Ending Slavery: Hierarchy, Dependency, and Gender in Central Mauritania

435 Pages·2001·1.849 MB·English

by  Urs Peter Ruf

Ending Slavery

Urs Peter Ruf
Ending Slavery.
Hierarchy, Dependency and Gender
in Central Mauritania
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.
Die Deutsche Bibliothek – CIP-Einheitsaufnahme
Ruf, Urs Peter:
Ending slavery : hierarchy, dependency and gender in Central Mauritania /
Urs Peter Ruf. – Bielefeld : transcript Verlag, 1999
Zugl.: Bielefeld, Univ., Diss., 1998
ISBN 3–933127–49–1
© 1999 transcript Verlag, Bielefeld
Typeset by: digitron GmbH, Bielefeld
Cover Layout: orange|rot, Bielefeld
Printed by: Digital Print, Witten
ISBN 3–933127–49–1
5

Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Note on Transliteration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Chapter 1
Approaching Slavery in B¯ız.a¯n Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Theorising Slavery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Slavery and Social Hierarchy in B¯ız.a¯n Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
A Methodology of Rural Slave System Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Chapter 2
Changing Configurations of Hierarchy and Dependency . . . . . . . 49
Methodological Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Contrasting Life Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Exploring the Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Chapter 3
Slave Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Tent Slaves and Female Slave Affection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Slave-Master Milk Kinship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Concubinage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Status and Split Origin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Chapter 4
The Demography of Western Saharan Slavery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Africa and the Slave Trades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Numbering Su¯da¯n . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Sex, Gender and Servile Demography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
6

Chapter 5
Gender and Status in the Topography of Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Gendered Labour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Domains of Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Gender, Status and the Locus of Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Chapter 6
The Historical Dynamics of B¯ız.a¯n Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Gum and Guinée . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
The Colonial Challenge to Pastoral Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Wage Labour and Migration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Chapter 7
Small Dams, Large Dams:
Bı¯z.a¯n Land Tenure and Social Stratification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Land Tenure: the Legal Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Land Tenure, Gender and Relations of Domination . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Chapter 8
The Difference in Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
The Politics of H. ara¯t.ı¯n Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
Marking Difference, Marking Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Being a Part or Being Apart? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Chapter 9
Where Do They Go To? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
Transliteration of Arabic Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423
7

Tables
Table 1: Estimations of Atlantic, Oriental and
Inner-African Slave Trade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Table 2: Slave Exports from Senegambia to the Atlantic, 1700-1800 . . . 118
Table 3: Population in the Moudjéria District, 1950 . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Table 4: Frequency of Status Group Members in Different Villages . . . 131
Table 5: Status Affiliation of Women and Men . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Table 6: Estimated Net Barter Terms of Trade, 1718-1849 . . . . . . . . 182
Table 7: Evolution of Date Palm Plantations,
Moudjéria District, 1905-1984 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Table 8: Evolution of Date Palm Plantations,
Assaba Region, 1920-1984 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Illustration
Illustration 1: Gender and Status Implications of Work . . . . . . . . . . 172
Maps
Map 1: Islamic Republic of Mauritania . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Map 2: Western Sahara and Senegal River Valley in the 19th Century . . 178
Map 3: Tribal Boundaries in the Southern Tagant
and Northern Aftout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
To Boissil
9

