Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 May 2014
For the past several years, we have been editing a series of intelligence reports on the Sokoto Caliphate and Borno, all of them prepared by French officials in Tunisia during the 1890s, using information gathered from Muslim pilgrims who were passing through the Regency on their way to or from Mecca. Now that our edition is complete and we have regained a measure of control over our lives, we have been persuaded to jot down some of our reflections on this experience for the benefit of those who might be embarking on collaborative ventures of a similar sort.
Scholarly collaboration, at least in History, usually begins in one of two, overlapping, ways. Individual researchers often develop an interest in a particular topic and then seek out one or more collaborators to work on it. The reasons for doing so can be as varied as the individuals concerned—to fill some gap in their own expertise, to lighten the research load, or to ease the loneliness which the more gregarious among us feel when working in scholarly isolation.
Alternatively, two or more scholars may decide to work together and then seek out a research topic which best suits their collective interests. The reasons for adopting this second approach can be as varied as those for the first—friendship (and those involved are almost invariably friends before they become collaborators), a sense of intellectual affinity, or more crassly the attraction of being able to claim credit individually for all the work done collectively, since co-authored works still tend to “count” as much as those bearing only one name on the cover.
1. Kanya-Forstner, A.S. and Lovejoy, P.E., eds., Pilgrims, Interpreters and Agents: French Reconnaissance Reports on the Sokoto Caliphate and Borno, 1891-1895 (Madison, African Studies Program, 1997).Google Scholar The texts include: El Hadj Mohammed ben Adam, “Renseignements sur le Baoutchi;” El Hadj Ahmed el-Fellati, “Itinéraire du Fellati,” “Empire de Sokoto: Géographie Politique,” “Pays Situés au Nord de Sokoto,” and “Empire de Sokoto: Commerce;” El-Hadj Adem Mahamma, “Empire du Bornou;” Messaoud Djebari, “La Situation Économique du Soudan”; El-Hadj Mohamed Boubekeur, “Notes sur l'Empire de Sokoto;” and Antonin Goguyer, “Un Nouvel État Musulman dans l'Afrique Centrale.”
2. The research conducted under the terms of the grant, of course, included much more than the edition of these intelligence reports and also involved other collaborations, both between the two investigators and with other colleagues. For a brief description of some of these other activities, see our “Collaborative Research in the Recovery of Documentation on the Conquest of the Sokoto Caliphate,” Sudanic Africa 3 (1992), 165–72, and below.Google Scholar
3. Lovejoy, Paul E. and Hogendorn, Jan S., Slow Death for Slavery: The Course of Abolition in Northern Nigeria, 1897-1936 (Cambridge, 1993).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4. Archives Nationales, Section Outre-Mer, Aix-en-Provence (ANSOM), Fonds Comité Français pour l'Outre-Mer, carton 318. The archives of the Union Coloniale, one of the leading organizations in the French colonialist movement, have recently been reorganized and recataloged. The current reference is: 100 APOM 493: “Récit des Itinéraires de El Hadj Ahmed ben Mohamed el-Fellati et de El Hadj Adem Mahamma recueillis à Tunis en 1892.”
5. Martel, André, Les confins saharo-tripolitains de la Tunisie (2 vols.: Paris, 1965)Google Scholar; Triaud, Jean-Louis, “Les relations entre la France et la Sanusiyya (1840-1930)” (Thèse de doctorat d'État, Université de Paris VII, 1991).Google Scholar See too Triaud, Jean-Louis, “Hommes de religion et confréries islamiques dans une société en crise, l'Aïr au XIXe et XXe siècles. Le cas de la Khalwatiyya,” Cahiers d'Études Africaines 23 (1983), 247n30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6. French attempts during the 1890s to gather intelligence and extend French influence into the Central Sudan from the west, south and southeast are relatively well known. However, much less was known about similar attempts from French bases in Algeria and Tunisia.
7. Djebari did submit a report to the Société de Géographie de Paris, but the Société eventually returned it to him. Djebari later published a revised version of at least part of his report as Les survivants de la mission Flatters (Tunis, 1895).Google Scholar
8. Itinéraire sommaire de Mr Djebari interprète Mre en mission d'exploration dans l'Afrique centrale (2 novembre 1892-8 mai 1894), ANSOM, Missions 2, Flatters.
9. The first of our reports was compiled by the civil controller of Gabès, based on information from a Bauchi pilgrim called Mohammed ben Adam. Rebillet divided el-Fellati's information into five sections, only four of which seem to have been written. His report on Borno, based on Adem Mahamma's information, became the sixth section of his manuscript. Djebari's report, “La situation économique du Soudan,” is a single document of 137 manuscript pages which stops suddenly in mid-sentence. Mohamed Boubekeur's information formed the basis of five separate reports, of varying length, compiled by Jacob Hartmayer of Djerba, as well as two more substantial reports compiled by Joseph Allegro, the Governor of Arad. In addition, we included a brief report on Hayatu ibn Sa'id and Rabin ibn Fadlallah drafted by another Tunisian interpreter, Antonin Goguyer. A friend of Allegro and Mohammed Boubekeur, Goguyer based his account largely on the latter's information. But he included additional information gathered from other sources.
