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Abdul Njai: Ally and Enemy of the Portuguese in Guinea-Bissau, 1895–19191

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Joye L. Bowman
Joye L. Bowman
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
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The protracted subjugation by the Portuguese of Guinea-Bissau was made possible by Abdul Njai and his army of auxiliary troops. Njai became an ally of the Portuguese in the mid-1890s and continued his support for the Portuguese conquest until about 1915. He provided logistical support, and served both as a commander in the Portuguese army and as a recruiter of African troops. Oral as well as written sources indicate that Njai was directly responsible for the successful campaigns fought against the strongholds of resistance to Portuguese authority. As a reward for his services, the Portuguese granted Njai political authority over Oio province. Thus Njai became a kind of ‘warrant chief’ in an area where his only legitimacy was based on force rather than traditional affiliation. Portuguese control remained limited even after 1915 and Njai governed his region as he pleased. African communities in Oio and elsewhere in Guinea-Bissau feared and respected this warlord more than the Portuguese. He thus became a threat to Portuguese colonial officials in Guinea-Bissau as well as their French counterparts in neighbouring Senegal. The Portuguese therefore turned on their erstwhile ally and, after unsuccessful attempts to bring him to heel through negotiation, mounted an expedition which resulted in his capture and deportation in 1919.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , November 1986 , pp. 463 - 479
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

2 See Mota, A. Teixeira Da, Guiné Portuguesa (Lisbon, 1954), II, 34Google Scholar; and Chilcote, Ronald H., Portuguese Africa (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1967), 98.Google Scholar The contemporary name, Guinea-Bissau, rather than the colonial name, Portuguese Guinea, is used here, except in translations.

3 Other African soldiers became commanders but none of them played as big a role as Abdul Njai. For more information on these military leaders see Pinto, Joāo Teixeira, Teixeira Pinto – A Ocupaçāo Militar da Guiné (Lisbon, 1936).Google Scholar

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5 Injai, Abdul, Relatório: Os metis feitos na Guiné Portuguesa, desde 1894 a 1919, data em que por uma acusaçāo falsa, fui deportado para a Provincia de Cabo Verde (Praia, 1920), 3.Google Scholar Even though Njai wrote this account in his own defence after his deportation, it contains useful information. I have used the correspondence of Portuguese and French officials, as well as oral histories collected in 1978, to check Njai's report. For more information on Njai's early career see also Archives Nationales du Sénégal (henceforth ANS), 2F14: L'Administrateur en Chef, M. Hostains (Bissau), No. 49 to M. le Consul de France a Lisbonne, 22 Feb. 1921(?). One report claims Njai was an agent for the German commercial firm, Soller, but it seems this relationship developed later in his career. See A Defeza das Victimas da Guerra de Bissau – O Exterminio da Guiné (Lisbon, 1916)Google Scholar and Cunningham, James, ‘The Colonial Period in Guiné’, Tarikh, vi, no. 4, p. 36.Google Scholar

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14 At best a united opposition could have temporarily stalled the Portuguese advance. For an insightful discussion of the situation in Mozambique see Isaacman, Allen F., The Tradition of Resistance in Mozambique: Anti-Colonial Activity in the Zambesi Valley, 1850–1921 (London, 1976)Google Scholar; and Isaacman, Allen F., ‘Social banditry in Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) and Mozambique, 1894–1907: an Expression of Early Peasant Protest’, Journal of Southern African Studies, iv, i (Oct. 1977), 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar I intend to pursue the question of social banditry in Guinea-Bissau during the colonial period in a larger study of resistance to colonial rule. See also Hobsbawm, E. J., Bandits (London, 1969; reprinted 1981).Google Scholar

15 Pinto, Teixeira, Teixeira Pinto, 12.Google Scholar Other African commanders mentioned in various documents include Samba-ly, Bacari Suncaro, Malali Sisse, Mamadu Sisse and Mamadu Diallo. These auxiliaries supported Njai and carried out his orders. Unfortunately neither written or oral sources discuss their roles in the campaigns in specific detail.

16 Injai, , Relatório, 5.Google Scholar See also Scares, Alberto, Commandante Militar do Commando Militar dos Balantas to Commandante Militar das Regiões de Farim, Mansaba, Balantas e Bissoram, 12 Aug. 1919, ‘Documentos sobre a campanha contra Abdul Injai’, BCGP, vi (Jan. 1951), 86.Google Scholar

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18 Arquivo Historico Ultramarino (henceforth AHU), Guiné, Pasta 417: Governador em Bolama, No. 147 to Ministro e Secretário d'Estado dos Negócios da Marinha e Ultramar, 25 May 1897.

