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Historical Context Of Chocolate Slavery
Foundations of Servitude
The current crisis of slavery in the cocoa industry is undoubtedly affected
by the present market price and national instability.
The dramatic drop in the world market price of non-organic cocoa has meant
farmers are less able to pay wages, yet they have invested heavily in
growing cocoa trees and need to harvest them to get any money. It would serve as framework to understand the historical basis for these
events and how it affected local cultures, habits, traditions and the
eventual justification for harboring slavery.
Various forms of domestic slavery and servitude had existed in African
societies since long before the Europeans and the initiation of the
transatlantic slave trade. The West African region provided most of the
slaves that went to the Americas. The colonial authorities began to abolish
domestic slavery ostensibly and arguably for economic reasons in order to
make available the formerly privately owned slaves for the needs of national
development as opposed to altruistic reasons. While the region was under
European rule, there was a conflict between the concepts of freedom from
slavery and the need for cheap labor. The abolition of the international
slave-trade did not diminish its prominence inside African society.
Villages de liberté were established. Ostensibly, where people freed from
slavery could find sanctuary but they soon came to be viewed principally as
labor pools which the colonial administration could draw upon. Labor was
conscripted not only for public purposes but also in some instances to
provide for private companies. As a result, it is charged that the villages
de liberté were little more than forced labor camps.
Corvée
As slavery was already a prominent source of labor in the colonies, forced
labor or the corvée was not completely new in Africa. Corvée is unpaid labor
that persons in power compel their subjects to perform and differs from
slavery, in theory, in that the worker is not owned outright. Military
service also comes under the general terms of corvée.
On a practical basis slavery and corvée are hard to separate and in some
instances may be all but indistinguishable. However, it may be stated in
general terms that slavery aims to exploit captive individuals for an
indefinite period while corvée is usually inflicted on a seasonal basis or
for a limited period. They are both similar in that forced labor, like
slavery, involves the deprivation of liberty.
The International Labor
Organization's Forced Labor Convention of 1930 defines forced labor as "all
work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any
penalty and for which the said person has not offered themselves
voluntarily. The practice of forced labor, which is profoundly at odds
with the ILO's mandate to promote "social justice and internationally
recognized human and labor rights" is in fact effectively condoned by the
organization.
The convention legalizes the imposition of forced labor on adult males.
Article 11 states that "Only adult able-bodied males who are of an apparent
age of not less than 18 and not more than 45 years may be called upon for
forced or compulsory labor," so long as "they are physically fit for the
work required and for the conditions under which it is to be carried out"
and "the number of adult able-bodied men indispensable for family and social
life" is allowed to remain in communities targeted for forced labor.
Specifically, the Convention states that "the proportion of the resident
adult able-bodied males who may be taken at any one time for forced or
compulsory labor ... shall in no case exceed 25 per cent." In comparison,
the unequivocal statement of the U.S. Fair Labor Association states: The
FLA's Workplace Code of Conduct decrees that "there shall not be any use of
forced labor, whether in the form of prison labor, indentured labor, bonded
labor or otherwise"
Corvée has undoubtedly existed since the beginning of human civilization. It
has been simply a means to an end by those in power. Old Kingdom Egypt
utilized corvée labor to build government' projects. Compelled labor was
used for construction projects such as pyramids, temples, quarries, canals,
roads, and during Nile River floods.
Citizens in the Roman Empire performed operae publicae in lieu of paying
taxes. In Medieval Europe, serfs were required to performed operae rigae on
a yearly basis for their lords.
Imperial China had a system of conscripting labor from the public that has
been equated with the western corvée. Corvée-style labor called yo was also
found in pre-modern Japan, while corvée was used extensively by Imperial
Japan during World War II. Some Southern states taxed their inhabitants in
the form of labor for the building of public works after the American Civil
War.
The Nazi’s used corvée as did the Stalinist U.S.S.R as realized in the vast
‘Gulag Archipelago’. The corvée was used by many colonial powers including
the Dutch, British, Belgian, and German Empires; including Portugal's
African colonies until the mid 1960s. Corvée is said to exist in Myanmar in
the present day.
Corvée is considered an important cause of the revolution in France and was
abolished in 1879 though was revived due to counter revolution in 1824,
1836, and 1871 under the term prestation (taxes paid in forced labor). Later
the corvée was used extensively in the French Empire and was administered
through the application of The Code de l'indigénat.
Indigénat
The Code de l'indigénat was first created to solve specific problems of
administering France’s African colonies in the mid to early 19th century to
assist the French government in actively ruling large subject populations
and was a tool with which all of its territories in Africa, Guiana, New
Caledonia, and Madagascar were ruled without having to extend the rights of
Frenchmen to the native peoples.
The indigénat had its foundations in the Code Noir which was a decree passed
by France's King Louis XIV in 1689. Louis wanted to increase his power in
the colonies; in particular the France Outré Mer or France over seas island
colonies. At that time the majority of the populations of the French
Caribbean were slaves and slave revolts were frequent. The Code Noir
ordered all Jews out of France's colonies, forbade the exercise of any other
religion, other than Roman Catholicism, restricted the activities of free
Negroes and defined the conditions of slavery in the French colonial empire.
The code has been described as, "one of the most extensive official
documents on race, slavery, and freedom ever drawn up in Europe."
