This book is a very important one. Assan Sarr addresses critical issues and offers valuable, new insights from a well-researched base. His case is the middle and lower Gambia River Basin, one of Africa's ‘small’ areas. Yet, his questions and viewpoints are significant for historical interpretation throughout the continent. In studying the Gambia, Sarr builds on the major work of Donald Wright, but he also often engages scholars who have researched other areas of Africa, making his conclusions especially relevant to broader debates.
Sarr takes on one of the oldest assumptions in the literature of Africanists, non-Africanists scholars, and popular writers: that in precolonial Africa land was plentiful and had no value. He also seeks to alter various related understandings of the African past, such as the means of control over people and the importance of wealth in people. Ultimately, Sarr wants to restore a more ‘indigenous’ position against western materialist interpretations. It does not matter if oral sources fail to give hard evidence for the past. What matters is that they provide insights into local ways of thought and action, the spiritual nature of the land-human bond, and the many varied and changing sources of power found in Africa. As the latter suggests, Sarr has a long time frame, and builds into his interpretation the impacts of Islam, the world economy, and colonial rule. All the while, he seeks to foreground African agency.
Sarr begins by recounting the founding of Mandinka settlements and the centuries of rule by kings and Soninke elders. He feels that in the Gambia ‘while aristocratic power depended on control of people, land was the foundation upon which this control rested’ (81). If he were to support that assertion fully, Sarr would need to treat more systematically how those with social and political power and authority acquired and used all types of resources. The author, however, turns to oral sources in two ways. ‘[I]t was easier for people in power to claim additional land since they were successful in creating traditions describing how the land became theirs’ (82). Furthermore, the intersection between control of land and demonstrations of power must be understood through the spiritual realm, which can be studied with oral traditions. Mandinka ruled by controlling spiritual dimensions of the land and, therefore, access to land. They often were assisted by hunters, blacksmiths, and marabouts (Muslim holy men), who were all successful in attracting followers and clients. Such religious specialists provided people with spiritual protection.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, this situation changed when jihad leaders and other Muslims ended Soninke rule, and altered the spiritual relationship with the land. Marabouts, in particular, introduced new practices by performing karamas (wonders), which opened land for cultivation and also enhanced their reputations. They were thus able to attract more people, who often provided labor. As Islam expanded, the influence of marabouts grew, while that of hunters and smiths declined.
In offering his interpretations, Sarr typically presents standard views then argues they are insufficient where they miss African perspectives, especially in the spiritual domain. For example, he looks at existing explanations for the rapid expansion of peanut production in the Gambia and adds a new reading of it. But sometimes he challenges economic understandings without providing enough evidence to support his interpretation. Such is the case when Sarr argues that while marabouts held enslaved people, ‘it is probably true that their economic survival was not significantly dependent on servitude alone’ (155).
Sarr runs quickly through issues pertaining to the world economy, colonial rule, and the twentieth century, but still offers arresting insights. He shows that there was a high environmental price paid for the expanding peanut production, as forest and other ‘spirit’ lands were planted and soils rapidly exhausted. He also discusses how British rule opened more land for farming and private ownership. In part, that process occurred through the spread of ideas (supported by ‘oral traditions’) about communal land and claims to it by appointed chiefly families, who alienated it. Here, as in various sections of the book, a gendered perspective would have been useful.
Islam, Power, and Dependency speaks in valuable ways to Africanist historians and other scholars, as well as to individuals who have absorbed rarely challenged ideas about Africa. Unfortunately, studies located in smaller, weaker present-day countries often are not as widely read as studies located in powerful states or those favored by western donor agencies. Hopefully, that trend will not affect the reception of Assan Sarr's book, which deserves wide and serious attention.
