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Abstract
Roads emerged as an ideal colonial technology in French Equatorial Africa and French Cameroon in the 1920s, not only because they allowed the French to shape landscapes and move around their territory, but also because their inherent technological flexibility enabled administrators to adapt European notions about roads to colonial goals, budgets, and geographies. Desiring motor vehicle‐ready roads to link administrative and productive centers, but with little funding or engineering expertise from the metropole, colonial administrators in central Africa deliberately moved away from the quickly evolving cutting edge of road technologies. Instead, over the course of the 1920s they supervised the construction of over 12,000 kilometers of technically simple earthen roads built using hand tools and, especially, forced African labor. Because of the ways they reshaped the region's landscapes and relied on coerced labor from local populations, roads and road work became sites of contestation over colonial rule and order.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank the anonymous referee for very helpful comments, and to acknowledge the following grants which funded fieldwork and archival research: the Kranzberg Dissertation Fellowship of the Society for the History of Technology (2001), the National Science Foundation Dissertation Research Improvement Fellowship (2002), and the Fulbright–Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship (2002–2003).
Notes
1. See for example Pakenham, Scramble for Africa.
2. Granted, the work that had been completed was technically impressive: in 1911, the Governor‐General of French Equatorial Africa boasted that the road had ‘an average width of six meters with paving‐stones over two meters; none of its slopes exceed 4.5 percent … [the road] includes two bridges between thirty‐five and forty‐five meters long, four bridges under twenty meters, and eighteen smaller bridges.’ Merlin, Speech, Journal officiel de l'Afrique Equatoriale Française, 568. See also Centre des Archives d'Outre‐Mer (CAOM) 1tp 379, Dossier 5, ‘Rapport d'ensemble sur le fonctionnement du service des Travaux Publics de l'Afrique Équatoriale Française,’ Brazzaville, March 15, 1923, p. 26, ‘Historique des Routes d'accès au Tchad.’
3. An inspector's report for Cameroon in 1920 noted that the recent war had ‘shown what one could expect from transportation using motor trucks,’ and predicted that a wider road network would help the ‘mise en valeur du Cameroun.’ Cameroon National Archives, Affaires Politiques 3138, Inspection Report no. 53, Douala, February 10, 1920, p. 9. Another reason for preferring motorable roads, only sometimes articulated in the official record, is that many officials themselves preferred traveling by automobile.
4. CAOM 5D 60, Folder Rapport d'Inspection dossiers d'Instruction de M. Marchessou, correspondance avec le Procureur Général: Letter No. 47c, from Raphaël Antonetti, Gouverneur‐Général de l'Afrique Equatoriale Française to the Ministre des Colonies, Direction des Affaires Politiques, re ‘Affaires de n'Goto,’ Brazzaville, February 11, 1926, p. 5.
5. Arnold, ‘Europe, Technology, and Colonialism,’ 96.
6. See for example Weber, Peasants Into Frenchmen; Bishop, La France et l'automobile; Laux, ‘Trucks in the West during the First World War’; Reverdy, Les Routes de France du XXè Siècle; McShane, Down the Asphalt Path; Holley, The Highway Revolution; Preston, Dirt Roads to Dixie.
7. Anderson and Adams, ‘Pramoedya's Chickens,’ 186.
8. Mom, ‘Inter‐artifactual Technology Transfer,’ 76.
9. Prakash, Another Reason; Gray, Colonial Rule and Crisis; Gray, ‘Territoriality and Colonial “Enclosure”.’
10. In fact, one of Weber's chapters is titled ‘Roads, Roads, Roads.’ Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen.
11. Tamara Giles‐Vernick has argued that ‘movement constituted a central feature of the historical dynamics of the Sangha River basin and of the entire northern equatorial forest.’ Giles‐Vernick, ‘We Wander Like Birds,’ 172. See also Burnham, Opportunity and Constraint in a Savanna Society, and Bah, ‘Le Facteur Peul et Les Relations Inter‐Ethniques dans L'Adamaoua au XIXè Siècle.’
