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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 June 2021
By tracing the history of what French colonizers considered a conspiracy against them, this paper seeks to reconstruct the complexity of the first phase of colonial occupation in Zinder (Niger) during the early twentieth century. It draws on three types of source, corresponding to three successive moments and to three different perspectives on the event: the archives of the colonial investigation, carried out by French officers to justify their action; the personal journals and notes of the interpreter Moïse Landeroin, who did not believe the accusations and opposed his superiors; and finally the letters written in Arabic by one of the defendants, Malam Yaro, to plead his innocence. These letters enable a new reading of what took place in 1906 by highlighting the social intricacies of Zinder society. Using more diverse sources thus makes it possible to reconstruct the different timelines of the occupation and to reveal the blind spots of a purely colonial interpretation of the event.
This article was translated from the French by Monica Biberson and edited by Robin Emlein, Chloe Morgan, and Stephen Sawyer.
The research for this article was conducted during four trips to Niger: Niamey in February 2015, July 2015, and April 2016, and Zinder in February 2017. I would like to thank the sarki of Damagaram, Aboubakar Oumarou Sanda, for having made my research in Zinder possible, as well as the director of the National Archives of Niger (Archives nationales du Niger, hereafter “ANN”), Boukari Habou, and the director of the Departmental Archives of Zinder (Archives départementales de Zinder, hereafter “ADZ”), Mato Marafa. I would also like to thank André Salifou, Mahaman Tidjani Alou, Djibo Hamani, Zakari Maïkorema, and Roufai Ali for their invaluable help and clarifications on Niger’s history, as well as my friend Malah Abdou who accompanied me during my investigations in Zinder in 2010 and 2017, obtained copies of documents concerning the 1906 events from Zinder’s departmental archives in December 2015, and worked with me on the recordings in Hausa. However, the present author is solely responsible for the analyses presented in this article.
1. Unless stated otherwise, all non-French words in italics are in Hausa and translated by the present author.
2. Supreme Military Council, Charte nationale (Niamey: Journal officiel de la République du Niger, 1987), 8 – 9.
3. Bakabe Mahamane, Si les cavaliers… (Ortn, 1981).
4. Edward Berenson, Heroes of Empire: Five Charismatic Men and the Conquest of Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 6; Berny Sèbe, Heroic Imperialists in Africa: The Promotion of British and French Colonial Heroes, 1870 – 1939 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013), 27.
5. Elara Bertho, “Sarraounia, une reine africaine entre histoire et mythe littéraire (Niger, 1899 – 2010),” Genre et Histoire. La revue de l’association Mnémosyne 8 (2011), http://journals.openedition.org/genrehistoire/1218.
6. “Le complot de Zinder,” Le radical, August 23, 1906; “Le complot de Zinder,” Le Temps, August 23, 1906; “L’affaire de Djanet et l’agitation musulmane,” Bulletin du comité de l’Afrique française, August 1906, p. 233.
7. Voice-over conclusion of Mahamane, Si les cavaliers…, 89th min.
8. François-Xavier Fauvelle-Aymar and Claude-Hélène Perrot, eds., Le retour des rois. Les autorités traditionnelles et l’État en Afrique contemporaine (Paris: Karthala, 2003), 9 – 10. This phenomenon has been reinforced by decentralization; see Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan and Mahaman Tidjani Alou, eds., Les pouvoirs locaux au Niger, vol. 1, À la veille de la décentralisation (Dakar/Paris: Codesria/Karthala, 2009), 15 – 62.
9. Jon Abbink, Mirjam de Bruijn, and Klaas van Walraven, Rethinking Resistance: Revolt and Violence in African History (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 1 – 8.
10. Terence O. Ranger, Revolt in Southern Rhodesia, 1896 – 1897: A Study in African Resistance (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1967).
11. With the notable exception, for French-speaking contexts, of Yves Person. The following generation of historiens coopérants, sent from France to the former colonies, including Jean-Pierre Chrétien and Jean-Paul Rothiot, did make use of these sources.
12. File 11G5, compiled by the federal authorities of Afrique occidentale française (French West Africa, hereafter “AOF”), is kept at the National Archives of Senegal (Archives nationales du Sénégal, hereafter “ANS”) in Dakar and as a microfilm at the French National Archives in Paris and the French Overseas Archives (Archives nationales d’outre-mer, hereafter “ANOM”) in Aix-en-Provence, 200 MI 856 and 857. Roberta Ann Dunbar, “Damagaram (Zinder, Niger), 1812 – 1906: The History of a Central Sudanic Kingdom” (PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1970), 107 – 21. André Salifou is the author of the play and film script Si les cavaliers…, as well as two academic articles dealing with the conspiracy: Salifou, “Malan Yaroh, un grand négociant du Soudan central à la fin du xixe siècle,” Journal de la Société des africanistes 42, no. 1 (1972): 7 – 27; Salifou, “La conjuration manquée du sultan de Zinder (Niger) 1906,” Afrika Zamani 3 (1974): 69 – 103.
13. Abubakar Sokoto Mohammad, “A Social Interpretation of the Satiru Revolt of c. 1894 – 1906” (Master’s thesis, Ahmadu Bello University, 1983); Idrissa Kimba, “Les révoltes paysannes et anticoloniales dans l’Ouest du Niger, 1905 – 1906,” Paideuma. Mitteilungen zur Kulturkunde 40 (1994): 173 – 213.
