The Ethno-State of Gajaaga

In this installment of our Africana Lecture Series, we welcome Makhroufi Ousmane Traoré to present, "The Ethnic State of Gajaaga."

Between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, more than fifteen million people were uprooted from West Africa and enslaved in the Trans-Saharan and Transatlantic slave systems The state of Gajaage, located on the West African hinterland, offered a doorway to the Atlantic Ocean and played a central role in the wide-scale trade system that connected the histories of Africa, the Americas, and Europe. Focussing on the Soninke of Gajaaga, Makhroufi Ousmane Traoré demonstrates how their resistance to the slave trades led to the formation of a united community bound by an awareness of identity. This original study expands our understanding of the various modes of resistance West Africans employed to stem the encroaching tide of Arab imperializing efforts, European mercantile capitalism, and the Atlantic slave trade, whilst also highlighting how ethnic and religious identities were constructed and mobilized in the region.

Makhroufi Ousmane Traoré’s research focuses on the history of imperialism and colonialism in Africa. His research interests also include the place of trans-Saharan Africa in world history, slavery in Africa and the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Using a global perspective, his work analyzes diplomatic relations and negotiations at the heart of the early and modern cross-cultural encounters between West Africa, North Africa, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas.

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Host or Publisher Center for Africana Studies