28 - Gender, Migration, and the End of Slavery in the Region of Kayes, French Soudan

Summary

French Soudan was a former French colony now known as Mali. From the end of the nineteenth century onward, with the gradual abolition of slavery in this part of West Africa, newly emancipated slaves began to leave their former masters. At the end of the nineteenth century in the region of Kayes, the economy relied heavily on slave labor. Female slaves formed the majority of the slave population. Women had a greater value than men. A closer examination of the colonial archives shows that former female slaves in the region of Kayes, alone or with their family, even if they were the wives or the concubines of their masters, did participate in the migratory movements spurred by the abolition of slavery. This chapter presents two petitions filed in the archives so as to give the reader a glimpse of the historical work of reconstituting slaves' histories using scattered documents.