A Warning about Imminent Calamity in Colonial French West Africa: The Chain Letter as Historical Source

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Periodical article

Title:	A Warning about Imminent Calamity in Colonial French West Africa: The Chain Letter as Historical Source
Author:	Soares, Benjamin F.
Year:	2003
Periodical:	Sudanic Africa
Volume:	14
Pages:	103-116
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	French-speaking Africa West Africa France
Subjects:	colonialism historical sources letters (form) History and Exploration Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Religion and Witchcraft
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/25653398
Abstract:	This article examines the chain letter as a historical source in colonial French West Africa. Point of departure is the chain letter in Arabic, which Africans have either produced themselves or reproduced, circulated, discussed and commented upon. The author focuses on one such chain letter addressed to all Muslims that was circulating in 1913 in Haut-Sénégal-Niger in areas of what is present-day western Mali. Like many chain letters, this particular one offered a warning about imminent calamity. The author suggests that such letters offer important insight into how some Muslims were grappling with the complex changes that accompanied the French conquest and the onset of colonial rule in West Africa. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]