12. Mairama, interview by author, Mbang Mboum, Cameroon, April 18, 2003 and Baba Garba Aboubakar, interview by author, Tibati, April 29, 2003. See also Warnier, Échanges, développement et hiérarchies dans le Bamenda pré‐colonial (Cameroun).
13. As even some French administrators acknowledged, where possible existing footpaths had often been deliberately sited along sandy soil (rather than clay, rock, etc.) routes to be easy on the feet as well as more easily passable during rainy season.
14. See for example Cordell, Dar al‐Kuti and the Last Years of the Trans‐Saharan Slave Trade.
15. Of these 8000 kilometers, the sub‐colony of Gabon had approximately 450 kilometers of roads and 500 more under construction, Moyen‐Congo had around 2500 kilometers and another 1000 under construction, Oubangui‐Chari had over 4000 kilometers, and Chad had 1125 kilometers of mostly seasonal motor roads as well as 4000 kilometers of other non‐paved roads. CAOM 1tp424, Étude Ferroviaire au Cameroun et Dans le Bassin du Tchad, 1931, annexed document no. 15.
16. France, Rapport annuel du gouvernement français sur l'administration sous mandat des territoires du Cameroun pour l'année 1931, 27. In addition, Cameroon had just over 50 kilometers of light ‘Décauville’ rail in 1922.
17. This is not to say that railroads were unimportant in central Africa in the early twentieth century; indeed, even at the time they garnered large amounts of funding and attention, even if there were less than a thousand kilometers of railroad actually built and operated in central Africa by the end of the 1920s. For an excellent breakdown of the construction of the Congo–Océan railroad, see Sautter, ‘Notes sur la construction du chemin de fer Congo–Océan (1921–1934).’
18. With the exception of some streets in major urban areas, the French only built a very few paved roads in central Africa, and those after World War II. It is also important to note that earthen roads are not necessarily technically simple; in fact, working with earth can be exceptionally difficult, but before the late 1940s, the French chose to ignore technical complications wherever possible.
19. The difference between a ‘path’ and a ‘road’ is neither historically stable nor always clearly defined. I use ‘roads’ here to indicate routes designed for four‐wheeled vehicles. ‘Route’ is generally translated as ‘road,’ and ‘sentier’ as ‘foot‐path.’ In colonial central Africa, the word ‘piste’ was commonly used, sometimes to mean a motor‐ready road and sometimes deliberately to indicate something narrower, less technically sophisticated, or simply less well maintained. After the late 1910s, some French administrators used the word ‘piste’ dismissively, to indicate a route they considered to be not up to the standard of a ‘route.’
20. Cameroon National Archives, Vt 38/14, Lettre no. 113 c5t, Garoua, August 16, 1920, from Capt. Pition commanding the Garoua Circonscription, to the Commissioner of Cameroon.
21. Cameroon National Archives, Vt 17/183: document dated Garoua, January 24, 1928.
22. Even shovels and pickaxes and so on were sometimes lacking; requested tools were not always available or delivered in a timely fashion, and administrators in some areas reported workers using ‘indigenous tools’ for road work. CAOM 4(2) D 38, Rapport Circonscription Chemin de Fer, September 1924.
23. CAOM 4(3) D 29, Rapport Annuel de la Colonie de l'Oubangui‐Chari, 1922, Bangui, June 1, 1923, p. 77.
24. Daïriam. La subdivision en Afrique Equatoriale Francaise, 24.
25. See for example CAOM 1tp154, Report no. 10, Construction de la route Mindouli – Mayombé, July 20, 1926.
26. CAOM 1tp367, Dossier 15, ‘Observations diverses recueillies par M. Beau Ingénieur en chef adjoint à l'inspecteur général des travaux publics des colonies, au cours de son passage par le Congo Belge et l'Oubangui‐Chari,’ p. 3. As this inspector pointed out, wooden bridges often rotted rapidly in tropical conditions.
27. CAOM, 1tp152, Letter no. 16 from Ministre des Colonies, Inspection, Colonie du Tchad, from Pegourier to Ministre des Colonies, September 1, 1922; and CAOM 1tp152, Dossier 31, Inspection Report no. 17 by Pegourier to Ministre des Colonies, May 3, 1922, p. 24.
