Mixed Race Studies

The Métis of Senegal: Urban Life and Politics in French West Africa

Indiana University Press
2013-03-18
296 pages
9 b&w illustrations, 5 maps
6 x 9
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-253-00674-5
Cloth ISBN: 978-0-253-00673-8
eBook (PDF) ISBN: 978-0-253-00705-6

Hilary Jones, Assistant Professor of History
University of Maryland, College Park

The Métis of Senegal is a history of politics and society among an influential group of mixed-race people who settled in coastal Africa under French colonialism. Hilary Jones describes how the métis carved out a niche as middleman traders for European merchants. As the colonial presence spread, the métis entered into politics and began to assert their position as local elites and power brokers against French rule. Many of the descendants of these traders continue to wield influence in contemporary Senegal. Jones’s nuanced portrait of métis ascendency examines the influence of family connections, marriage negotiations, and inheritance laws from both male and female perspectives.

Table of Contents

• Introduction: Urban Life, Politics, and French Colonialism
• 1. Signares, Habitants, and Grumets in the Making of Saint Louis
• 2. Métis Society and Transformations in the Colonial Economy (1820-1870)
• 3. Religion, Marriage, and Material Culture
• 4. Education, Association, and an Independent Press
• 5. From Outpost to Empire
• 6. Electoral Politics and the Métis (1870-1890)
• 7. Urban Politics and the Limits of Republicanism (1890-1920)
• Conclusion
• Appendix: Family Histories
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index

Children of the French Empire: Miscegenation and Colonial Society in French West Africa 1895-1960

Oxford University Press
1999
216 pages
Hardback ISBN13: 9780198208198; ISBN10: 0198208197

Owen White, Associate Professor of History
University of Delaware

This book recreates the lives of the children born of relationships between French men and African women from the time France colonized much of West Africa towards the end of the 19th century, until independence in 1960. Set within the context of the history of miscegenation in colonial French West Africa, the study focuses upon the lives and identities of the resulting mixed-race or métis population, and their struggle to overcome the handicaps they faced in a racially divided society. This author has drawn an evaluation of the impact and importance of French racial theories, and offers a critical discussion of colonial policies in such areas as citizenship and education, providing insights into problems of identity in colonial society.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations
Map of French West Africa and Togo
Introduction
1. Miscegenation in French West Africa
2. Abandonment and Intervention
3. Education and Employment
4. Race and Heredity
5. Paternity and the Mother Country
6. Métis and the Search for Social Identity
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Between Totem And Taboo: Black Man, White Woman in Francographic Literature

University of Exeter Press
2001
292 pages
Hardback ISBN: 9780859896498
BIC Code: 1HFD, 2ADF, 3JF, 3JH, 3JJ

Roger Little

Between Totem and Taboo picks its way judiciously through a minefield of prejudice, myth and stereotypes.  It is the first book to explore the literary representation by authors black and white, male and female, of interracial relations between France and her former territories in West Africa through the special nexus of the white woman and the black man.

Presented as a text-based chronological exploration of the relationship from 1740 to the present day, it reveals how racism distorted such relations for a quarter of a millennium.  It will fascinate anyone seriously interested in Black studies, Women’s studies and Postcolonial studies, who will find in it not only many unknown or unconsidered texts but a new angle of approach to their research.  All quotations are in French and English.

Roger Little was Professor of French (1776) at Trinity College Dublin until his retirement in 1998. He has an outstanding record of scholarship in French and francophone writing, with particular interests in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean. His academic work has mainly concentrated on modern French poetry and the representation of Blacks in Francographic literature. He has edited several volumes of Textes littéraires for University of Exeter Press. The French government has conferred upon him the rank of Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite and he has been awarded the Prix de l’Académie française: médaille de vermeil du rayonnement de la langue française.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgements
• Some Key Dates
• Introduction: Between Totem and Taboo
• 1. Eighteenth-century Enwhitenment
• 2. From Taboo to Totem
• 3. Traditions and Transitions
• 4. Opposite genders, Opposite Agendas
• 5. The French Empire Writes Back
• 6. Struggles for Independence
• 7. The Freedom to Choose
• 8. Liberty and Licence
• 9. Full Circle
• Conclusion: Beyond Difference and Indifference
• Notes
• Select Bibliography
• Index