Country: Mali
Group: Ikelan
Finalized Date: 12/11/2020
Team: Ethan Pelland (lead), Johanna McCombs, Ann Thomas
Content Warning: forced labor, slavery
Approximate Time Period: unknown-present
The Ikelan are a caste in Tuareg Society, composed of former and current slaves in the colonial holdings of the former French West Africa. The Ikelan have historically and in the present faced an environment of forced labor. In 1993, there there were 400,000 Ikelan in Mali. (Hall, 2011). When the French colonized Mali, they made efforts to restrict the sale and trading of slaves, however they did not free the Ikelan from their Tuareg owners. As much as 50% of the population at the time of French colonial conquest were slaves (Klein 1998). Some Ikelan practiced agriculture and owed their masters a portion of the harvest and a government set tax (Hall, 2011). Other Ikelan slaves were herders under a larger confederation of non-slaves as well as domestic slaves. At the end of World War II, efforts were made to grant Ikelan greater autonomy out of forced servitude. Even after this, however, slavery continued, with the French finding the practice to still be widespread during their intervention in Mali in 2013 (Raghavan, 2013)
The data quality is a 2 because although the source is reliable there are not many sources outlining the specificity of the Ikelan being used as slaves.
Sources
- Hall, B. S. (2011). Bellah Histories of Decolonization, Iklan Paths to Freedom: The Meanings of Race and Slavery in the Late-Colonial Niger Bend (Mali), 1944—1960. The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 44(1), 61–87.
- Klein, M. A. (1998). Slavery and colonial rule in French West Africa. Cambridge (GB): Cambridge University Press.
- Raghavan, S. (2013, June 01). Timbuktu’s slaves liberated as Islamists flee. Retrieved December 14, 2020, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/timbuktus-slaves-liberated-as-islamists-flee/2013/05/31/ea4d3e1a-c142-11e2-9aa6-fc21ae807a8a_story.html