Counting Workers in Côte d’Ivoire (1946–1960): Tensions and Debates Between the Colonial Administration, European Settlers, and African Planters

Abstract Using Côte d’Ivoire as a case study, this article examines how the abolition of forced labor in the French colonies of Africa in 1946 put statistics at the heart of tensions between the colonial administration, European planters, and African planters. The first section suggests that figures were instrumentalized to serve competing group interests: on one side, those of European planters eager to show the iniquity of the measure to abolish forced labor, which undermined their economic activities due to the resulting labor shortages; on the other side, those of Ivorian planters, who produced figures to argue for the rights of workers and to convince the colonial administration of the need to move toward a system of freedom of labor. The article thus puts the focus on a blind spot in the academic literature, namely, the role of African agency in the production of figures and their capacity to resist colonial domination. It also examines how West African workers managed to circumvent the colonial recruiting system that had been set up by European planters in the form of the Syndicat interprofessionnel d’acheminement de la main-d’œuvre (Interprofessional union for the transport of labor, or SIAMO). It is this in particular that leads me to question the data produced by SIAMO, which attempted to direct migrant workers toward European farms in the south from 1950 onward.