14. Mahdism is a messianic movement inspired by the Muslim tradition of the Mahdi, whose coming at the end of time is supposed to help restore the original purity of faith by placing everything under divine stewardship. Rowland A. Adeleye, “Mahdist Triumph and British Revenge in Northern Nigeria: Satiru 1906,” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 6, no. 2 (1972): 193 – 214; Jan S. Hogendorn and Paul E. Lovejoy, “Revolutionary Mahdism and Resistance to Colonial Rule in the Sokoto Caliphate, 1905 – 6,” Journal of African History 31, no. 2 (1990): 217 – 44.
15. Muhammad Sani Umar, Islam and Colonialism: Intellectual Responses of Muslims of Northern Nigeria to British Colonial Rule (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 92, showed that the characterization of the revolt in Satiru as a Mahdist movement relied on secondary literature, whereas the discourses produced in Satiru, particularly the Hausa songs, contained virtually no reference to the Mahdi. Jean-Paul Rothiot, L’ascension d’un chef africain au début de la colonisation. Aouta le Conquérant (Dosso-Niger) (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1988), 161 – 83, also analyzed the link between the revolts in Karma and Kobkitanda. Finally, the Sanūsiyya tarīqa (brotherhood) was repeatedly subject to accusations based on rumors and conspiracy theories, which were deconstructed by Jean-Louis Triaud, La légende noire de la Sanûsiyya. Une confrérie musulmane saharienne sous le regard français (1840 – 1930), vol. 1 (Paris: Éd. de la Msh, 1995).
16. As stated by Frederick Cooper, “Conflict and Connection: Rethinking Colonial African History,” American Historical Review 99, no. 5 (1994): 1516 – 45, here p. 1533.
17. This issue intrigued him, leading to a long footnote in Stephen Baier, An Economic History of Central Niger (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), 97 and 266, n. 3. All Baier’s interview recordings were deposited at the Archives of Traditional Music (hereafter “ATM”), Indiana University, where I was able to obtain a digital copy of the four interviews consulted for this article.
18. This position was defended as early as 1960 by Philip D. Curtin, “The Archives of Tropical Africa: A Reconnaissance,” Journal of African History 1, no. 1 (1960): 129 – 47, here p. 145.
19. Because of the security conditions in the Sahara and the Sahel these past few years, it is not always possible for researchers to conduct fieldwork outside the capital cities. I therefore had to wait seven years before I was able to return to Zinder. Furthermore, we are at least two generations removed from the events described here, and practices of oral transmission are in steep decline. The beginnings of colonization are gradually fading from memory. For these different reasons, a promising line of research is the use of interviews recorded on open-reel audio tapes or audiocassettes by other researchers in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, which give access to memories now lost.
20. Romain Bertrand, Le long remords de la conquête. Manille – Mexico – Madrid. L’affaire Diego de Àvila, 1577 – 1580 (Paris: Éd. du Seuil, 2015), 25 – 26.
21. With the exception of Benedetta Rossi, “Entangled Histories of Colonial Occupation, 1899 – 1917,” in From Slavery to Aid: Politics, Labour, and Ecology in the Nigerien Sahel, 1800 – 2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 104 – 60; and of Emily Lynn Osborn, “Conquest,” in Our New Husbands Are Here: Households, Gender, and Politics in a West African State from the Slave Trade to Colonial Rule (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2011), 115 – 40. I have chosen not to use the term “conquest,” which can inadvertently carry positive connotations and does not communicate the violence of the beginnings of colonial domination. Here, the French were de facto a foreign army that, in the name of military superiority, occupied a previously sovereign territory.
22. John Lonsdale, “The Politics of Conquest: The British in Western Kenya, 1894 – 1908,” The Historical Journal 20, no. 4 (1977): 841 – 70; Lonsdale, “The Conquest State of Kenya, 1895 – 1905,” in Bruce Berman and John Lonsdale, Unhappy Valley: Conflict in Kenya and in Africa, vol. 1, State and Class (London: J. Currey, 1992), 13 – 74.
23. The citation from which the heading of this section is drawn can be found in ANN, 9B8.1.3, “Correspondance au départ de Zinder in extenso 1905 – 1906,” letter from the district commander Lefebvre to the regional commander, March 10, 1906, pp. 60 – 61.
24. Frédéric Monier, Le complot dans la République. Stratégies du secret, de Boulanger à la Cagoule (Paris: La Découverte, 1998), 10.
25. Gilles Malandain, L’introuvable complot. Attentat, enquête et rumeur dans la France de la Restauration (Paris: Éd. de l’Ehess, 2011), 12.
26. Christopher Harrison, France and Islam in West Africa, 1860 – 1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 19; David Robinson, Paths of Accommodation: Muslim Societies and French Colonial Authorities in Senegal and Mauritania, 1880 – 1920 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2000), 68; Charles-Robert Ageron, Les Algériens musulmans et la France (1871 – 1919) (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1968), 1:513.
27. Idrissa Kimba, Guerres et sociétés. Les populations du Niger occidental au xix e siècle et leurs réactions face à la colonisation, 1896 – 1906 (Niamey: Institut de recherches en sciences humaines, 1981), 151 – 52.
28. Rothiot, L’ascension d’un chef africain, 179 – 82; Kimba, Guerres et sociétés, 155 – 69; Mamoudou Djibo, Karma. Du Siciya au canton (1640 – 1960) (Cotonou: Éd. du Flamboyant, 2015), 213 – 21.
