert Ross, Cape of Torments: Slaves and Resistance in South Africa (London, 1983), 25.

[19] Elphick and Shell, “Intergroup Relations: Khoikhoi, settlers, slaves and free blacks, 1652-1795,”195.

[20] Worden, Slavery in Dutch South Africa, 90.

[21] J. Armstrong and N. Worden, “The Slaves, 1652-1834,” in Elphick and Giliomee (eds), The Shaping of South African Society (2^nd ed., Cape Town, 1989), 129.

[22] Ibid, 127.

[23] Ibid, 128.

[24] ^[24] Elphick and Shell, “Intergroup Relations: Khoikhoi, settlers, slaves and free blacks, 1652-1795,” 195.

[25] Ibid, 198.

[26] Andrew Bank, The Decline of Urban Slavery at the Cape, 1806-1843 (Cape Town, 1991), 127.

[27] Ibid, 62.

[28] Ibid, 61, 77.

[29] Ibid, 84.

[30] Ibid, 81.

[31] Worden, Slavery in Dutch South Africa , 98.

[32] Shell, “The Family and Slavery at the Cape, 1680-1808,” 26.

[33] Armstrong and Worden, “The Slaves, 1652-1834,” 129.

[34] Bank, The Decline of Urban Slavery at the Cape, 1806-1843, 69, 76.

[35] Ibid, 65.

[36] Ibid, 80, 83.

Contribution to the History of Songhay

Jean Rouch's Contribution à l'histoire des Songhay is rather outdated yet still useful for insights on Songhay history and culture. A reputable ethnographer who studied Songhay religion and magic extensively, Rouch's understanding of their history unsurprisingly emphasizes Islam as an alien element that laid the foundations for the collapse of the Askia. Despite this problematic frame for Songhay history, Rouch's work is one of the best earlier attempts to make sense of Songhay history from its shadowy early origins at Kukiya to the late colonial period. 

Unfortunately, Rouch repeated some of the mistakes of Delafosse and early colonial scholars. For instance, the Za dynasty were said to have been Christianized Lemta Berbers who left Tripolitania around 670. In addition, the early state of Ghana (Wagadu) is attributed to Judaeo-Syrian colonists. These mistakes inhibit a deeper understanding of early Songhay, one which clearly indicates an important role for the Sorko, Gow, and farming populations living near and along the Niger as the foundation of the first Songhay polity. This later inhibits Rouch's analysis of the Za, Si, and Askia dynasties since Islam, promoted by Askia Muhammad, is blamed for the fall of Songhay. Sonni Ali, on the other hand, was the champion of a "black" state that brought Songhay to its zenith, something commemorated in Songhay oral traditions, religion, and Rouch's problematic view of Islam's relations with Songhay religion. 

Of course, later scholars have benefitted from new approaches to the Timbuktu chronicles, epigraphic evidence from Bentia & Gao, as well as archaeological excavations at Gao and other sites in Mali to throw into question a number of theories held as gospel in Rouch's day. The picture that emerges now is one far more dynamic and one that calls into question some of the older generation's stereotypes of Kukiya as the fount of "black" Songhay paganism and even the historicity of Ali Kulun. Nonetheless, Rouch's insights are occasionally insightful here, particularly his proposed translations for Za dynasty rulers recorded in the Timbuktu chronicles. His familiarity with Songhay oral tradition and religion also adds a new dimension to the ways in which Sonni Ali and other rulers are remembered for building their empires through military conquests aided by magic or occult knowledge. 

Development and Regression on the Middle Niger

Le développement et la régression chez les peuples de la boucle du Niger à l'époque précolonial by Michael Tymowski is an ambitious work. An attempt to make sense of around 1000 years of economic progress and regression along a key part of the Western Sudan (centered on the Middle Niger), Tymowski relies heavily on the Timbuktu chronicles, external Arabic sources, and oral traditions. He persuasively makes the case for economic development with the growth of urban centers, limited private land tenure, and accelerated long-distance trade, which later declined in the 1600s and 1700s. This shows that the history of "development" in sub-Saharan African areas has always been dynamic, and not simply one of timeless "backwardness" or irrelevance. 

However, Tymowski's study is quite outdated and relies on French translations of sources in Arabic. It also relies heavily on Jean Rouch and other somewhat outdated scholarship on Songhay ethnography and oral traditions, even repeating the unproven claim that the Dia/Za dynasty of early Songhay rulers were actually Lemta Berbers. In addition, he heavily relied on the problematic Tarikh al-Fattash chronicle for assertions about servile/caste populations. This dependence on French translations of Arabic sources and outmoded scholarship on Songhay ethnography and oral traditions suggest possible limitations of Tymowski's study. While one must acknowledge that the aforementioned Timbuktu chronicles are probably reliable for the 1400s and 1500s (at least more so than for earlier centuries), Tymowski's attempt to derive meaningful conclusions or theories about the economic development of the Mali Empire and Songhay Empire may be misleading or problematic. Nonetheless, there are a number of intriguing ideas about the relationship between the towns (Gao, Djenne, Timbuktu) and the countryside, as well as the role of the state in promoting land tenure arrangements along the lines of property property or through state domains (those of the askias) that controlled and promoted the redistribution of goods.