19 Pinto, Teixeira, Teixeira Pinto, 179.Google Scholar

20 Ibid., 31, 171.

21 Injai, , Relatóario, 6Google Scholar; Pinto, Teixeira, Teixeira Pinto, 90Google Scholar; and ANS, 2F14: L'Administrateur en Bissau, M. Hostains, No. 49 to M. le Consul de France à Lisbonne, 22 Feb. 1921(?). Njai maintained his ties with Cuor even after he assumed control of Oio. He actually returned to Cuor to live between November 1916 and March 1917. For more information see Barbosa, Caetano, Administrador de Circunscrição de Farim to Governador da Provincia, 16 July 1919, ‘Documentos sobre a campanha contra Abdul Injai’, BCGP, vi (Jan. 1951),92–93.Google Scholar

22 Pinto, Teixeira, Teixeira Pinto, 98.Google Scholar

23 Injai, , Relatório, 6–7Google Scholar; and Pinto, Teixeira, Teixeira Pinto, 113.Google Scholar

24 Pinto, Teixeira, Teixeira Pinto, 111–113.Google Scholar The 1911 Portuguese census showed a 77 to 79 per cent illiteracy rate in Portugal: see De Oliveira Marques, A. H., History of Portugal, II, From Empire to Colonial State (New York and London, 1972), 134Google Scholar, and Wheeler, Douglas L., Republican Portugal – A Political History, 1910–1926 (Madison, 1978), 162.Google Scholar

25 Pinto, Teixeira, Teixeira Pinto, 127.Google Scholar See also Weiskel, Timothy C., French Colonial Rule and the Baule Peoples: Resistance and Collaboration, 1889–1911 (Oxford, 1980).Google Scholar For information on eastern Nigeria see Afigbo, A. E., The Warrant Chiefs: Indirect Rule in Southeastern Nigeria, 1891–1929 (London, 1972)Google Scholar and Anene, J. C., Southern Nigeria in Transition, 1885–1906 (Cambridge, 1966).Google Scholar

26 Pinto, Teixeira, Teixeira Pinto, 141.Google Scholar

27 For more information on the river system, see Mota, Teixeira Da, Guine, I, 57–73.Google Scholar

28 Grumete refers to Africans who worked for Portuguese traders in the urban centres of the Upper Guinea Coast during the era of the slave trade. Grumetes, the boat builders, stevedores and caulkers of these coastal communities, made European trade possible. Their descendants remained in towns like Bissau and Cacheu after the abolition of the slave trade, and continued to perform skilled and unskilled jobs for Luso-African and European traders. For more information on Grumetes, see Rodney, Walter, A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, 1545–1800 (Oxford, 1970).Google Scholar

29 Injai, , Relatório, 7.Google Scholar See also Pinto, Teixeira, Teixeira Pinto, 178, 185 and 218–219.Google Scholar

30 ANS, 2F14: Le Vice-Consul de France en Guinée Portugaise, No. 25 to Ministre des Affaires Etrangéres à Paris, 26 June 1919.

31 ANS, 2F14: L'Administrates en Bissau, M. Hostains, No. 49 to M. le Consul de France à Lisbonne, 22 Feb. 1921(?). See also A Defeza das Victimas (cited in n. 5), 36–37.Google Scholar

32 ANS, 2F14: L'Administrateur en Bissau, M. Hostains, No. 49 to M. le Consul de France à Lisbonne, 22 Feb. 1921(?).

33 ANS, 2F14: L'Administrateur en Bissau, M. Hostains, No. 49 to M. le Consul de France a Lisbonne, 22 Feb. 1921(?); ANS, 2F14: M. Merlin, Service des Affaires Civiles, No. 1971 to Afrique Occidentale et Equatoriale, lère Section-Paris, 16 Oct. 1919; ANS, 2F14: Gouverneur-Général de I'A.O.F. to M. le Ministre des Colonies, 24 Sept. 1920; ANS, 2F14: L'Administrateur Supérieur de la Casamance (Ziguinchor), M. Benquey, No. 227 to Lt. Gouverneur du Sénégal à St. Louis, 24 June 1919; and Amadu Jobarteh, Banjul Series Tape 3 (Serekunda), 12 May 1978. For an example of another warlord who developed his own ‘empire’ within a colonial state and who resented the broken promises of colonial administrators, see the history of Kakunguru, Semei in Roberts, A. D., ‘The sub-imperialism of the Baganda’, J. Afr. Hist., III, 3 (1962), 435–450.Google Scholar

34 See, for example, Amadu Jobarteh, Banjul Series Tape 3 (Serekunda), 12 May 1978; Jali Kemo Kuyateh, Banjul Series Tape 3 (Banjul), 13 June 1978; and Mamadou Falai Baldeh, Banjul Series Tape 14 (Sankulikunda), 25 June 1978.

