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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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What is left behind? Mussa Moloh Baldeh of Fuladu and his family legacy in contemporary Gambia and Senegal
| Panel |
29. Extended families in time. Creating alliances and power networks in Western Africa societies and history
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| Paper ID | 535 |
| Author(s) |
Bellagamba, Alice
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | Being part of the extended family of Mussa Moloh Baldeh, late ruler of the kingdom Fuladu (that by the end of the 19th century stretched from the River Gambia to Guinea Bissau) is a matter of pride in contemporary Gambia and Senegal. Whether they bear or not the same surname, all his descendants comment with commotion on his past achievements and glory. They defend his memory despite being well aware of the controversial nature of his power. Mussa Moloh Baldeh was a ruler of the old times, who did not refrain from violence and suppression in the achievement of his goals. He fought against his own family members; he destroyed villages and enslaved people. He even played one against the other the conflicting interests of Great Britain, France and Portugal in the interior of Senegambia.
Besides, however, he proved able to create a web of family alliances that grew and developed in the changing colonial and postcolonial scenarios of the 20th century. Drawing from archival sources, ethnographic evidence and different versions of family history, this paper questions the heritage of Mussa Moloh Baldeh on the two sides of the border that by the end of the 19th century divided Fuladu into a French and British sphere of influence. On the Senegalese side, the power networks he constructed in the last decades of the 19th century, collapsed after his flight towards the British territories of the Gambia in 1903. Today, Mussa’s children, along with other branches of the Baldeh family and the people of Fuladu, lament their increasing marginality and disempowerment in colonial and postcolonial times despite their attempts to employ the historical memory of Mussa and Fuladu as resources in local politics. On the Gambian side, instead, the descendants of Mussa have retained control on the chieftaincy of Fuladu West district, where he eventually died in 1931. Here, family history is entrenched with the construction of the colonial and postcolonial state in a narrative of successes and losses, where the capability of coming together couples with internal fights for power and recognition.
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