Preface
In 1980, slavery was abolished in Mauritania for the third time in the
20th century.1 The issue is, however, of such longevity that it continues to
attract the attention of abolitionists and human rights groups, but also of
international donors and journalists up to the present day.2 Like the vast
majorityofthesepopularperceptionsthepresentanalysisfocusesexclusively
on Moorish, or, in the terminology that will be adopted here, on b¯ız.a¯n
society. However, to equate slavery within this largest ethnic group in
Mauritaniawithslaveryinthiscountry,asisfrequentlydoneinthemedia,is
misleading.Similarinstitutionsexisted,andstillcanbetracedtoo,amongthe
black African ethnic groups in Mauritania as well as among most other
Sahelian and West African ethnic groups. This is acknowledged and high-
lighted by a number of human rights groups, such as “Human Rights
Watch”, “Anti-Slavery International” and the Mauritanian “SOS esclaves”,
to name only a few.3
Closertotheheartofthematterarestatementsfrompressuregroupswhich
criticisethegovernmentofMauritaniafordoingatbestlittleorelsenothing
at all to promote the slaves’ and former slaves’ emancipation and economic
development, and hence for allowing slavery to continue. While these
accusationscannotbecomparedwiththoseagainstthegovernmentofSudan,
which has been accused at least for tolerating if not promoting the enslave-
ment of women and children in the country’s south by northerners, the
whole issue seems outdated: after all it is more than 150 years since the
abolitionofslaverybyFranceundertheinitiativeofViktorSchoelcher.This
declaration,however,onlyfollowedsimilarearlierdeclarationsconcludedin
1792 in Denmark, in 1807 in Great Britain, and in 1815 at the Congress of
Vienna.Todaytheframeworkofinternationalconsensusontheabolitionof
slavery, human rights and the rights of the individual is provided by the
Universal Declaration of the Human Rights of 1948, the “Slavery Conven-
tion”of1926,the“ForcedLabourConvention”of1930,the“Supplementary
ConventionontheAbolitionofSlavery,theSlaveTradeandInstitutionsand
PracticesSimilartoSlavery”of1956,andtheILOconventionnº 105of1957
concerning the “Abolition of Forced Labour”. The various conventions not
only condemn slavery and forced labour, but also call for measures to
preventthese.Inviewofthislonghistoryofabolition,andtheconsensuson
10 Preface

this issue within the international community, the accusation of continuing
to tolerate slavery hits hard. It brings into the present an institution of
dominationandoppressioncommonlythoughttohavelongbeenconsigned
tohistory,andthusputsbackontheagendathequestionofwhat“slavery”
means.4
IbecameinvolvedwithMauritania,andwiththeproblemofslaveryinthis
country,in1992.Besidesthemanyfascinatingaspectsofb¯ız.a¯nsocietyIgot
toknowduringthisfirststay,Iwasstruckbypeoplespeakingpubliclyand
without any uneasiness of their slaves and former slaves. A little later I
became acquainted with settlements inhabited exclusively by slaves and
former slaves, and I realised that these people live in the worst conditions I
hadeverseenthusfar–thoughIhadtoadmitthatthesituationmanyoftheir
masters lived in was hardly more enviable. This experience, whichisfirst of
all one of social inequality, and thus in no way particular to Mauritania,
wouldnothaveraisedmyconcernsostrongly,hadtherenotbeenwhatmay
be called a mental state of slavery: arrogance on the part of the former
masters,theb¯ız.a¯n,andsubservienceonthepartofthesu¯da¯n,theslavesand
manumitted slaves (h.ara¯t.ı¯n).
Having worked on local institutions of participation in a development
project and beyond, and the sedentarisation of the b¯ız.a¯n pastoral nomads
whilefinishingmystudies(cf.Ruf1993,1995),thewishtogotoMauritania
for a further period and explore what remained of slavery persisted. A
generousresearchgrantforaPh.D. thesisfromthegraduateschool“Market,
State,Ethnicity”attheSocialDevelopmentResearchCentre,whichispartof
the Department of Sociology at the University of Bielefeld, funded by the
German Research Foundation (DFG) and the federal state of North-Rhine
Westphalia, finally provided the material means to turn this project into
reality.
Almost one year of fieldwork primarily among slaves and manumitted
slaves (h.ara¯t.ı¯n), but former masters, the b¯ız.a¯n, too, was a rich experience
providingmanyinsightsintothecomplexuniverseofhierarchyanddepend-
encyinb¯ız.a¯nsociety.Iwasabletowitnessslavesstillexperiencingmaltreat-
ment by their masters, a great number of slaves and former slaves living in
highly ambivalent relations with masters and former masters, and finally
slavesandformerslavesdefyingnotonlytheirformermaster,butthebı¯z.a¯n
as such. However, beyond all these differentiations, which highlight that
things are indeed changing in Mauritania, I still feel anger whenever my
thoughts go back to some of the experiences I had and which have to be
named. There is the bitterness underlying many slave narratives telling how
things used to be, and there is the memory of one particular old slave man,
who, being no longer of any use, had to sit all day long outside in the
courtyard,barelyprotectedbyahutofbranchesfromthebeatingdesertsun,
while his master, a likeable and learned man, resided in the modest house
build of clay-bricks a few steps away.
This,andvariousotherexperienceswhichtaughtmewhatanendtoslavery