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Title: | An Episode of Saharan Rivalry: The French Occupation of Kawar, 1906 |
Author: | Vikor, Knut S. |
Year: | 1985 |
Periodical: | International Journal of African Historical Studies |
Volume: | 18 |
Issue: | 4 |
Pages: | 699-715 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Niger France |
Subjects: | colonization oases history 1800-1899 Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) History and Exploration colonialism |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/218803 |
Abstract: | Colonization may be seen as just another event in local historical development, where the force of the new invaders was used to favor interests and promote change that might be already underway. A case in point is the French expansion in the central Sahara. Here one gets a glimpse of the changing motivations of the elements involved in the drive towards the oasis of Kawar, today the north-eastern corner'of the Niger Republic. The contradictions involved in the struggle over Kawar can be viewed on an internal level - the differences between the Teda and the Kanuri, two ethnic groups with separate economic and political aspirations -, on a regional level - competition for influence over the central Sahara and its trade between the Tuareg, the Awlad Sulaiman Arabs, and the Sanusiya brotherhood - and on an international level - the contradictions between the French and their rivals for Saharan hegemony, the Ottoman Turks, behind whom other European powers (like Germany) were vaguely discerned or imagined. The occupation of Kawar furthered the transformation of the local economy along lines already present in the field. The salt trade with Kawar after this colonization went into its most prosperous period. Notes. |