29. Harrison, France and Islam in West Africa, 42.
30. André Salifou, Le Damagaram ou sultanat de Zinder au xix e siècle (Niamey: Centre nigérien de recherches en sciences humaines, 1971), 60; Baier, An Economic History of Central Niger, 45; Dunbar, “Damagaram (Zinder, Niger),” 44.
31. Salifou, Le Damagaram ou sultanat de Zinder, 102 – 114; Dunbar, “Damagaram (Zinder, Niger),” 82 – 83. This history of violence linking France and Damagaram for over a century would certainly explain why no French researchers have worked on Zinder, with the exception of Pierre Mounier, “La dynamique des interrelations politiques. Le cas du sultanat de Zinder (Niger),” Cahiers d’études africaines 39, no. 154 (1999): 367 – 86.
32. Octave Meynier, La Mission Joalland-Meynier (Paris: Éd. de l’Empire français, 1947), 74.
33. On February 18 the district commander of Gouré mentioned a rumor that the German resident in Dikoa (present-day Cameroon) had been attacked by his interpreter. The opposite turned out to be true, the interpreter having been killed by the resident. ANN, 9B8.1.3, “Correspondance au départ de Zinder in extenso 1905 – 1906,” letter 60 from the district commander of Gouré to the district commander of Zinder. On March 4, fears of a contagion coming from Sokoto were raised: ANN, 9B8.1.3, “Correspondance au départ de Zinder in extenso 1905 – 1906,” letter 72 by Lefebvre, the district commander of Zinder, sent from Djadjidouna, March 4, 1906, p. 46.
34. It is worth mentioning that, although they happen to share the same surname, the present author is in no way related to the protagonist of this story, Captain Ernest Lefebvre.
35. Monier, Le complot dans la République, 14 – 15; Malandain, L’introuvable complot, 123.
36. ANS, 11G5, file X, “Rapport du capitaine Lefebvre, commandant de cercle, sur les agissements du sultan de Zinder et de ses complices,” March 1906, item 145, pp. 10 – 12.
37. On the correspondence between Captain Lefebvre and his superiors, see in particular ANS, 11G5, file A, “Copie des lettres dans lesquelles le commandant de cercle de Zinder rend compte des événements survenus à Zinder,” Théral to Lefebvre, March 8, 1906, item 2, p. 1; Lefebvre to the battalion commander, March 10, 1906, item 1, p. 6; March 11, 1906, item 3, p. 1; March 18, 1906, item 4, p. 1; and March 20, 1906, item 5, p. 2.
38. Stephen Baier and Paul E. Lovejoy, “The Desert-Side Economy of the Central Sudan,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 8, no. 4 (1975): 551 – 81, here p. 567; Paul Marty, L’islam et les tribus dans la colonie du Niger (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1931), 399.
39. ANS, 11G5, file A, “Copie des lettres dans lesquelles le commandant de cercle de Zinder rend compte des événements survenus à Zinder,” Lefebvre to the battalion commander, March 23, 1906, item 6, p. 1.
40. Vincennes, Service historique de la défense (Ministry of Defense Archives), GR 4 YE 1418, personal file of Théral.
41. ANS, 11G5, file A, “Copie des lettres dans lesquelles le commandant de cercle de Zinder rend compte des événements survenus à Zinder,” Lefebvre to the battalion commander, March 23, 1906, item 6, p. 2 and March 26, 1906, item 9, p. 1.
42. ANS, 11G5, file A, “Copie des lettres dans lesquelles le commandant de cercle de Zinder rend compte des événements survenus à Zinder,” Lefebvre to the battalion commander, March 23, 1906, item 11, pp. 2 and 4.
43. ANS, 11G5, file X, “Rapport du capitaine Lefebvre, commandant de cercle, sur les agissements du sultan de Zinder et de ses complices,” March 1906, item 145, pp. 19 – 20.
44. Mahamane Kane, who was born around 1890, was the son of dan Maleka, a merchant originally from Tessaoua who had come to Zinder in the 1870s: Baier, An Economic History of Central Niger, 94 and 177.
45. ATM, interview with Mahamane Kane conducted by Stephen Baier in Hausa, December 3, 1972, audiocassette 2870, from 11 min. 30 sec. to 16 min. 55 sec. Unless stated otherwise, all interview references and citations come from translations made by the present author and Malah Abdou based on digital recordings.
46. On Malam Yaro, see Salifou, “Malan Yaroh,” 14 – 22; Baier, An Economic History of Central Niger, 68 – 69. On Malam Chétima, see Zakari Maïkorema, “Une figure tijânî de l’est nigérien : Malam Abba Tchillum de Kolori-Kolo,” in La Tijâniyya. Une confrérie musulmane à la conquête de l’Afrique, ed. Jean-Louis Triaud and David Robinson (Paris: Karthala, 2000), 237 – 48, here p. 240. The father and the son both had the same name. The son was sometimes called Malam Mahamadou Chétima, which is used here to help distinguish between the two.
47. The heading of this section is drawn from Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Académie des sciences d’outre-mer (hereafter “BASOM”), private archives, Moïse Landeroin collection (hereafter “ML collection”), 12-11, private letter from Lefebvre to Landeroin, April 22, 1906, p. 3: “You think these are local accidents but, my dear friend, revolt is on every Muslim mind.”
48. ANS, 11G5, file Q, “Copie des feuilles de renseignements fournies au mois d’avril par le commandant de cercle au commandant de la région, du capitaine Lefebvre,” April 1906, items 115 and 116.
49. ANS, 11G5, file X, “Rapport du capitaine Lefebvre, commandant de cercle, sur les agissements du sultan de Zinder et de ses complices,” March 1906, item 116, p. 1.
