”The sparrow loves millet, but labors not”: Energy use and infrastructure in the Senegal Valley, 1450-1760

ABSTRACT

This article examines the history of precolonial energy use in the Senegal Valley from 1450–1760, showing how the Wolof kingdoms developed technologically sophisticated systems of energy use to construct an infrastructure of what I call ‘organic refineries’. As co-constructed sites of energy use, technological innovation, and material production, the organic refineries of the Senegal Valley relied on the expertise of peasant farmers, the labor of enslaved workers, and the fertility of arable land to endure long periods of drought and political instability during the era of the transatlantic slave trade. In centering the history of premodern energy use within an African context, this study demonstrates how energy use was not solely confined to the factories, blast furnaces, and coal refineries associated with the proto-industrial economies of the West. The precolonial populations of the Senegal Valley, I argue, developed and deployed a wide range of technical skills, expertise, and systems of labor that coalesced into a resilient infrastructure of agrarian energy systems. These energy regimes enabled them to withstand ecological instability – droughts, locust plagues, and food scarcity – and to compete for control over networks of commercial exchange.

KEYWORDS:

• Senegal
• energy
• infrastructure
• technology
• precolonial

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Notes

1. Adanson, Histoire Natural, 76.

2. Ibid.

3. Based on E.A. Wrigley’s concept of the organic economy. See: Wrigley, Path to Sustained Growth, 7–18 and Energy, 9.

4. Ibid.; Smil, Energy, 64–6.

5. Wrigley, Energy, 9.

6. Barry, Senegambia, 306.

7. Mavhunga, What Do Science, Technology and Innovation Mean From Africa?, 1. The phrase “technologies of daily life” draws on Gokee and Logan, “Comparing Craft,” 87.

8. Carse, “Keyword: Infrastructure,” 27–8.

9. Simone, “People as Infrastructure,” 407.

10. Edwards, Vast Machine, 17.

11. Larkin, “Politics and Poetics,” 329–30.

12. Larkin, “Politics and Poetics,” 330.

13. Kreike, Environmental Infrastructure, 33.

14. For an overview of energy history in Europe, see: Jonsson, “Industrial Revolution.” See also: Wrigley, Energy; Crosby, Children of the Sun; Smil, Energy and Civilization; Sieferle, Subterranean Forest; Malm, Rise of Steam Power; Seow, Carbon Technocracy.

15. Turnbull, “Energy, History, and the Humanities,” 247–9.

16. Shutzer, “Energy in South Asian History.”

17. Smil, Energy and Civilization, 417–8.

18. Baptista, “Space and Energy Transitions,” 31.

19. For energy and energy scarcity in Africa, see: Bridge et al., “Geographies,” 335; Showers, “Electrifying Africa,” 193–221; Hafner, Tagliapietra, and Strasser, Energy in Africa.

20. Osborn, “Containers.”

21. Ibid., 90–1.

22. Baptista, “Space and Energy Transitions,” 31; Bridge et al, “Geographies,” 335.

23. Barry, Senegambia, 16; Curtin, Economic Change, 34; Hopkins, Economic History, 46.

24. Brooks, “Provisional Historical Schema,” 43–62; Curtin, Economic Change, 34.

25. Brooks, “Provisional Historical Schema,” 49.

26. Barry, Senegambia, 5–26.

27. Baptista, “Space and Energy Transitions,” 31.

28. Carney and Rosomoff, Shadow of Slavery, 59.

29. Shawyer, “Wisdom,” 67.

30. Gamble, “Wolof Stories,” 32.

31. For the deep history of millet in West Africa, see: Burgarella et al., “Western Sahara”; National Research Council (NRC), Lost Crops, 77–85; Carney and Rosomoff, Shadow of Slavery, 17.

32. NRC, Lost Crops, 80–85.

33. McIntosh, “Tale of Two Floodplains,” 10.

34. Ibid.

35. de Barros, “Extracts,” 138; Curtin, Economic Change, 16–17.

