Challenging Colonial Forced Labor? Resistance, Resilience, and Power in Senegal (1920s–1940s) 1 Romain Tiquet Geneva University Abstract Based on the combination of colonial archives and the analysis of several complaints published in Senegalese newspapers, this article sheds light on the daily compulsory reality experienced by local populations with regards to forced labor in colonial Senegal (1920s–1940s). In contrast to analyses approaching forced labor systems through the study of colonial bureaucratic routines, this article studies the reactions of local populations and the consequences for colonial labor policies. I introduce the notion of resilience in order to overcome the pitfalls of the resistance paradigm and bring new insight into attitudes of distance, refusal, and adaptation used by local populations as methods to “absorb the shock” of everyday colonial coercion. More broadly, this analysis leads us to interrogate the limits and fragility of the colonial enterprise, recalling that the colonial state was not an almighty administration and that it was, above all, based on abiding adaptations and empirical decisions. In 1927, the annual policy report of the Senegalese colony described the difficul- ties encountered by the colonial power on matters of road labor—carried out by forcibly recruited workers—in these terms: We have to admit that the natives do not seem to show any enthusiasm to carry out their prestation, but also try to evade it by fair means or foul. The problems of the recruitment of laborers lead to the despair of local chiefs. They do not face an open and active resistance but rather a situation of complete inertia and a widespread apathy. […] Under these circumstances, it is obvious that this idle labor force, under-equipped and poorly overseen, cannot give satisfaction and show effectiveness. 2 In 1929, the Forced Labor Convention, organized by the International Labor Organization (ILO) in Geneva, adopted certain proposals with regard to com- pulsory labor. The conference of the ILO introduced the notion of forced labor into international debates as “all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily. ” 3 In French West Africa (Afrique Occidentale Française, hereafter AOF), the recourse to an involuntary labor force was used, on a daily basis, as a principal driving force of colonial mise en valeur. 4 Thus, the French government refused to ratify the convention, claiming that it constituted an infringement on its sovereignty. Under the left-wing Popular Front government, French officials ended up adopting the text in 1937, mainly International Labor and Working-Class History No. 93, Spring 2018, pp. 135–150 # International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc., 2018 doi:10.1017/S0147547917000308 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0147547917000308 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core . IP address: 213.55.211.104, on 11 Nov 2018 at 19:44:30, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms .