Memories of Slavery in the Region of Kayes (Mali): History of a Disappearance

This paper confronts archival documents of the end of slavery in the region of Kayes (Mali) with local memories of villages, which were founded by slaves between 1895 and 1935 following slave revolts against the nobility. The colonial administration was never willing to recognize the legacy of slavery in the region and remained therefore relatively silent regarding slave revolts and the foundation of these villages. The local memories of the « rebel » villages reveal complex processes of emancipation on the margins or outside of the official colonial channels of abolition. However, while one could have expected that these revolts become milestones of the regional history, some of these villages are currently becoming « places of forgetting » as the regional and national public space since has never been responsive to the transmission of these memories.