Industrial Labor in the Colonial World: Workers of the Chemin de Fer Dakar-Niger, 1881-1963

This is the first major study of a pivotal episode in West African history, the great railroad strike of 1947-48, examined from the perspective of Africans who worked and lived along the Dakar-Niger railroad. As the first inter-territorial movement to oppose colonial rule, the railroad workers inspired pan-Africanists everywhere and prepared the way for the decolonization of French West Africa. African railroad workers operated the railroad - the major economic artery of Senegal and especially the Soudan"so they acted as intermediaries between Africans and French in colonial society. During the strike, they successfully challenged European privileges by employing a combination of French legal tactics and the railroad itself, which offered the means of transportation and communication. The workers received widespread support from other Africans, thanks to the common perception that colonial labor practices were abusive. The strikers were generally successful and their settlement became a precursor to the 1952 Overseas Labor Code that regulated working conditions in all French colonies. As the strike unfolded, however, it exposed antagonism between African politicians and labor that reappeared, often violently, at independence. Although independence came peacefully to the region served by the Dakar-Niger, the politicians completely outflanked the railroad workers and left them largely irrelevant except as a symbol of anticolonial resistance.

Readers of the Sembene novel God's Bits of Wood will find their perspective of this great African novel enriched by this historical study. Those interested in railroad and labor history will find this study a rewarding experience as well.