1st Edition

"Dangerous Vagabonds" French Senegal and Resistance to Slave Emancipation

By Robin A. Hardy Copyright 2025
122 Pages 8 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

122 Pages 8 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

122 Pages 8 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

"Dangerous Vagabonds" examines the problem of illicit slavery in Senegal following the 1848 emancipation law. Where traditional scholarship relates its persistence to the economic and logistic pressures in the region, as well as a strong indigenous tradition of forced labor, this study goes further to show that inherent factors within the culture of French colonialism made abolishing the... Read more

Chapter One: Introduction

Chapter Two: The Emerging French Atlantic Sandbox: Africans, Slaves and European Competition

Chapter Three: West African Mixed-Race Residual Power and Slavery

Chapter Four: French Spectatorship and Slavery

Chapter Five: Metropolitan Political Culture: The Colonies, Race and the Emancipation of Slaves

Chapter Six: Conclusion

Bibliography

Biography

Robin A. Hardy is an executive with the Africa Center for Strategy and Policy in Washington DC and teaches university courses, specializing in Africa and Europe. Hardy is the author of several articles, including “Backgrounder—Islamic Insurgency in Senegal: A Foreboding History of Terror” (2023); “Europe, or the ‘Original West,’ Muslims, and Migration: The Peculiar History of France and West Africa with Broader Implications” (2020); “Countering Violent Extremism in Sub-Saharan Africa: What Policy Makers Need to Know” (2019); and “Violent Extremism in the Western Sahel: An Old Story with Contemporary Implications” (2019).