36. Pélissier, Paysans du Sénégal, 188.

37. Carney and Rosomoff, Shadow of Slavery, 19–20.

38. Pélissier, Paysans du Sénégal, 149; Curtin, Economic Changes, 25.

39. Pélissier, Paysans du Sénégal, 245–70.

40. Ibid.

41. For scholars who work on precolonial history and historical linguistics, see: de Luna, “Inciteful Language,” 41–50; Vansina, Paths in the Rainforest; Schoenbrun, A Green Place.

42. Dial, Dictionary Wolof-English. See also: Summer Cooperative African Language Institute, “Wolof Resources: Agricultural Vocabulary.”

43. Ibid.

44. Gokee and Logan, “Comparing Craft.”

45. For a more in-depth analysis of labor in the household in Senegambia, see: Coquery-Vidrovitch, “Women, Marriage, and Slavery,” 43–61.

46. NRC, Lost Crops, 80–5; Cadamosto, Voyages, 42–44.

47. NRC, Lost Crops, 80–5; Osborn, “Containers,” 78.

48. Gueye, “Poteries et peuplements,” 27.

49. Ibid.

50. Osborn, “Containers,” 78; Gokee, “Crafting, Cooking, and Constructing.”

51. Sarr, Islam, Power, and Dependency, 2–3.

52. Osborn, Our New Husbands, 8. For an initial inquiry into studies of state consolidation in precolonial Africa, see: Goody, Technology, 21–37; Herbst, States and Power, 11–31. For recent work on land and power in West Africa, see: Green, Fistful of Shells, 364–5; Achebe, Farmers, 197. For discussions of power and authority in the Senegal Valley, see: Searing, West African Slavery; Barry, Senegambia; Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule, 11; Curtin, Economic Change.

53. Scholars of Africa’s diverse environments have recognized the critical role of land in the consolidation of state power. See: Schoenbrun, A Green Place; de Luna, Collecting Food; Monroe and Ogundiran, Power and Landscape; Kreike, Environmental Infrastructure; Dlamini, Safari Nation.

54. Diouf, Le Kajoor, 65–67; Curtin, Economic Change, 26–27.

55. Diouf, Le Kajoor, 65–67.

56. Oral traditions in Senegal were collected by Yoro Dyâo and published in Rousseau, “Étude sur le Oualo,” 133–211 and Rousseau, “Seconde étude,” 79–144; Searing, “Aristocrats, Slaves, and Peasants,” 477.

57. Searing, “Aristocrats, Slaves, and Peasants,” 477.

58. Cadamosto, Voyages, 28–31.

59. Ibid., 30.

60. Brooks, “Provisional Historical Schema,” 45.

61. Searing, West African Slavery, 79–88.

62. Experiences of enslaved populations in precolonial Africa were diverse and varied significantly depending on ethnic groups, geographical regions, and time periods. For slavery in Senegal, see: Barry, Senegambia; Diouf, Le Kajoor; Searing, West African Slavery; Curtin, Economic Change; Mbodj, “Abolition of Slavery.” For general studies of slavery in Africa start with: Thornton, Africa and Africans; Lovejoy, Transformation in Slavery; Kopytoff and Miers, Slavery in Africa.

63. Searing, “Aristocrats, Slaves, and Peasants,” 488–90.

64. Rousseau, “Étude sur le Oaulo,” 142–43; cited in Searing, “Aristocrats, Slaves, and Peasants,” 489.

65. Diouf, Le Kajoor, 57–8.

66. Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule, 49.

67. Carney and Rosomoff, Shadow of Slavery, 63; Searing, West African Slavery, 49.

68. Carney and Rosomoff, Shadow of Slavery, 63; Searing, West African Slavery, 52–57.

69. Muldrew, Food, Energy, and the Creation of Industriousness.

70. French reports frequently note that, on average, slaves consumed two pounds of millet a day. See: Pruneau as cited in Becker, Memoire sur le Commerce.

71. Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) et al., “Energy and Protein Requirements.” This framework draws on: Muldrew, Food, Energy and the Creation of Industriousness.

