In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Generational Conflict in the Umarian Movement after the Jihad: Perspectives from the Futanke Grain Trade at Medine JOHN H. HANSON AI-Hajj Umar Tal's call to jihad enticed tens of thousands of Futankel to fight in his mid-nineteenth-century conquest of the Western Sudan.2 Expansion carne to a halt with Umar's death in 1864, but his sons continued waging war in the region until the French ended Umarian rule with their latenineteenth -century conquests.3 The military campaigns of Umar's sons prompted another several thousand young Futanke to leave the Senegal valley in hope of accumulating wealth in booty. In Karta, the Umarian state that received the largest influx of young recruits, criticism of the wars emerged among earlier Futanke colonists who had fought in AI-Hajj Umar's armies and then settled in Karta. Many of these settlers had acquired land and slaves, managed agricultural enterprises that produced surplus grain for regional markets, and sought to protect trade in Karta from the disruptions of war. Most discussions of the Umarian era in the Western Sudan overlook the emergence of agricultural interests among the Futanke settlers of Karta and emphasize the wars and raids conducted by Umar's sons and their followers.4 This emphasis reflects and reinforces the image of Futanke militancy expressed in the extant sources. Most Umarian oral accounts stress the victories of the jihad which, combined with accounts of social dislocation and devastation in the traditions of the conquered populations, foster an impression of continuing Umarian warfare.5 French travelers, military personnel, and colonial officials also emphasize the wars of the Umarian Futanke; they refer to them as "fanatic Muslims," whose exuberance for warfare distinguished them from "productive" African populations whom the French moved "to protect" through their conquest of the Western Sudan.6 While most practicing historians reject French colonial assumptions of distinct African ethnic "types," received images of the militant Futanke still influence the reconstruction of the past. 41 42 JOHN H. HANSON Claude Meillassoux offers a nuanced argument regarding the historical relations between military and commercial elites in the Western Sudan, but his discussion of the Umarian Futanke focuses merely on their role as a "Muslim warrior aristocracy" whose wars redistributed populations in the region.? Richard Roberts further clarifies the relations between these two elites for the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but he also argues that the Umarian Futanke were warriors who depended upon military campaigns for their social reproduction.s Neither author recognizes the emerging contradictions within the Umarian movement: Futanke settlers who had reaped the benefits of military conquest tried to protect their new positions by eliminating warfare in areas crucial to commercial activity. While the French advance ended Umarian rule without a conclusive resolution to this internal process, the conflict nevertheless points to the need to understand more fully the material bases of generational conflict within conquest states.9 Yves Saint-Martin, in his study of Franco-Umarian relations, notes that an elderly group of Futanke in Karta had become "bourgeois" and lost their desire for the "brutal exploits of old."10 Although he points to generational cleavages, Saint-Martin does not discuss the "old men" as a social group. Nor does he mention agricultural or any other economic interests that might explain their disinterest in warfare. This essay uses Saint-Martin as a point of departure to document the emergence of agricultural interests among the earliest Futanke settlers as a first step toward reconstructing the social formation established in Umarian Karta. I have selected for discussion the case of Umarian 10mboxo, the southwestern part of Karta. Data from the nearby French post at Medine reveal the emergence of agricultural interests among the Futanke settlers. While previous studies conclude that little grain entered the market at Medine, these records show an extensive grain trade generated by the 10mboxo Futanke.II Since the grain trade at Medine was only one aspect of the political economy of Umarian Karta, I begin the essay with a summary of Umarian interventions in the regional economy. The Political Economy of Umarian Karta Karta is a Sahelian region of the Western Sudan that borders the Saharan desert-edge to the north and the upper reaches of the Senegal River valley to the west and south.12 To the east, Karta's territory gives way to the frontiers of Segu and Masina, social formations based in the middle Niger River valley. The Massassi, a Bambara royal lineage from Segu, fled a civil...

Share