Data related to this article
AMIAF Online Library: “‘Aliéné mental’ et ‘indigène’. Histoire juridique d’une double discrimination de statut en Afrique française (Fin xixe siècle-1960)”. https://amiaf-imaf.cnrs.fr/
1,660 documents (April 2024).
Institut des mondes africains (IMAF), Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), in collaboration with the Archives nationales d’outre-mer d’Aix-en-Provence (ANOM)
Editorial Director: Silvia Falconieri.
Development and Hosting: Institut de l’information scientifique et technique (INIST), CNRS.
1For a long time, the legal history of madness was a marginal topic of research within the field of studies into French colonial law and justice in the 19th and 20th centuries. This observation appears all the more flagrant when we focus on our attention towards countries of the African continent that used to be occupied by France, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, and could incidentally be extended to part of the European countries which, starting from the Scramble for Africa, extended and consolidated their colonial empires. Admittedly, an in-depth study of the institutional aspects of the treatment of mental illness is integrated into a certain number of works, most of which investigate the English Empire, and adopt a polycentric perspective on madness in colonial spaces, both within and without the African continent (of which the following is a non-exhaustive list: Sadowsky 1991; Ernst 1997; Mills 2000; Jackson 2005; Mahone and Vaughan 2007; Scarfone 2014; Milazzo and Mamone 2019; Edington 2019).
2The necessity of carrying out in-depth studies of the legal and administrative dimensions of the treatment of madness in French Africa has been highlighted in the works of pioneering academics in this field (Collignon 2002). Aside from a handful of publications which have unfortunately not been widely disseminated beyond their local networks (Diouf and Mbodji 1997; Sylla and d’Almeida 1997), it is only very recently that researchers have started to pay attention to the legal history of madness. Historians who have examined colonial law and justice have briefly touched on the field of mental health through similar or complementary subjects. Works on the organisation of the healthcare system (Badji 2007), on vagrancy and “marginals” (Badji 2010), on alcoholism (Durand 2010), and on prisons (Alline 2011) marginally touch on the manifestations of mental illness. By revealing the centrality of the public order argument, these authors provide an insight into certain situations in which the colonial administration and justice system seized on the issue of madness (Badji 2007) in order to support the French presence and pre-eminence.
- 1 AMIAF Research Programme: “‘Aliéné mental’ et ‘indigène’. Histoire d’une double discrimination de s (...)
3Against the backdrop of this historiographical panorama, for roughly the past decade, studies on madness in a colonial context, on the African continent, have been undergoing a renaissance, both thematically and methodologically, as illustrated by the rise of specific, collective and multidisciplinary research programmes such as AMIAF and MADAF1. Researchers have increasingly directed their attention to legislative, legal and administrative aspects. Recent works by historians analysing the policies for regulating madness on the African continent have paid particular attention to the role played by the colonial administration, as well as to the influence medicine and psychiatry have had on the establishment of legislative measures, thus providing indispensable insights into this legislative framework, into the procedures of internment in psychiatric hospitals or for transferring patients to Metropolitan France, and on techniques for governing or controlling madness (Aït-Mehdi and Tiquet 2020; Marquis 2021; Manetti 2023).
4The legal discourse and practices governing the mental alteration of populations colonised by France in Africa are at the heart of the research that has been carried out by the multidisciplinary team of the AMIAF programme since 2019 (Falconieri 2022a).
5Legal discourse follows its own logic, and operations of law which are produced using specific technical tools play a fundamental role in the shaping of social reality (Thomas 2011). The law has a performative character. It never simply intervenes as a stabiliser of predefined relations on a social or economic level, but instead exercises the function of “naming” things and relationships and, as a result, brings them into existence through its characterisations (Mazzacane 1992). It is this idea of the law and of its relationship to the other social sciences that has inspired our work of writing a legal history of madness in Africa, in the belief that approaching this topic through the prism of the law, of its specific terrain and agents, can open up lines of thought and interpretations that would otherwise risk remaining unnoticed, even though the judicialisation of mental disorders is now widely recognised (Falconieri 2021).
6However, this enterprise has been faced with, and continues to face, multiple challenges, one of which is the process for identifying sources in its different stages: identification, accessibility, utilisation and interpretation, conservation and making available to the community of researchers (Falconieri 2022a).
7What sources allow us to study the legal treatment of madness in a colonial context? How are we to index them, interrogate them, interpret them and cross-reference them with each other? What does their configuration tell us about the legal and administrative discourse and practices connected to madness (in particular that of colonised populations)?
- 2 As illustrated, for example, by the launch of the journal Clio@Themis. Revue électronique d’histoir (...)
