Economic Change and Islamic Statecraft: Karamoko Alfa and the Foundation of Futa Jallon Imamate 1726-1751

Abstract: This paper examines the formation and consolidation of the Muslim theocracy initially established on the ideal of Islamic law and an economic system based on the internal production of non-slave commodities. It highlights the rapidly changing condition marked by the shift of European demand from trade in non-slave commodities to the trade in slaves as a result of increasing demand for slave labour in the New World. It demonstrates the significant structural transformation instituted by the new regime of the Futa Imamate to optimize its participation through Muslim militancy, thereby extending influence and control over strategic coastal markets during the development of the Atlantic slave trade in the mid-eighteenth century. It also discusses how the commercial shift accelerated by the rapid development of peanut production and new export-import trade attracted the territorial and commercial interest of the French in the River Pongo and Nunez, the southern Rivers situated in the northern Futa. This further demonstrates the French territorial and commercial ambition to monopolize legitimate trade in these strategic rivers.