50. ANS, 11G5, file F, “Dépositions reçues par le commandant de région,” undated, item 44, p. 1.
51. ANS, 11G5, copy of letter from Gadel to Lamolle, April 5, 1906, unnumbered item, p. 3.
52. ANS, 11G5, file Q, “Copie des feuilles de renseignements fournies au mois d’avril par le commandant de cercle au commandant de la région, du capitaine Lefebvre,” April 1906, items 115 to 135.
53. ANS, 11G5, file F, “Dépositions reçues par le commandant de région,” undated, items 44 to 47.
54. Baier, An Economic History of Central Niger, 70.
55. ANS, 11G5, file E, “Copie des lettres du chef de bataillon commandant la région résumant l’enquête conduite par cet officier supérieur,” copy of letter from Gadel to the territorial commandant, May 8, 1906, item 43, p. 10.
56. ANS, 11G5, file F, “Dépositions reçues par le commandant de région,” undated, item 55, pp. 1 – 3.
57. Access to the ruler was regulated and audiences had to be negotiated with the palace eunuchs. According to Henri Gaden, who had been the district commander of Zinder, the sarki was “almost completely isolated from the people by a complicated etiquette governing a strict protocol; he is surrounded by intrigues in the midst of which it is hard for him to distinguish the truth. … Within his palace he is invisible and only grants audiences from behind a curtain; moreover, in order to gain access to him, the tallakas have to bring gifts for him and for the eunuchs of the guard who tightly control the entrance of the palace.” Capitaine Gaden, Notice sur la résidence de Zinder (Paris: H. Charles-Lavauzelle, 1904), 74 – 75; Salifou, Le Damagaram ou sultanat de Zinder, 118 – 19; Mounier, “La dynamique des interrelations politiques,” 377.
58. ANS, 11G5, file H, “Interrogatoire des inculpés d’après les dépositions par le commandant de région,” item 63, p. 1.
59. Murray Last, The Sokoto Caliphate (London: Longmans, 1967), 193.
60. ANS, 11G5, file H, “Interrogatoire des inculpés d’après les dépositions par le commandant de région,” item 66, p. 1; Salifou, Le Damagaram ou sultanat de Zinder, 90, mentions an act of manipulation on the part of the “bard of Kazaure” to bring down the sarki Suleyman, brother of the sarki Amadou dan Bassa, but not the use of a letter.
61. ANS, 11G5, file H, “Interrogatoire des inculpés d’après les dépositions par le commandant de région,” item 69, p. 1.
62. Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), 192; Baber Johansen, “Signs as Evidence: The Doctrine of Ibn Taymiyya (1263 – 1328) and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 1351) on Proof,” Islamic Law and Society 9, no. 2 (2002): 168 – 93.
63. The preeminence of oral evidence was typical of the Saharo-Sahelian regions, see Ghislaine Lydon, “A Paper Economy of Faith without Faith in Paper: A Reflection on Islamic Institutional History,” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 71, no. 3 (2009): 647 – 59. Ismail Warscheid, “Traduire le social en normatif. La justice islamique dans le grand Touat (Sahara algérien) au xviiie siècle” (PhD diss., EHESS, 2014) 274 – 80, offers a more measured version of these relations between written and oral evidence.
64. The phrase “colonial caliphate,” was coined by Murray Last, “The Colonial Caliphate of Northern Nigeria,” in Le temps des marabouts. Itinéraires et stratégies islamiques en Afrique occidentale française (vers 1880 – 1960), ed. Jean-Louis Triaud and David Robinson (Paris: Karthala, 1997), 67.
65. ANS, 11G5, file H, “Interrogatoire des inculpés d’après les dépositions par le commandant de région,” item 66, p. 2.
66. ANS, 11G5, file H, “Interrogatoire des inculpés d’après les dépositions par le commandant de région,” item 65, p. 2.
67. Grants and gifts were indeed part of power rituals in the Hausa sarauta (government) and especially in Zinder: Guy Nicolas, Don rituel et échange marchand dans une société sahélienne (Paris: Institut d’ethnologie, Musée de l’homme, 1986), 97 – 104.
68. Vincent Robert, La petite-fille de la sorcière. Enquête sur la culture magique des campagnes au temps de George Sand (Paris: Les Belles lettres, 2015), 58 and 76.
69. Jean Cantournet, “Présentation du fonds Landeroin,” Mondes et cultures 52, no. 1 (1992): 128 – 32.
70. BASOM, ML collection, 12-1, p. 11.
71. In his private archives (BASOM, ML collection), file 12, which was devoted to the conspiracy, comprises twelve subfiles; several of the field notebooks kept in file 1, particularly 1-11, concern the period of the conspiracy.
72. The most finalized version is the one bearing classification mark 12-2 (BASOM, ML collection); several previous versions and drafts are in file 12-10; the notebooks containing the field notes bear the classification marks 13-11 and 1-11.
73. BASOM, ML collection, 12-10, draft 1, p. 28.
74. BASOM, ML collection, 12-10, draft 2, p. 1.
75. BASOM, ML collection, 12-10, draft 2, p. 2.
76. As shown by the letters he received in which Lefebvre called him “my dear friend” and the notes recounting his departure from Zinder: BASOM, ML collection, 36-3, Lefebvre to Landeroin, April 12, 1904, p. 1 and notebook 6.
77. ANS, 11G5, file X, “Rapport du capitaine Lefebvre, commandant de cercle, sur les agissements du sultan de Zinder et de ses complices,” March 1906, item 145, p. 35 – 36.