8These questions, which are characteristic of any historical research, appear increasingly pertinent to a historian of law venturing onto this slippery terrain. Indeed, thinking about the sources we use to write a legal history of madness calls into question the very way in which we conceive of and write the history of the law. In France, especially over the last two decades, this field of disciplines has undergone a thematic, spatial and methodological expansion which has been translated, among other effects, into an opening up to a dialogue with the other social sciences, something that was traditionally only more or less practised in law faculties.2 An increased sensitivity to the legal issues dominating the 20th and 21st centuries has allowed researchers to examine “sensitive” areas of legal history such as the law of Vichy (Durand, Le Crom and Somma 2006), the legal uses of the concept of “race,” the law of colonisation (Durand, Fabre et al. 2005–2013; Renucci 2011; Falconieri 2015) or even more recently, questions of gender (Dufuller-Vialle 2017). Relegated to the category of exceptions and long repressed, these subjects are liable to reveal the chimerical character of a Republican Law centred on the principles of equality, of the sole subject of law and of the separation of powers (Zevounou, Guerlain and Falconieri 2021).
9This thematic openness has come with a gradual shift of the attention of law historians away from more “classical” sources—law texts, jurisprudence and doctrine—towards other types of documents, in particular those contained in administrative archives from the colonial period. New publications have thus interrogated their uses (Le Crom and Renucci 2016; Archives et Recherche. Revue de l’Amarom 2021; 2022; Stoler 2014; Swartz 2018). Drawing on administrative archives allows us to investigate the concrete modus operandi of the law, to locate ourselves at the heart of its operations, and all the more so in the colonial context, where “the state acts as an administration” (Nuzzo 2012; El Mechat 2009).
- 3 Chailley-Bert, “De la meilleure manière de légiférer aux colonies”, Recueil Dareste (RD), 1905, Par (...)
10In light of these premises, it is possible to analyse the unique way in which colonial law functioned and thus to summarise its specific characteristics. Firstly, in the overseas spaces we are examining, the application of the principle of legal personhood (personnalité de la loi) translated into a plurality of legal statuses coexisting in one and the same space, and of which “subject” and “citizen” were the first manifestation. The former did not, in particular, enjoy the civil and political rights connected to the status of “French citizen.” On top of this, the laws of Metropolitan France were not directly applicable. Finally—and this is a crucially important aspect—the “manner of legislating in the colonies”3 made massive use of regulation by means of decrees emanating from local administrative authorities. The administration played a central and atypical role both in the production of regulations and in the administration of the law. Not only did administrators without any legal training act as judges, but administrative and legal procedures overlapped and were liable to be used as alternatives to each other (Manière 2011). This idea of the law in a colonial context, which we have also adopted within the framework of our work on the legal history of madness in Africa, goes hand in hand with an expansion of the sources used, both in terms of their production and of their provenance in terms of academic fields. All of them, however, were produced by the agents of the colonial administration and justice system, whether they were drafted in Metropolitan France or developed by administrators in the field. As such, they of course largely reflect Western understanding at the time regarding “indigenous mentality.” Nevertheless, these sources also inform us about the way in which local concepts of evil, of health and of the body were understood and instrumentalised by the colonial administration and justice system.
11This article intends to put forward a methodological analysis of the sources allowing us to write the legal history of madness on the parts of the African continent that used to be colonised by France, from the two last decades of the 19th century to the years during which these countries gained independence. The composite and heterogeneous corpus that has been put together through the AMIAF research programme will be at the heart of our analysis. We will examine how sources were identified and indexed, as well as the modalities of reading, conservation and making available to the public the various documents collected, and to be more specific, we will focus on a digital tool, our AMIAF digital library (https://amiaf-imaf.cnrs.fr/s/amiaf/page/home), which was developed in parallel to researching our sources (Collier, Falconieri, Thiebau and Zasadzinski 2022). We will attempt to highlight the utility of some of its features, by outlining the general principles of two potential pathways for the comparative analysis of sources which this tool can enable and facilitate. After presenting our corpus, we will outline an analysis of the vocabulary used by both the administration and the justice system to refer to mental illness, using the “indexes” available in our digital tool (https://amiaf-imaf.cnrs.fr/s/amiaf/page/index). We will compare this approach with a different mode of research made possible by the “Tag Cloud” (https://amiaf-imaf.cnrs.fr/s/amiaf/page/tags), which allows us to rapidly detect “signs of madness”, i.e. the elements referred to by the agents of the colonial administration and justice system when analysing the mental alteration of African populations. While it is not the main purpose of this article to draw up a systematic comparison of the use of this vocabulary and these elements in mainland France and the colonies, this does present a promising pathway for interrogating the specificity of a legal history of madness in francophone Africa. Far from providing a report on an exhaustive and completed research project, our aim here is to lay the groundwork for a study of the administrative and legal vocabulary of madness, by highlighting the features of our digital tool. We thus encourage our readers not to hesitate to click on the links that will lead them to the AMIAF library, and which we have inserted as footnotes. These hyperlinks should be viewed as an integral part of the present article.