28. See for example CAOM Agefom873, Dossier 2403, Lettre no. 2078/AG, December 12, 1935, re Garoua‐Pitoa road.
29. In Chad, for example, an inspection report from 1922 noted that ‘A l'exterieur du Chef‐lieu la construction et l'entretien des postes, gites d'étape, pistes et ponts, sont éxécutés à la diligence des Administrateurs ou des Officiers don't la compétence n'égale pas toujours la bonne volonté. J'ai obtenu que ceux‐ci fussent pourvus, tout au moins pour ce qui concerne la construction des bâtiments, de projets‐types susceptibles de leur servir de modèle. L'excessive lenteur des déplacements ne permettra pas d'étendre le cercle de l'activité du service des Travaux Publics aussi longtemps que le personnel restera numériquement insuffisant’ [‘Outside the capital the construction and maintenance of official buildings, waystations, pistes, and bridges, is done by Administrators or officers … the excessive slowness of travel prevents the extension of the Public Works service's activities so long as its personnel remains numerically insufficient’]. CAOM, 1tp152, Lettre No.16, Ministre des Colonies, Inspection, Colonie du Tchad, from Pegourier to Ministre des Colonies, September 1, 1922, p. 2.
30. Cohen, Rulers of Empire, 123.
31. See for example, Cameroon National Archives, APA 11842(3), Edea Circonscription Rapport, 2nd Quarter 1918.
32. CAOM 5D 50, Lettre no. 283, Brazzaville, March 25, 1925 from the Governor‐General of French Equatorial Africa to the Inspection‐General of Sanitation Services.
33. CAOM 5D 60, Dossier Affaire Pacha, by Georges Pacha, Brazzaville, April 13, 1926.
34. Mollion, Sur les pistes de l'Oubangui‐Chari au Tchad, 44.
35. CAOM 1tp379, Dossier 5, ‘Rapport d'ensemble sur le Fonctionnement du Service des Travaux Publics de l'Afrique Equatoriale Française,’ Brazzaville, March 15, 1923, pp. 24–5.
36. France, Rapport annuel du gouvernement français sur l'administration sous mandat des territoires du Cameroun pour l'année 1925, 5.
37. See for example CAOM 1tp154, Report no. 10, Construction de la route Mindouli – Mayombé, Governor‐General's comments, August 24, 1926.
38. Kalck, Histoire de la Republique Centrafricaine, 222, as quoted in Mollion, Sur les pistes de l'Oubangui‐Chari au Tchad, 86.
39. See for example Philippe Namadiga, André Maloum, and Robert Yaya, interview by author, Ngaoundéré, Cameroon, June 8, 2003; and Souleymanou Yaya, interview by author, Ngaoundéré, Cameroon, June 16, 2003. Yaya's father worked on roads in French Cameroon the 1920s.
40. Gide, Voyage au Congo, suivi du retour du Tchad.
41. This system, which emerged in the 1910s and endured until the French abolished forced labor in 1946 was modeled on the old ‘corvée’ labor system in France, though it also drew somewhat on existing indigenous traditions of communal work.Prestations included more than just road work – building construction and clearing away vegetation, for example – but road work quickly came to dominate. In principle, all adult African males between the ages of 15 and 55 in French Equatorial Africa were subject to prestations. This fit with French justifications of prestations as a general in‐kind tax for work ‘benefiting the common good’ (as well as with French gendered ideas about road work, which I discuss below). Per a 1919 law, prestations were also limited to twelve days per adult per year, with a few local variations [although the exact requirements changed over time and region]. See CAOM Affaires Politiques, 3127, Tchad Inspection Report no. 121, by Cazaux, Fort‐Archambault, December 22, 1921, p. 9. In Cameroon in 1921, prestations were limited to 10 days per year, and to work of a ‘local nature’; for labor without an explicitly local benefit, workers ‘had the right to a salary, at least in theory.’ Kaptue, ‘Travail et main d'oeuvre au Cameroun sous régime francais 1916–1952,’ 191.
42. CAOM Affaires Politiques 3127, Tchad Inspection Report no. 121, by Cazaux, Fort‐Archambault, December 22, 1921, p. 9.
