This study examines the origins and development of the community of Hamawi Sufis that formed around Yacouba Sylla in French West Africa beginning in 1929. Based on research in the French, Senegalese, Malian, Ivoirien and Mauritanian archives, as well as on an analysis of the oral traditions of the “Yacoubist” community itself, the study uses the group's past to shed light on several aspects of the history of French West Africa. It argues that Yacouba Sylla and his followers played important roles in the evolution of French Muslim policy in the 1930s, in the transformation of the economy of Côte d'Ivoire in the 1940s, and in the struggles over self-governance and independence in French West Africa in the 1950s. Many of Yacouba's early followers were former slaves and casted persons, and the dissertation raises questions about the cultural and social meanings of emancipation by interrogating common assumptions about the processes by which slavery came to an end in West Africa. In particular, it explores the social meanings and uses of memories of dependency among former slaves and casted persons, as well as among former masters, “freeborn” nobles and colonial analysts. The study fuses social and intellectual history, devoting equal attention to the ideational and spiritual aspects of the Yacoubists' religious beliefs, to the social and cultural contexts that made those beliefs meaningful, and to the questions of power that surrounded their representation. Finally, it highlights an underappreciated methodological point about the sources of African history. The practices of knowledge production in the colonial administration were such that African informants and political elites actively manipulated the creation of the “colonial library” in their efforts to appropriate the power of the state. Seen in this light, colonial archives reveal themselves to be largely “African” sources that can be read according to methodologies analogous to the analysis of oral traditions.

Insurgents have established bases in an important nature reserve spanning parts of Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger. They pose a growing danger to local ecosystems and people living around the park. The three countries need to collaborate more closely to keep the threat at bay.