78. BASOM, ML collection, 12-10, draft 2, p. 4.
79. ANS, 11G5, file Q, “Copie des feuilles de renseignements fournies au mois d’avril par le commandant de cercle au commandant de la région, du capitaine Lefebvre,” July 1906, item 135 bis, p. 4.
80. ANS, 11G5, file X, “Rapport du capitaine Lefebvre, commandant de cercle, sur les agissements du sultan de Zinder et de ses complices,” March 1906, item 145, p. 38.
81. BASOM, ML collection, 12-10, draft 2, pp. 7 – 8, and ML collection, 12-2, p. 1.
82. In the notebooks that he kept during the Marchand mission, Landeroin had already used Arabic to record his most personal thoughts, particularly sexual ones, and comments on his comrades: Moïse Landeroin, Mission Congo-Nil (Mission Marchand). Carnets de route (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1996), 6.
83. We will not dwell on Maï Kara’s testimony as it did not bear directly on the alleged conspiracy but concerned more generally the morality of magical practices, especially the sarki’s.
84. ANS, 11G5, file I, “Déposition du nommé Kalla contre cinq des inculpés qu’il accuse d’avoir reçu et lu ensemble une lettre du marabout Maï Kafo de Sokoto. Interrogatoire et confrontations à l’appui,” item 77, pp. 1 – 10, and item 78, p. 2. The possible subversions of the oath on the Quran appear in stories from Hausa oral traditions collected in the early twentieth century by Frank Edgar, ed., “Labarin sarki da alkali, da diyas sarki, da kufegere” and “Labarin ba-larabe, da mata tasa, da yaro,” in Litafi na tatsuniyoyi na Hausa¸ (Belfast: W. Erskine Mayne, 1911 – 1913), 3:87 – 89 and 97 – 99; for an English version, see Hausa Tales and Traditions: An English Translation of “Tatsuniyoyi na Hausa,” trans. Neil Skinner (London: Frank Cass, 1969), 1:425 – 29.
85. ANS, 11G5, file I, “Déposition du nommé Kalla contre cinq des inculpés qu’il accuse d’avoir reçu et lu ensemble une lettre du marabout Maï Kafo de Sokoto. Interrogatoire et confrontations à l’appui,” item 78, pp. 2 – 3, and item 81, pp. 1 – 2.
86. ANS, 11G5, file X, “Rapport du capitaine Lefebvre, commandant de cercle, sur les agissements du sultan de Zinder et de ses complices,” March 1906, item 145, p. 42.
87. ANS, 11G5, file I, “Déposition du nommé Kalla contre cinq des inculpés qu’il accuse d’avoir reçu et lu ensemble une lettre du marabout Maï Kafo de Sokoto. Interrogatoire et confrontations à l’appui,” item 82, p. 2. Concerning the use of the term “servant” in reference to captives, when dealing with a Tuareg notable saying that his servants refused to work and asking what he should do, the author of an intelligence brief pointed out: “As far as we are concerned, we must bear in mind that these servants are captives. If they come to the station, should we set them free?” ANS, 11G5, file Q, “Copie des feuilles de renseignements fournies au mois d’avril par le commandant de cercle au commandant de la région, du capitaine Lefebvre,” April 27, 1906, item 135.
88. BASOM, ML collection, 12-2, p. 14.
89. Guy Bechor, God in the Courtroom: The Transformation of Courtroom Oath and Perjury between Islamic and Franco-Egyptian Law (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 34 – 35. On the weight of oaths in Kano legal practices, see Allan Christelow, “Theft, Homicide, and Oath in Early Twentieth-Century Kano,” in Law in Colonial Africa, ed. Kristin Mann and Richard Roberts (Portsmouth/London: Heinemann/James Currey, 1991), 205 – 21.
90. Mounier, “La dynamique des interrelations politiques,” 373; Neil Skinner, An Anthology of Hausa Literature in Translation (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1977), 103.
91. Personal archives, interview with Djibo Hamani, Niamey, July 24, 2015.
92. Gilbert Vieillard, Coutumiers juridiques de l’Afrique occidentale française, vol. 3, Mauritanie, Niger, Côte d’Ivoire, Dahomey, Guinée française (Paris: Larose, 1939), 101: in 1930, “All inhabitants, whether from towns or villages, swore only on the Quran of Malam Hassan.”
93. BASOM, ML collection, 12-2, p. 10.
94. BASOM, ML collection, 12-2, p. 10.
95. BASOM, ML collection, 12-2, pp. 7 and 15.
96. BASOM, ML collection, 13-11, notebook, p. 12. I worked on the translation with Abdelaziz El Aloui. Captain Gaden described similar actions ascribed to the sarki’s agents: Capitaine Gaden, Notice sur la résidence de Zinder, 82.
97. BASOM, ML collection, 13-11, notebook, pp. 13 and 248.
98. BASOM, ML collection, 12-2, pp. 18 – 19.
99. ANS, 11G5, file X, “Rapport du capitaine Lefebvre, commandant de cercle, sur les agissements du sultan de Zinder et de ses complices,” March 1906, item 145, pp. 12 – 13, 21, 36, and 92.
100. ANS, 11G5, unnumbered item, letter from the battalion commander Gadel to the lieutenant-colonel in command of the military territory of Niger, Niamey, January 31, 1907. The decree in question, drawn up for Annam-Tonkin (Vietnam) and copied and applied in AOF, included collective fines and restricted internment to ten years in specific cases, “insurrections,” “serious political unrest,” or “actions that could compromise public safety.” Sylvie Thénault, Violence ordinaire dans l’Algérie coloniale. Camps, internements, assignations à résidence (Paris: Odile Jacob, 2011), 177.