43. CAOM 4(1) D 19, Rapport Annuel du Gabon 1921, p. 19. The delegation of labor recruitment and oversight also, obviously, depended very much on the relationship between individual officials and local authorities, which varied widely.
44. On occasion, administrators mentioned the lack of organization in the management of labor quotas. See for example CAOM 4(1) D 19, French Equatorial Africa, Colonie du Gabon, Commandement Militaire, Lettre No. 89 C/M, from Lt‐Colonel Le Meillour, Commandant Militaire du Gabon, to Lieutenant‐Gouverneur du Gabon, regarding ‘Tournée d'inspection dans les Circonscriptions. du Nord de l'Ogooué, effectué par le Lt‐Colonel Le Meillour,’ Libreville, April 28, 1919.
45. See for example interview by author, Yaoundé, Cameroon, August 27, 2003 [name of interviewee withheld at his request].
46. See for example CAOM AffPol 3127, Ministre des Colonies, Inspection des Colonies, Colonie du Tchad, Rapport No. 127, Mission 1921–1922, by J.V. Cazaux regarding M. Trouilh, Abéché, March 15, 1922. Cazaux noted that ‘although prestations are owed by all the inhabitants without exception, up until now a certain number of indigenous nobility capable of buying back their days of work by paying cash have escaped this obligation’; the same administrator noted having ‘received numerous doleances from [Moslem pastoralists] who wish to buy back their days of prestations, arguing that if they leave their cattle [to go work], the cattle won't be there when they get back.’
47. CAOM 6D 19, Arrêté No. 98, Chad, regarding labor quotas for 1928: 5–15 days depending on the Circonscription. Fort‐Lamy, August 31, 1927 by de Coppet; by Antonetti, December 23, 1927 no. 1482. and 98bis giving information on the taux de rachat (2 francs for all of Chad).
48. CAOM 6D 19, Arrêté no. 98 from Tchad, Fort‐Lamy, August 31, 1927 by de Coppet.
49. CAOM 4(2) D 48, Rapport de Tournée No. 610 by Chef de Circonscription de Likouala‐Mossaka from August 3, 1929 to September 3, 1929. Fort‐Rousset, September 4, 1929.
50. CAOM 4(2) D 38, Rapport Annuel Circonscription de Likouala‐Mossaka, by Titaux Chef de Circonscription, regarding ‘Regime du Travail – Main d'oeuvre, Contrats de Travail,’ February 28, 1925.
51. See for example Paul Iya, interview by author, Meiganga, Cameroon, April 10, 2003.
52. CAOM 4(2) D 48, Lettre No. 49, Brazzaville, from Afrique Equatoriale Francaise, Moyen‐Congo, Inspection des Affaires Administratives, to Gouvernement‐Général de l'Afrique Equatoriale Francaise, regarding ‘Route Nord‐Sud section Brazzaville‐Pangala,’ pp. 5–6. February 23, 1929.
53. see Scott, Seeing Like A State, 2.
54. CAOM 4(1) D 35, Circonscription de Djouah, Rapport du Premier Trimestre 1929, by Carrot, Makoukou, April 4, 1929, p. 3.
55. Note the assumptions here, not only about whose priorities mattered, but what those priorities were: although resettlement efforts had important and often lasting effects on local populations' lives and livelihoods, the French in the 1920s frequently considered it easier and more cost‐effective to move populations than, for example, to build bridges.
56. Philip Burnham has written about resettlements in the Meiganga district of eastern Cameroon; he describes French efforts starting in 1929 to use resettlements to end mobility as well as facilitate ‘social development’ (as the French saw it) and administration among the area's Gbaya populations. Burnham also notes that the French made some attempts to stabilize the area's Foulbé pastoralists, not by resettling them in the same way as they did more sedentary populations like the Gbaya, but by creating special administrative units for them. Burnham, ‘“Regroupement” and Mobile Societies.’
57. CAOM 4(2) D 25, ‘Divers. 1919’ folder. Lettre No. 1616, from Affaires Politiques to the Administrator of l'Alima in Ossélé, regarding the ‘plan de campagne pour 1919,’ December 13, 1918.
