Paper short abstract:

This communication analyses the trajectories of former slaves in the rural hinterland of Malindi (Kenya), 20th century. Through written corpus and interviews, the aim is to understand what emancipatory tracks were possible through the Christian missions on the one hand and marronage on the other.

Paper long abstract:

This communication analyses the trajectories of former slaves at the beginning of the 20th century in Malindi's rural hinterland (Kenya). Through a written corpus (colonial archives, missionary sources) and interviews conducted in the region with people whose ancestors had been slaves, we seek to understand what emancipatory tracks were provided by the Christian missions after abolition of slavery on the one hand and by the marronage on the other. If these two tracks were supposed to sign the end of slavery, what new statuses did the former slaves experience, when colonisation required cheap labour? Moreover, one of the patterns in the post-slavery process, which is not specific to the Kenyan coast, is the assimilation into local non-slave communities (here the Mijikenda groups). However, this assimilation seems to have been made to various degrees and if it seems to have been “full” in some cases (notably via Christianity), the distant foreign origin or servile ancestry is still something known today among a village or within the same family. This communication will be based on two case studies. In Jilore, freed slaves joined the ranks of the Church Missionary Society and often had ascending economic and social trajectories. In Ganda, fugitive slaves, and then freed slaves, mostly Muslims, settled and experienced major issues throughout the century (identity documents, land access), which challenged the idea of total emancipation.