101. ANS, 11G5, unnumbered item, letter from Lamolle to the governor of Upper Senegal-Niger, January 6, 1907.
102. BASOM, ML collection, 12-2, p. 21.
103. I use “affair” in the sense outlined in Luc Boltanski, Élisabeth Claverie, and Nicolas Offenstadt, eds., Affaires, scandales et grandes causes. De Socrate à Pinochet (Paris: Stock, 2007), 12.
104. These two letters were received in September 1907 and are preserved in ANN, 23.8.6, “Enquête à propos d’une lettre de Malam Yaro.” The file includes both the Arabic and translated French versions. In Landeroin’s private archives, a file bringing together several notes is devoted to Malam Yaro’s letter: BASOM, ML collection, 12-8.
105. Camille Lefebvre, “Le temps des lettres. Échanges diplomatiques entre sultans, émirs et officiers français, Niger 1899 – 1903,” Monde(s) 5, no. 1 (2014): 57 – 80.
106. Ghislaine Lydon, On Trans-Saharan Trails: Islamic Law, Trade Networks, and Cross-Cultural Exchange in Nineteenth-Century Western Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 244 and 277; Baier, An Economic History of Central Niger, 61.
107. For example, on September 28, 1904, after his departure for Chad, he wrote a letter to Gaden which is preserved in his personal archives: ANOM, 15 APC-1, item 104.
108. The title of this section is an adaptation of Mahaman Tidjani Alou’s phrase “the revenge of the plebs,” referring to Zinder’s recent history.
109. Fernand Foureau, D’Alger au Congo par le Tchad. Mission saharienne Foureau-Lamy (Paris: Masson, 1902), 521.
110. Salifou, “Malan Yaroh,” 8 – 12; Baier, An Economic History of Central Niger, 68 – 69 and 260; personal archives, interview with the galadima Maman Djataou, son of the galadima Ousman Djataou, Niamey, April 29, 2016.
111. ATM, interview with Malam Yaro’s son, Malam Ali Yaro, conducted by Baier, May 13, 1972, audiocassette 5295, side A, 11th min.
112. Malam Yaro had already played the role of intermediary during a conflict between Kano and Zinder: ATM, interview with Mahamane Kane conducted by Baier, December 3, 1972, audiocassette 2870, side B, 39th min. Thus, contrary to what the French thought, he had already played a political role before their arrival.
113. “Amma amana ban iya cinta,” “Ba hanyata ba ce” “Mu abun da muka [yi] gado/gada sai fatauci sai karatu,” ATM, interview with Malam Ali Yaro conducted by Baier, May 13, 1972, audiocassette 5295, side A, from 27 min. 50 sec. to 28 min. 48 sec. In his memoirs, General Reibell confirmed the statement of Malam Yaro’s son: Général Reibell, L’épopée saharienne. Carnet de route de la mission saharienne Foureau-Lamy (1898 – 1900) (Paris: Plon, 1931), 215. According to his descendants, Malam Chétima was also asked to become sarki but refused: Maïkorema, “Une figure tijânî de l’est nigérien,” 240.
114. Général Joalland, Le drame de Dankori. Mission Voulet-Chanoine. Mission Joalland-Meynier (Paris: Nouvelles éditions Arago, 1930), 121. According to the family tarikh (historical narrative) of Toubou Abba Ali’s descendants in Hausa, it was not Malam Yaro but rather dan Dalhu Kacella and the sarki Fulani Kusku who came to look for Toubou Abba Ali because of the role that his grandfather, Abba Ari, had played in the enthronement of the first sarki of the dynasty and his recognition by the sheikh of Bornu. The text of this tarikh can be found in Salifou, Le Damagaram ou sultanat de Zinder, 45 – 46 and 251.
115. Zinder station logs regularly recorded French soldiers’ debts to Malam Yaro, for example, ANN, 9 B 11.1, “correspondance départ Zinder 1903, dettes de Dorian, de Leroy et du capitaine Joalland,” telegram A 34, February 23, 1903; or “dettes du capitaine de cavalerie de Franco,” letter 32 G, June 4, 1906; ANN, 9 B 11.4, correspondence received 1905 – 1911. In his account of his stay in Zinder, Foureau often mentions services rendered by Malam Yaro: see Foureau, D’Alger au Congo par le Tchad, 444, 492, 504, 527, and 542 – 543. See also Général Reibell, L’épopée saharienne, 236; Capitaine Gaden, Notice sur la résidence de Zinder, 103; ATM, interview with Malam Ali Yaro conducted by Baier, May 13, 1972, audiocassette 5295, side A, 30th min.
116. “Shekara bakwai da nasaru su ka yi, Malam Yaro ke ikon dunya da su,” ATM, interview with Mahamane Kane conducted by Baier, December 3, 1972, audiocassette 2870, side B, 44th min.
117. Report of Sargent Bouthel in command of the Zinder Station (1899), reproduced in “À la gloire des vieux sous-officiers de l’infanterie de marine,” Tropiques. Revue des troupes coloniales 377 (October 1955): 22.