58. CAOM 4(2) D 48, Dossier 1929 (2), Sub‐folder Correspondances Diverses. ‘Observations et instructions de M. le Chef de Circonscription en Tournée,’ by M. Curet, M'Baiki, August 29, 1929, p. 3.
59. Some communities, at least, resisted resettlement and strove to remain in the river‐valleys. One such village, Bandaï, in east‐central Cameroon, moved from the Mbéré River valley up to the colonial ridge‐road at the behest of colonial and post‐colonial officials several times over the course of the twentieth century; each time, however, they returned down to the river valley because the agriculture was so much better there. Interviews by author with various community members, Bandaï, Cameroon, October 2003.
60. See for example Doumba Yaya, interview by author, Djohong, Cameroon, April 8, 2003; Paul Iya, interview by author, Meiganga, April 9, 2003; and Philippe Namadiga, André Maloum, and Robert Yaya, interview by author, Ngaoundéré, Cameroon, June 8, 2003.
61. CAOM 5D60, Affaire Pacha, letter to the Governor of Moyen‐Congo, Bambio, October 30, 1925.
62. Tamara Giles‐Vernick has written about roads and resettlements among Banda peoples in the M'Bres region of Oubangui‐Chari. Although the French began resettlement efforts by the 1910s, she notes that ‘well into the 1930s, colonial administrators reported that their efforts to “stabilize” Banda villages had not succeeded.’ Yet even so, regroupement led to a ‘fundamental transformation of the M'Bres region landscape.’ Giles‐Vernick, ‘Na Lege ti Guiriri,’ 257.
63. Pratt, Imperial Eyes.
64. Both licit and illicit. See for example Roitman, Fiscal Disobedience.
65. Dogo Badomo Belako. Interview by author, Ngaoundéré, Cameroon, June 9, 2003. Off‐road spaces have remained more local in other ways as well: in 2003, Bandaï, a village in Cameroon located two hours' hike off the main road, had not seen a policeman or politician in ten years. Interviews by author, Bandaï, October 2003.
66. CAOM 1tp814 contains various reports about this ‘special grant.’ Railroads and ports still garnered the lion's share of funding, as they had in the 1920s; for example, French Equatorial Africa borrowed a total of 1,120,000,000 francs between 1931 and 1933, of which hundreds of millions went to the Congo–Océan railroad and the port at Pointe‐Noire, and tens of millions of francs to roads. Even so, these tens of millions represented a substantial increase in road funding over the 1920s. CAOM 1tp779, Dossier 6, ‘Rapport au Président de la République Française,’ from the Inspection‐General of Public Works, Paris, July 26, 1939.
67. Permanent International Association of Road Congresses, Sixth International Road Congress, Third Question, ‘The Construction of Roads in New Countries Such as Colonies and Undeveloped Regions.’ The Permanent International Association of Road Congresses (now the World Road Association – PIARC) had been established in 1909, with its headquarters in Paris. Many of the 1930 conference's conclusions about colonial roads had already been staples of French colonial policy in French Equatorial Africa: building roads ‘to be passable for motor traffic, but as economically as possible’; using earth roads but restricting vehicle weights and/or speed ‘to prevent undue erosion or disintegration of the road surface.’ Other of the conclusions, however, were beyond the resources or priorities of the French in central Africa before the late 1940s. These included maintaining ‘uniformity of design,’ conducting ‘tests of mechanical grading,’ and undertaking ‘systematic research … to determine the physical properties’ of various soils mixtures and road‐surfacing materials. Quotations, p. 101.
68. The 1930 Congress is mentioned in Giard, CAOM Agefom359, ‘Materiel à utiliser dans les colonies pour les travaux routiers,’ Conference faite à l'exposition coloniale, André Giard, October 29, 1931, p. 4. The 1937 Congress is summarized in ‘Les Problèmes routiers coloniaux au Congrès de l'outillage de la France d'Outre‐Mer.’
69. Edwards, ‘Infrastructure and Modernity,’ 185. For France, see Weber, Peasants Into Frenchmen.