35 ANS, 2F14: L'Administrateur Supérieur de la Casamance (Ziguinchor), M. Benquey, No. 227 to Lt. Gouverneur du Sénégal à St. Louis, 24 June 1919.

36 ANS, 2F14: Gouverneur-Général de l'A.O.F. to M. le Ministre des Colonies, 24 Sept. 1920.

37 For more information on the warrant chief system see Afigbo, Warrant Chiefs.

38 ANS, 2F14: Administrateur en Chef de ière Classe des Colonies, Hostains to Gouverneur-Général de I'A.O.F., 20 Apr. 1919. See also ANS, 2F14: Gouverneur-Général De l'a.O.F. to M. Le Ministre Des Colonies, Aug. 1919 and ‘Documentos sobre a campanha contra Abdul Injai’, BCGP, vi (Jan. 1951), 53–126.

39 Barbosa, Caetano J., Administrador da Circunscriçāo de Farim, No. 43 to Secretaria Geral do Governo, 20 Feb. 1919, ‘Documentos sobre a campanha contra Abdul Injai’, BCGP, vi (Jan. 1951), 112.Google Scholar See also Institute Nacional de Investigacao Cientifica (Bissau), Documentos Diversos 1917–18: Presidente da Associagao Commercial, Industrial e Agricola de Bissau to Governador, 16 June 1917; and ANS, 2F14: Gouverneur-General de I'A.O.F. to M. le Ministre des Colonies, Aug. 1919.

40 Barbosa, Caetano J., Administrador da Circunscrição de Farim to Encarregado do governo, 19 Oct. 1913, ‘Documentos sobre a campanha contra Abdul Injai’, BCGP, vi (Jan. 1951), 125Google Scholar; and ANS, 2F14: L'Administrateur Supérieur du Casamance, ‘Rapport supplémentaire confidentiel joint au Rapport 122 du 23 Mai 1917’.

41 ANS, 2F14: Gouverneur-Général de I'A.O.F. to M. le Ministre des Colonies, 20 Sept. 1920. See also A Defeza das Victimas (cited in n. 5).

42 ANS, 2F14: Le Vice-Consul de France en Guineé Portugaise, No. 25 to Ministre des Affaires Etrangères à Paris, 26 June 1919; ANS, 2F14: Gouverneur-Général de I'A.O.F. to M. le Ministre des Colonies, 24 Sept. 1920; ANS, 2F8: Le Vice-Consul de France en Guinée Portugaise to Gouverneur-Général de I'A.O.F., 18 Nov. 1916; ANS, 2F14: L'Administrateur Supérieur de la Casamance (Ziguinchor), M. Benquey, No. 227 to Lt Gouverneur du Sénégal à St. Louis, 24 June 1919; and Ousmane Sisse, Banjul Series Tape 4 (Banjul), 10 June 1978.

43 Alhaji Kawsu Sillah, Banjul Series Tape 17 (Sankulikunda), 9 Aug. 1978 and Mamadou Falai Balde, Banjul Series Tape 14 (Sankulikunda), 25 June 1978. For more information on Musa Molo and Fode Kaba, see B. K. Sidibe, ‘Brief History of Kaabu and Fuladu’; Bowman Hawkins, ‘Conflict, Interaction and Change’; Quinn, Charlotte, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia: Traditionalism, Islam and European Expansion (Evanston, 1972)Google Scholar; and Leary, Frances Anne, ‘Islam, politics and colonialism: a political history of Islam in the Casamance region of Senegal (1850–1914)’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern University, 1970).Google Scholar

44 ANS, 2F14: Gouverneur-Général de I'A.O.F. to M. le Ministre des Colonies, Aug. 1919.

45 ANS, 2F14: Le Vice-Consul de France en Guinée Portugaise, No. 25 to Ministre des Affaires Etrangères à Paris, 26 June 1919.

46 ANS, 2F14: Le Vice-Consul de France en Guinée Portugaise, No. 25 to Ministre des Affaires Etrangères à Paris, 26 June 1919.

47 ANS, 2F14: Gouverneur-Général de I'A.O.F. to M. le Ministre des Colonies, 24 Sept. 1920; ANS, 2F14: Gouverneur-Général de I'A.O.F. to M. le Ministre des Colonies, Aug. 1919; ANS, 2F14: L'Administrateur Supérieur de la Casamance (Ziguinchor), M. Benquey, No. 227 to Lt. Gouverneur du Sénégal à St. Louis, 24 June 1919; and ANS, 2F14: L'Administration Supéarieur de la Casamance, ‘Rapport Supplémentaire Confidential joint au rapport 122 du 23 May 1917’.