118. Foureau, D’Alger au Congo par le Tchad, 507 – 8.
119. Meynier, La mission Joalland-Meynier, 85.
120. ATM, interview with Mahamane Kane conducted by Baier, December 3, 1972, audiocassette 2870, side B, 43rd min.
121. Landeroin devoted a short file entitled “Mœurs des sultans de Zinder” (Mores of the Sultans of Zinder) to the assassinations ordered by the sarkis of Damagaram in general and by Amadou dan Bassa in particular: BASOM, ML collection, 11-8, p. 4. The list can also be found in Bulletin de renseignements du nommé Ahmadou dan Bassa ex-sultan de Zinder, ouverte le 8 novembre 1924: ADZ, sultanate file. Mahamane Kane mentioned these assassinations to Baier without naming the victims: ATM, December 3, 1972, audiocassette 2871, side A, 9th min. The same is true for the galadima Maman Djataou: personal archives, interview, Niamey, April 29, 2016. Only four assassinations are mentioned in Salifou, “La conjuration,” 69; likewise in the letter in Arabic from the barma Mata or barma Mustapha to the captain in command of Damagaram: ANS, 11G5, partial file U, items 140 – 141. Amadou dan Bassa’s grandson denied that his ancestor may have played any part in these assassinations: personal archives, interview with Aboubakar the sarki of Damagaram at his residence in Niamey, February 16, 2017.
122. ANOM, Chad, 1.1, p. 105.
123. Henri Gouraud, Zinder, Tchad, souvenirs d’un Africain (Paris: Plon, 1944), 92. The bellama was not mentioned in earlier accounts by Joalland, Meynier, Reibell, or Foureau.
124. His life story was recorded by a colonial administrator in 1952 when he was ninety-five years old. The original version can be found in the Niamey archives and was published by Georges Fremineau, “Bellama, esclave, eunuque, sultan de Zinder, et puis mendiant,” Islam et sociétés au sud du Sahara 4 (1990): 185 – 90, here p. 187.
125. The love-affair version appears in Moïse-Augustin Landeroin, “Notice historique,” in Jean Tilho, Documents scientifiques de la mission Tilho, vol. 2, Pays-bas du Tchad (Paris: Larose, 1910), 522; ADZ, sultanate file, intelligence file on the bellama, 1906; personal archives, interview with Malam Bawada, ninety-three years old, Birni of Zinder, February 14, 2017. Anything concerning the bellama is absolutely taboo in Zinder. It is the age of my interlocutor, now the oldest of the town’s malamai, that explains his agreeing to talk about him.
126. Fremineau, “Bellama, esclave, eunuque,” 188. The sarki’s former wives were taboo. Given that no one in Zinder would have dared marry them, their only option was to marry foreigners.
127. ATM, interview with Mahamane Kane conducted by Baier, December 3, 1972, audiocassette 2871, side A, 4 min. 30 sec.; personal archives, interview with the galadima Maman Djataou, Niamey, April 29, 2016.
128. Personal archives, interview with Malam Bawada, Birni of Zinder, February 14, 2017.
129. Ann O’Hear, “Elite Slaves in Ilorin in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 39, no. 2 (2006): 247 – 73; Sean Stilwell, Paradoxes of Power: The Kano “Mamluks” and Male Royal Slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate, 1804 – 1903 (Portsmouth: Heinemann, 2004), 207 – 38.
130. Roberta Ann Dunbar, “Slavery and the Evolution of Nineteenth-Century Damagaram,” in Slavery in Africa: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives, ed. Suzanne Miers and Igor Kopytoff (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1977), 172.
131. Dunbar, “Slavery,” 171.
132. See, for instance, the case of the father of Maman Djataou (personal archives, interview with the galadima Maman Djataou, Niamey, April 29, 2016), or the barma Mata or barma Mustapha, one of the sarki’s nephews who fled to Kano; see the letter in Arabic in which he asked the French for permission to return to Zinder after the arrest of the sarki Amadou dan Bassa: ANS, 11G5, partial file U, “Lettre en arabe de Barma Mustapha (Mallam) au capitaine commandant le Damagaram,” items 140 – 141.
133. Capitaine Gaden, Notice sur la résidence de Zinder, 82; BASOM, ML collection, 12-9.
134. Capitaine Gaden, Notice sur la résidence de Zinder, 76.
135. ADZ, sultanate file, “Rapport annuel sur le bellama,” 1904.
136. They apparently sang the song “Mai Gishiri kiyayi mai goro, in kana so kidanka ya yi kirki”: “He who has the salt beware he who has the baskets of cola if you want your music to pay off.” ATM, interview with Mahamane Kane conducted by Baier, December 3, 1972, audiocassette 2871, side A, 8th min.
137. ANN, 9 B 1.3, “Rapport sur la situation générale de la résidence de Zinder,” December 12, 1903.
138. ATM, interview with Mahamane Kane conducted by Baier, December 3, 1972, audiocassette 2871, side A, 10th min. Sidi Fedil, who is the grandson of Cherif Fedil and was born in 1939, also alleged that the bellama exposed himself to the French to gain their trust: personal archives, interview at his residence, Birni of Zinder, February 14, 2017.
139. ANN, 9 B 1.3, “Rapport sur la situation générale de la résidence de Zinder,” December 12, 1903.
140. These doubts are apparent in the letters dealing with the sentences to be applied: ANS, 11G5, unnumbered item. Similarly, in his personal letters to Gouraud, Gaden stated he did not believe that Malam Yaro was involved and thought that his situation was due to Lefebvre’s hostility against him: Roy Dilley, Nearly Native, Barely Civilized: Henri Gaden’s Journey through Colonial French West Africa, 1894 – 1939 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 276.