One can see that such Codes have
been found to be expedient since the beginning of civilization when
considering the Code of Hammurabi. The Code of Hammurabi ca. 1760 BCE, is
one of the earliest sets of laws which prescribes for persons, including
their family, convicted of serious crimes to be sold into slavery. The
proceeds from this sale were often used to compensate the victims. The
convicted criminals might be sold into slavery if they lacked the property
to make compensation to the victims. Other laws and other crimes might
enslave the criminal regardless of their property. Some laws called for the
criminal and all his property to be handed over to his victim.
The Code was created by the sixth Babylonian King, Hammurabi who considered
himself chosen by the gods to deliver the 'law' to his people. In the
preface to the law code, he states, "Anu and Bel called by name me,
Hammurabi, the exalted prince, who feared God, to bring about the rule of
righteousness in the land." His Code was preceded by earlier collections
of laws that include the codex of Ur-Nammu, king of Ur ca. 2050 BCE, the
Codex of Eshnunna ca. 1930 BCE and the codex of Lipit-Ishtar of Isin ca.
1870 BCE.
The indigénat was a set of laws relating to persons of ‘native status’ – or,
more technically, sujets, and creating in practice, an inferior legal status
for natives of French Colonies from 1887 until 1946. It was a colonial
system of discipline characterized by arbitrary and summary judgments
accorded Africans living in rural areas.
A dual legal system was effectively established, whereby a French law
existed for whites, métis, and the few Africans in West Africa who were
naturalized citoyens; sujets were subject to a system called justice
indigène. The laws were enforced by a system of appointed indigenous
authorities, religious courts, and native police carrying out the orders of
often distant French administrators. Any administrator or white man was free
to impose summary punishment for any ambiguous infractions of the code.
In addition to these punishments, were a set of tools for extracting value
from colonial subjects including the Corvée, Prestation, Head Tax (arbitrary
monetary taxes, food and property requisitioning, market taxes) and the
Blood Tax (forced conscription to the native Tirailleur military units). All major
projects in French West Africa in this period were carried out by forced
labor, including work on roads, mines, and in fields of private companies.
Subjects were governed in this manner by French Empire, until the reforms of
the post World War II period. The institution of the Code de l’indigénat and
the application of the Corvée allowed the French to accomplish there goal in
the colonies through the principle of mise en valeur.
Mise en valeur
According to the theory of mise en valeur, the natural products, land and
human resources of Africa were to be exploited under French leadership, to
the benefit of both Africans and French. It considered issues of ideology,
imperial governance and the mise en valeur (development) of colonies. In
reality the focus upon improving the African reflected a conviction that
Africans would never progress unless the French made them progress.
La Mise en valeur set out deliberately to develop the classical model of the
colonies supplying raw materials and being a market for French manufactured
goods in what became known as the pacte coloniale. In practice it was a
systematic development of French colonies that treated the colonies like an
estate or enterprise.
The assimilation style of indirect rule by the French was predicated on a
presumption of the superiority of French culture and civilization. As part
of France’s ‘mission civilisatrice’, when confronted by ‘barbarian’ people,
it was the duty of France to civilize them and turn them into Frenchmen (is
that Le Marseilles I hear?).
While this implied a kind of equality, that Africans were capable of
becoming Frenchmen, it also dismissed African culture as without value, its
society as without history or civilization and largely in a continuous state
of war and flux. French culture was deemed the pinnacle and all else at
best, marginal.
Charles de Gaulle stated in 1961: “We have made colonies and colonized,
we do not blush, for without us these countries would not have had the good
fortune to know humanity.”
In the way this statement is assigned according to a culturally defined
measurement, it might be said to stand for much more that is true of French
colonialism and French views of non-French peoples than for the subject
originally intended.
France placed very heavy taxation and labor demands on the population and
also raised revenue by letting concessions. Concessions gave private
companies wide powers over large areas to exploit specified natural
resources for which the government provided the labor requirements. Africans
were forced to provide labor, often having to migrate for long distances,
for little money, and working conditions often were very poor; substantial
numbers of men died, and families and local communities were disrupted.
Scandals eventually came to light showing the consequences of such a system.
French officials had great powers and few controls. In theory, La Mise en
valeur was supposed to benefit both France and its colonies, but benefits to
Africans were much more limited.
Only a small minority was provided with any education, but there was
opportunity to advance, even to the level of university degrees at French
universities. The latter required a very high level of assimilation; those
individuals being known as Évolués. Conversely, the majority of the
population received no education whatsoever.
Évolué
Évolué (evolved) is a French term used in the colonial era to refer to
native Africans who had "evolved" through education or assimilation and
accepted European values and patterns of behavior. Used to designate an
African who had received a certain amount of French education, the word
presumed French superiority yet offered the possibility that this level
might be attained by those willing to learn through the implication that an
individual could “evolve” by acquiring positive attributes in the course of
his or her life.
Évolués spoke French, followed French laws, usually held white-collar jobs
and lived primarily in urban areas. Such individuals were seen as the
desired end product of France's assimilation policy. Évolués were treated as
an elite and privileged group by the colonial administrators.
It may be suggested that the rise to prominence and ultimately power of the
Évolués cultivated a claim both to natural authority within Africa as being
the “true” nationalists, in touch with Africa’s roots in a way that
representatives of industrial labor were not and as indispensable cultural
brokers in dealings with the French. As a result their emergence as a
self-conscious social category and accession to power in the decolonization
era in Africa has had effects well into the present day.
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