French West Africa

None of these documents were in Aix.

Um, none of these documents were in the, the archives in Senegal, right? The National Archives of Senegal, which have a lot of documents related to all of French West Africa.

Um, so this research process, which, uh, had me following a bunch of different [chuckles], different rabbit holes, ended up giving me, um, an insight into the way that these schools were drawing these sorts of connections, that people were drawing these sorts of connections, um, across the, the French Empire in North and West Africa in ways that you don't hear about if you just look at the history of Islamic education in Mauritania or just the history of colonial education in Algeria, right? Um, so yeah, that's the, the way that this sort of multi-local research worked out for me was that I ended up getting a, an insight into something that I think no one else could without going through that multi-sited, uh, research itinerary.

I would also add to sort of wrap up this, um, conversation about my, my research that I don't know how possible it is to do this kind of research anymore as a graduate student.

None of these documents were in Aix.

Um, none of these documents were in the, the archives in Senegal, right? The National Archives of Senegal, which have a lot of documents related to all of French West Africa.

Um, so this research process, which, uh, had me following a bunch of different [chuckles], different rabbit holes, ended up giving me, um, an insight into the way that these schools were drawing these sorts of connections, that people were drawing these sorts of connections, um, across the, the French Empire in North and West Africa in ways that you don't hear about if you just look at the history of Islamic education in Mauritania or just the history of colonial education in Algeria, right? Um, so yeah, that's the, the way that this sort of multi-local research worked out for me was that I ended up getting a, an insight into something that I think no one else could without going through that multi-sited, uh, research itinerary.

I would also add to sort of wrap up this, um, conversation about my, my research that I don't know how possible it is to do this kind of research anymore as a graduate student.

And I'm thinking of, uh, the Gold Coast African press, which, which many people, uh, know of the late 19th century, the early 20th century, but also it really emerges when you start reading, uh, James Africanus Horton's Vindication of the African Race, when you start reading Edward Blyden and what he's saying about education.

But when you also are starting to read the, the, let's say, colonial, uh, pedagogues, so the Georges Haguy in the Francophone, uh, French West Africa case, or Gustave Le Bon, who was kind of a sociologist who dabbled a little bit in colonial education, uh, the Phelps Stokes reports, you see that these ideas are, um, really free-flowing and moving across, uh, the Atlantic and the Black Atlantic.

And so it was something, it was an approach that opened up the possibility of understanding the deeper roots of why education mattered so much to so many people in West Africa.

Um, because while I, I said earlier, you know, it was about a rejection of this colonial economic understanding that the value of African people was a bodily value and, and not an intellectual one, that came out of a much deeper history, and that's the history of the transatlantic trade in African people.

Uh, this is a, an, uh, something I really wanted to think about as I, a- as I finished the book, and so I want to bring together work that thinks through, okay, we have maybe these colonial categories of race and ideas, but that's less interesting to me.

I really want to know how people experienced colonial ideas about race, how people created their own ideas about race, and how, and in, in, in schooling contexts in particular, and how those experiences, those ideas then produced a new set of kind of intellectuals, um, of Europhone African intellectuals.

So that's, that's one project that I'm, I'm pursuing right now, and then in terms of, um, let's say, let's say a potential second book project in the offing, uh, I became very fascinated by, um, this politician of the, um, of, of French West Africa, of the RDA, uh, Ouezzin Coulibaly, and he's someone who died quite young and just at the eve of independence, so he hasn't been focused on as much as kind of a, you know, a Senghor or these kinds of people, but he was really an incredibly erudite intellectual and activist, and he wrote a lot before he passed.

And so I'd really like to spend time thinking through, uh, what he wrote and understand what a kind of Francophone African intellectual history looks like if we move beyond an emphasis on négritude, because while that's extremely important, that's really something that's happening much more in Paris than it is, uh, happening in, in French West Africa at the time, and so what does an intellectual history of French West Africa look like from French West Africa and not from Paris? I think that's a question I'm really, I'm really interested in pursuing.

