Jori Lewis

I requested this book from NetGalley's history section thinking it would be American history. I was completely wrong--which is totally fine. Instead, this is a fascinating look at West African (Senegal/Mali/French West Africa) history in the late 19th century. Yes, it is about peanut agriculture and the demand for peanuts from industrialized Europe--where they were used for their oil. The demand for peanuts caused farmers to grow more peanuts and need more land and more laborers--and thus more slaves. Slavery was no longer legal in French-controlled lands, and that conflict is a huge part of this story.

This book is a lot more though, and honestly my least favorite thing about it is the title. This book is about French colonization in what is now Senegal, but was then French West Africa and included many traditional states--including Kajoor/Cayor, which is discussed at length here. It is also about French Protestant missionaries and their African counterparts, especially Walter Taylor from what is now Sierra Leone. It is about the conflict between anti-slavery French laws that the missionaries wanted enforced, and the French government agents who were more interested in keeping the damels and farmers happy. It is about a railroad and yellow fever. Lewis also includes a bit at the very end, as she successfully locates an elder who points her to the town of freedmen that Taylor had established and his church supported for some time. This was only 130 or so years ago--well within the time period an elder would know. I hope she noted the location in her own research.

I went into this book knowing very little about the history of Senegal and surrounding areas. I spent a lot of time on google maps and Wikipedia reading additional background information, which made it a slow read but also made the book more interesting for me. And it was great--well written, readable, excellent citations that seem well rounded. She used missionary society archives as well as French, Senegal, Gambia, and Sierra Leone national archives. There are doctoral theses, geography journals,
history journals, and many books cited in the notes (but there were no endnote numbers in my galley! huge pet peeve!).

The one thing this book truly needs is a good map. I read a galley (on a black and white kindle) that had a couple of mediocre maps, but I really hope the final print version has a good map or three.
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Thanks to NetGalley and The New Press for providing me with a galley of this book.… (mais)