10. These latter included a brief report by the commandant of El Oued in southern Algeria based on infonnation provided by three pilgrims from Mania in northeastern Adamawa (Commandant Subdivision Batna to Commandant Division Constantine, 11 October 1897, enclosing “Renseignements sur l'itinéraire suivi par les nommés Hadj Ahmed ben Boubekeur, Hadj Mohammed ben Hadj Messaoud et Hadj Messaoud ben Mohammed Aoudi, de l'Adamaoua à la Mecque,” Centre des Archives d'Outre Mer, Aix-en-Provence, Algérie 4 H 28); two long reports by Joseph Allegro (“Projet d'une ligne commerciale du Golfe de Gabès au Soudan central,” [4 July 1894]; Allegro to Minister for Foreign Affairs, 4 July 1894, Archives du ministère des Affaires étrangères, Paris, Nouvelle Série, Tunisie 58); and several reports on Ghadames compiled by Rebillet with the help of Salah ben Hiba, a prominent Ghadamsi merchant and another of Rebillet's agents (“Rhadamès;” “Les Itinéraires vers Rhadamès,” “La Colonne,” 23 January 1891, Centre des Archives diplomatiques, Nantes, C 944/12).
11. Although Tijani influence in early twentieth-century Kano has been relatively well documented, much less is known about the activities of the Tijaniyya in the Central Sudan between the departure of al-hajj Umar Tal from Sokoto in 1839 and the British conquest at the turn of the twentieth century.
12. Although we had previously collaborated on another edition of French texts (on the abolition of slavery in West Africa), we had published those texts without any annotations at all. See Lovejoy, Paul E. and Kanya-Forstner, A.S., eds., Slavery and its Abolition in West Africa: The Official Reports of G. Poulet, E. Roume and G. Deherme (Madison, 1994).Google Scholar
13. In addition to Alhaji Garba Sa'idu, John Laver and Eldridge Mohammadou, the colleagues who gave us the benefit of their expertise include: J.A. Adeniran, Jean Boyd, Louis Brenner, Gisela Brikay-Seidensticker, Khalifa Chater, Allan Christelow, Norbert Cyffer, Toyin Falola, Jan Hogendorn, John Hunwick, Mukhtar Muhammad Kwaru, Murray Last, Robin Law, Louise Lennihan, Abdullahi Mahadi, Suleiman Abdullahi Mohammed, Mansur Ibrahim Mukhtar, Yakubu Mukhtar, Ann O'Hear, John Philips, David Robinson, Musa Muhammad Salih, the late Wilhelm Seidensticker, Jay Spaulding, Priscilla Starratt, and Jean-Louis Triaud. An equally impressive number of research assistants also helped us to prepare the annotations: Cécile Frébourg, Muriel Gomez-Perez, Issiaka Mandé and Yacouba Manli in Paris, Jean-Paul Bado and François Ngate in Aix-en-Provence, Ibrahim Aliyu Kwaru and Abdulkarim Umar Dan Asabe in Kano, Abdulkadir Adamu in Zaria, Ismael Musa Montana in Tunis, as well as our own graduate students, Edmund Abaka, Philip Afeadie, Iheanyi Enwerem, Ibrahim Jumare, Femi Kolapo, Kwabena Opare-Akurang and Sean Stilwell at York University.
14. The conference was held at Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, in February 1993. Some of the conference papers were subsequently published in “The Sokoto Caliphate and the European Powers, 1890-1907,” a special edition of Paideuma 40 (1994).Google Scholar The complete proceedings are to be published by Ahmadu Bello University Press.
15. See above, note 12.
16. The document, with an introduction and annotations, was published as Lovejoy, Paul E., Mahadi, Abdullahi, and Mukhtar, Mansur Ibrahim, “C.L. Temple's ‘Notes on the History of Kano’ [1909]: A Lost Chronicle on Political Office”, Sudanic Africa 4 (1993), 7–76.Google Scholar
17. The paper was subsequently published. See Kanya-Forstner, A.S., “French Missions to the Central Sudan in the 1890s: The Role of Algerian Agents and Interpreters,” Paideuma, 40 (1994), 15–35.Google Scholar
18. Afeadie, Philip Atsu, “The Hidden Hand of Overrule: Political Agents and the Establishment of British Colonial Rule in Northern Nigeria, 1886-1914” (Ph.D., York University, 1996).Google Scholar
19. Hunwick, John O., Arabic Literature of Africa. II. The Writings of Central Sudanic Africa (Leiden, 1995).Google Scholar
20. O'Fahey and Hunwick are both editors of Sudanic Africa.
21. The preliminary results of our research are to be published as John O. Hunwick, A.S. Kanya-Forstner, Paul E. Lovejoy, and R.S. O'Fahey, “New Light on a Fulani Mahdist: Muhammad Dadari,” Sudanic Africa, forthcoming.