72. FAO et al., “Energy and Protein Requirements.”

73. Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule, 45; Thornton, Africa and Africans, 47.

74. Abdoulaye, Sanders, and Botorou, “Evaluation,” 12.

75. For a detailed study of slavery and the grain trade in precolonial Senegal, see: Searing, West African Slavery. Searing suggests that political elites, through the growth of agricultural slavery and the grain trade, played an instrumental role in the development and expansion of the transatlantic slave trade. By providing Europeans traders with provisions to transport, hold, and ship slaves across the Atlantic Ocean, Searing claims that African granaries helped sustain the transatlantic trading system.

76. Becker and Martin, “Détails historique et politiques,” 81–132. Also cited in Colvin, “Kajor,” 104.

77. de La Courbe, Premier Voyage, 51–62.

78. Green, Fistful of Shells, 438; Robinson, “Islamic Revolution,” 185–92; Searing, West African Slavery, 27–59; Curtin, Economic Change, 92–153; Barry, Senegambia, 50–51.

79. Barry, Senegambia, 50–54.

80. This was reported by Louis Chambonneau. See: Chambonneau, “Relation,” 367. Also referred to in Searing, West African Slavery, 25.

81. Diouf, Le Kajoor, 95–101.

82. Brüe, “Premier Voyage,” 383. Also cited in Searing, West African Slavery, 47.

83. Searing, West African Slavery, 47.

84. Becker and Martin, “Détails historique,” 81–132. Also cited in Colvin, “Kajor,” 104.

85. Archives national d’outre mer (hereafter ANOM), C 6 11, Mémoire sur la Concession du Sénégal, October 8, 1734; C 6 14, Réponse du Conseil Supérieur au Mémoire et Observations, February, 1754. Also cited in Curtin, Supplementary Evidence, 36–45 and Searing, West African Slavery, 140. Searing posits that annual cereal consumption in Saint-Louis was 950 tons.

86. Joseph Pruneau, as cited in Becker, Memoire sur le Commerce.

87. Searing, West African Slavery, 79–88; Carney and Rosomoff, Shadow of Slavery, 59–60.

88. Lafleur, Journal d’Andre Brüe, 158. See also: Searing, West African Slavery, 23–24.

89. ANOM, C 6 12, as cited in Becker, “Notes sur les Conditions,” 175.

90. ANOM, C 6 9, “Lettre au gouverneur,” 1731; Becker, “Notes,” 175.

91. As cited in Becker, “Notes,” 195–6.

92. Searing, West African Slavery, 131; Barry, Senegambia, 110–1; Becker, “Notes,” 160.

93. Becker, “Notes,” 187–8.

94. Ibid., 184.

95. ANOM C 6 13, “La letter du Conseil du Sénégal,” June 30, 1751. As cited in Becker, “Notes,” 184.

96. Ibid.

97. ANOM C 6 14, “La lettre du Conseil du Sénégal,” June 20, 1753. As cited in Becker, “Notes,” 186.

98. Ibid.

99. Rousseau, “Second étude sur le Cayor,” 79–144 ; Cropper, “Growing,” 9.

100. Becker, “Notes,” 186.

101. Ibid.

102. Law, “Horses,” 112–32.

103. ANOM C 6 14, “Lettre du conseil du Sénégal,” October 3, 1753. As cited in Becker, “Notes,” 186.

104. Berlioux, Andre Brüe, 276. Also cited in Cropper, “Growing,” 8–9.

105. Cropper, “Growing,” 8–9.

106. ANOM C 6 14, Lettre, Saint-Louis, June 3, 1754.

107. ANOM C 6 14, Lettre du Conseil du Sénégal, July 11, 1754.

108. Adanson, Histoire naturelle, 75; Cropper, “Growing,” 9–10.

109. Adanson, Histoire naturelle, 75.

110. Adanson, Voyage to Senegal, 151.

111. Ibid., 262–3.

112. Ibid.

113. Cropper, “Running on Empty.”