But also it really emerges when you start reading James Africanus Horton's Vindication of the African Race, when you start reading Edward Blyden and what he's saying about education.

But when you also are starting to read the, let's say, colonial pedagogues, so the Georges Hargis in the Francophone French West Africa case, or Gustave Le Bon, who was kind of a sociologist who dabbled a little bit in colonial education, the Phelps-Stokes reports, you see that these ideas are really free-flowing and moving across the Atlantic and the Black Atlantic.

And so It was an approach that opened up the possibility of understanding the deeper roots of why education mattered so much to so many people in West Africa.

Because while I said earlier it was about a rejection of this colonial economic understanding that the value of African people was a bodily value, and not an intellectual one, that came out of a much deeper history.

I really want to know how people experienced colonial ideas about race, how people created their own ideas about race and how in schooling context in particular, and how those experiences, those ideas then produced a new set of kind of intellectuals, of Europhone African intellectuals.

So that's one project that I'm pursuing right now.

And then in terms of, let's say, a potential second book project in the offing, I became very fascinated by this politician of French West Africa, of the RDA, Ousane Koulibaly.

And he's someone who died quite young and just at the eve of independence.

But also it really emerges when you start reading, uh, James Africanus Horton's Vindication of the African Race, when you start reading Edward Blyden and what he's saying about education.

But when you also are starting to read the, the, let's say colonial, uh, pedagogues, so the George Haggee in the Francophone, uh, French West Africa case, or Gustave Le Bon who was kind of a sociologist who dabbled a little bit in colonial education, uh, the Phelps Stokes reports, you see that these ideas are, um, really free-flowing and moving across, uh, the Atlantic and the Black Atlantic.

And so it was something, it was an approach that opened up the possibility of understanding the deeper roots of why education mattered so much to so many people in West Africa.

Um, because while I, I said earlier, you know, it was about a rejection of this w- colonial economic understanding that the value of African people was a bodily value and, and not an intellectual one, that came out of a much deeper history, and that's the history of the transatlantic trade in African people.

I really want to know how people experienced colonial ideas about race, how people created their own ideas about race, and how, and in, in, in schooling context in particular, and how those experiences, those ideas then produced a new set of kind of intellectuals, um, of Europhone African intellectuals.

So that's, that's one project that I'm, I'm pursuing right now.

And then in terms of, um, let's say, let's say a potential second book project in the offing, uh, I became very fascinated by, um, this politician of the, um, of, of French West Africa, of the RDA, uh, Ouezzin Coulibaly, and he's someone who died quite young and just at the eve of independence, so he hasn't been focused on as much as kind of a, you know, a Senghor or these kinds of people.

But he was really an incredibly erudite intellectual and activist, and he wrote a lot before he passed.

But at any rate, no rival European power had possession.

And France had at least a foothold in the east, on the Gulf of Aden, from which possibly French empire builders might penetrate Abyssinia and join hands across the Nile with their co-workers from French West Africa.

This foothold, it may as well be explained now, was French Somaliland.

Here, a whole town, Obock, had been purchased for the surprisingly small sum of 50,000 francs from a local sultan many years before, in 1862, and forgotten until 1883, when, the English having closed Aden to French ships during the Tonkin War, the French decided to establish a naval base of their own here and voted a subsidy of 450 francs a year for the development of the place.

French imperialists, to their chagrin and amazement, could see the British plan working itself out before their eyes, and its success meant that the French dream of an ocean-to-ocean empire was shattered.

The disappointment was all the more maddening because the Bar-el-Ghazal district leased to King Leopold had been regarded by the French as the next addition to their own dominions in Equatorial Africa.

They had just extended French Congo inland into the Central Sudan, connecting it with French West Africa, and were now ready to push their undefined eastern frontier into the Nile Valley.

In May 1893, President Carnot had told Colonel Montay that Fashoda had been selected as the proper outlet on the Nile for French Upper Ubangi.