141. Their kinship is mentioned in Landeroin’s notes: BASOM, ML collection, 12-2, p. 14.
142. ANN, 23. 8.6, letter from Malam Yaro to Landeroin, September 10 – 11, 1907. The notes in square brackets belong to Landeroin, who translated the letter into French.
143. Particularly Akini Garouama on April 16: ANS, 11G5, file Q, “Copie des feuilles de renseignements fournies au mois d’avril par le commandant de cercle au commandant de la région, du capitaine Lefebvre,” item 126.
144. ANS, 11G5, file F, “Dépositions reçues par le commandant de région,” undated, item 60.
145. The file on Ali simply mentions the quarrel. ANS, 11G5, file V, “Fiches politiques,” item 143. The details were passed on to Landeroin by Chérif Dodo: BASOM, ML collection, 12-2, intelligence gathered at Dungass, September 15, 1907, p. 28.
146. ANS, 11G5, file V, “Fiches politiques,” item 143. Ali’s descendants attest with great discomfort to the fact that he apparently turned the sarki in to the colonizers: personal archives, interview with Ibra Adamou at his residence, February 14, 2017.
147. Personal archives, interview with Malam Bawada, Birni of Zinder, February 14, 2017. The chronology is difficult to untangle; it is impossible to determine the date of the wedding, or whether it came before the assassination.
148. Foureau, D’Alger au Congo par le Tchad, 527 and 562; Général Reibell, L’épopée saharienne, 220.
149. Landeroin, “Notice historique,” 449; Niamey, Institut de recherche en sciences humaines (Institute for Research in Humanities), Arab manuscripts department, 1143, Arabic manuscript by Bukari ben Tanodee, Diaou enniger fi tarikh Zinder, copy and French translation inserted in the diary of Boubou Hama from March 5, 1968, to May 6, 1969, pp. 356 – 57; Dunbar, Damagaram (Zinder, Niber), 67; Salifou, Le Damagaram ou sultanat de Zinder, 90.
150. Marty, L’islam et les tribus dans la colonie du Niger, 401, designates father and son as Moqqadem Qadri, representatives of the Qādiriyya, but Foureau indicates that the qadi came to ask him to see the letters that the Tijāniyya leader had written to the mission: Foureau, D’Alger au Congo par le Tchad, 530. On the French desire to favor the Tijāniyya, Reibell sets out a similar position to Foureau and Lamy: Général Reibell, L’épopée saharienne, 222.
151. ANN, 23.8.6, letter from Malam Yaro to Lieutenant Ethiévant. The first part of the sentence does not follow the French translation preserved in the archives, which is heavily abridged; I used the Arabic text. I would like to thank Djibo Hamani and Abdelaziz El Aloui for their help.
152. According to another version of the conspiracy narrative, written by the merchant al-Hajj Mukhtar ben Sharif in 1937, the bellama had organized the whole affair: ADZ, sultanate file, bellama subfile, 1921, letter from Mouktar ben Cheriffe to the district commander, September 12, 1937. This testimony, which came much later, was influenced by other issues than those analyzed here, particularly another conspiracy linked this time to the deposition of the bellama in 1921. On al-Hajj Mukhtar ben Sharif, see Baier, An Economic History of Central Niger, 192 – 206.
153. BASOM, ML collection, 12-2, pp. 37 – 38.
154. ANN, 23. 8. 6, “Enquête à propos d’une lettre de Malam Yaro,” letter from Captain Delestre, district commander of Zinder, to the battalion commander in charge of the region, Zinder, November 13, 1907.
155. BASOM, ML collection, 12-2, p. 29.
156. Renseignement coloniaux, Bulletin du Comité de l’Afrique Française, July 7, 1906; Fontainebleau, Archives nationales, 19800035/1288/48843; BASOM, ML collection, 35-9.
157. Karin magana (literally, “word split”) is the stylistic device par excellence in the Hausa language, covering proverbs, puns, and parables.
158. Moïse-Augustin Landeroin, “Causerie de l’étudiant,” in Jean Tilho and Moïse-Augustin Landeroin, Grammaire et contes haoussas (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1909), 255 – 59, translation adapted by the present author on the basis of the Hausa version.
159. Umar, Islam and Colonialism, 135 – 39.
160. 220—“Kari ya cinye kura don nasara,” 230—“Da kusa sunka taru, suna bukinsu. Na aguncinsu zamanin nasara. Fa alwankinsu ce kanwa,” 220—“A kai Kuma mai gari naku, a kubki sabo da talaka,” 245 (13)—“Da mai bawa, da bawa na sharia”: Stanislaw Pilaszewics, “ʻThe Arrival of the Christians’: A Hausa Poem on the Colonial Conquest of West Africa by Al-Haji Umaru,” Africana Bulletin 22 (1975): 55 – 129, here pp. 103, 105 and 107, translation adapted by the present author on the basis of the Hausa version. The spelling in Pilaszewics’s transcription has been respected.
161. The same was true in Madagascar: Stephen Ellis, Un complot colonial à Madagascar. L’affaire Rainandriamampandry (Paris/Antananarivo: Karthala/Ambozontany, 1990).
162. “Su duka ko wané ya zam na qu’aîné”: Pilaszewics, “ʻThe Arrival of the Christians,’” 65.
163. “Ciki ba a yi shi don tuwo da fura [ba]”: personal archives, field notes, Zinder, February 2017, particularly a discussion with Chamaky Sanoussi Nakandari, February 14, 2017.
This is a translation of: Une histoire de silences