48 ANS, 2F14: Administrateur en Chef de ière Classe des Colonies, Hostains to Gouverneur-Général de I'A.O.F., 20 Apr. 1919.

49 ANS, 13G67: Lt. Gouverneur du Sénégal, No. 171 to Gouverneur-Général de I'A.O.F., W. Ponty, 17 Aug. 1914; ANS, 13G67: Gouverneur-Général de I'A.O.F., W. Ponty, to Lt Gouverneur du Sénégal, 8 Sept. 1914; and ANS, 13G67: Gouverneur-Général de I'A.O.F. to Lt. Gouverneur du Sénégal, Jan. 1915.

50 Roberts, , ‘Sub-Imperialism’, 440.Google Scholar

51 ANS, 2F14: Le Vice-Consul de France en Guinée Portugaise, No. 25 to Ministre des Affaires Etrangères à Paris, 26 June 1919. Governor de Sousa Guerra was one of three governors who served in Guinea-Bissau in 1919. The rapid succession of administrators contributed to the weakness of the Portuguese state and reflected metropolitan politics. Political life in the metropole was unstable during the Republic. In its sixteen-year existence there were forty-five governments – each lasted about four months. There was a coup d'etat or attempted coup d'etat every year and five hundred individuals held ministerial posts between 1910 and 1926. Ten governors served in Guinea-Bissau during this period. See Robinson, R. A. H., Contemporary Portugal – A History (London, 1979), 36Google Scholar, and Clarence-Smith, , Third Portuguese Empire, 116–142.Google Scholar

52 José De Lima Junior, Augusto, Commandante Militar das regiões de Farim, Balantas e Bissoram, to Governador da Provincia da Guiné, 18 August 1919, ‘Documentos sobre a campanha contra Abdul Injai’, BCGP, vi (Jan. 1951), 59.Google Scholar

53 Ibid., 64.

54 Ibid., 70. This account of Njai's losses is biased, but oral sources verify his surrender.

55 Injai, , Relatório, 7.Google Scholar

56 ANS, 2F14: M. Merlin, Service des Affaires Civiles, No. 1971 to Afrique Occidental et Equatoriale ière Section – Paris, 16 Oct. 1919; and ANS, 2F14: Gouverneur-Général de I'A.O.F. to M. le Ministre des Colonies, Aug. 1919. The Parti Cap-Verdien was related to an earlier party, the Liga Guinéense, that was formed immediately after the Republican take-over. Portuguese officials dissolved the Liga Guinéense in 1915 – accusing it of supporting the Grumete and Papel rebels in the Bissau Island campaign that year. The Liga, like the Parti Cap-Verdien, opposed Portuguese occupation and Njai's alliance with the colonial power. Many members of both parties were independent merchants who understood that the new Portuguese economic policies, especially taxation laws, would undermine their own positions. For more information on the Liga Guinénse, see Cunningham, ‘Colonial Period’, 33–6. The activities of these parties fits into the more general pattern of ‘Creole’ politics during the Republican era. See Clarence-Smith, , Third Portuguese Empire, 137–138Google Scholar; Gregory Alonso Pirio, ‘Race and class in the struggle over Pan-Africanism: a working paper on the Partido Nacional Africano, the Liga Africana and the Comintern in Portuguese Africa’ (paper delivered at the conference on ‘The class basis of nationalist movements in Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique’, Minneapolis, 25–27 May 1983); and Hill, Robert A., ed., The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, vii and viii (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, forthcoming). The author intends to investigate the Parti Cap-Verdien in a study of anti-colonial agitation during the twentieth century.Google Scholar

57 Injai, , Relatório, 9.Google Scholar

58 ANS, 2F14: Gouverneur-Général de I'A.O.F. to M. le Ministre des Colonies, 24 Sept. 1920.

59 ANS, 2F14: M. Merlin, Service des Affaires Civiles, No. 1971 to Afrique Occidentale et Equatoriale, iàre Section – Paris, 16 Oct. 1919.

60 Forced cultivation and forced labour in Guinea-Bissau often were related to taxation. To pay their taxes, peasants had to produce cash crops, primarily groundnuts. If they failed to produce enough or refused to pay, they were forced to work for the state. However, forced cultivation and forced labour in Guinea-Bissau was on a smaller scale than in the larger Portuguese colonies, Angola and Mozambique.