12The sources that allow us to investigate the attitudes of the colonial justice system and administration when faced with mental illness in Africa have a particular configuration and a heterogeneous character. They might come from the archives of the colonial administration, from legal archives, from military archives, but also from more “traditional” sources that will be more familiar to historians of the law of the 19th and 20th centuries, such as legal journals, case law collections, official journals, and colonial law manuals and treatises.
- 4 Full title of the Recueil Dareste (referred to in the following notes as RD): Recueil de législatio (...)
- 5 Most publications, in fact, refer to Indochina.
- 6 RP, 1921, Part I, p. 279.
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5108631b/f525.item ;
RP, 1925, Par (...)
- 7 RD, 1926, Part I, p. 709-711, here p. 710.
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6215501n/f503.ite
- 8 The “indigénat” was a specific legal regime imposed on colonial subjects in the French colonial emp (...)
- 9 RD, 1909, Part I, 417-420, here p. 419.
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6215576c/f434.item.
- 10 RD, 1921, Part I, 814-831, here p. 829.
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6213858v/f306.item.
13The journals covering colonial legislation, jurisprudence and legal doctrine, which boomed at the end of the 19th century, only include very rare and succinct information regarding the treatment of madness. In two of the most prestigious and well-known journals in this field, the Recueil Dareste and the Recueil Penant,4 most references to the legal aspects of the management of madness overseas are located in the section concerning legislation and only very marginally touch on Africa.5 To give a non-exhaustive series of examples, we find some references to “lunatics,” within the legislative provisions governing amnesty;6 to the cultivation of hemp and the repression of its use as a narcotic that could lead “to stupor and to raving lunacy;”7 to the regulation of the right of suppression through disciplinary measures of offences of indigénat,8 which included the “lack of supervision by villages of harmful madmen;”9 to the placement of mentally ill wards of the state.10
- 11 Such as for example the verification of the testator’s mental state, RP, 1926, Part I, p. 157.
http (...)
- 12 “Étude sur la transportation et la colonisation pénale”, RP, 1891, Part II, 1-82, here p. 65.
https (...)
14The sections covering jurisprudence do not describe very many case studies. Those included are mainly connected to issues of civil law, and in particular testamentary issues.11 The doctrinal surveys published in the two journals mentioned above only indirectly broach the topic of mental alienation.12
- 13 For example, in the analysis of the distribution of the colonial budget, which was compulsorily all (...)
15The colonial law manuals and treatises are even more laconic in this regard. While they regularly analyse the organisation of the healthcare system in the colonies, the problems raised by the treatment of mental health are never explicitly mentioned. However, lunatics are sometimes mentioned within the context of developments related to the management of finances.13
16The state of the sources that we have just examined already provides us with a crucial first piece of information. Among experts in colonial law, mental alteration only constitutes a secondary and marginal issue which does not spark any great debates, especially as far as Sub-Saharan Africa is concerned.
17By thus suggesting that the location for the legal treatment of madness is elsewhere, this “disinterest” of “traditional” sources invites us to shift our gaze towards archives. We thus naturally first turned to the archives of the colonial administration, the Archives nationales d’outre-mer (ANOM) in Aix-en-Provence and of the Centre des archives diplomatiques du ministère des Affaires étrangères (CADN) in Nantes (for territories that were formerly under administration and protectorates), but also to the fonds of the Service historique de la défense (SHD) in Vincennes and Toulon which, together with the library and archives of the Val-de-Grâce Hospital in Paris, house the former fonds of the École du Pharo. Since the sources we consulted are located exclusively in mainland France, they only partly reflect the place and treatment of madness in the colonial context. They do nevertheless allow us to describe the dialogue that took place between the different branches constituted by the colonial, police, administrative, legal and medical authorities among others. When they did address the issue of madness, legal practitioners or administrators came into contact with other forms of knowledge about the psyche, including first and foremost psychiatry, medicine, and colonial psychology. Local concepts of madness were also integrated into the discourse of the administration and of the justice system. Hence the need to include those media that illustrate this encounter, and to draw people’s attention to the documents produced outside the legal realm.
- 14 We would like to take this opportunity to thank Jean-François Vincent, head librarian of the BIU Sa (...)
- 15 For colonial law journals, see the RevColEurop digital library: https://revcoleurop.cnrs.fr. Editor (...)
18It therefore seemed indispensable to us to include, alongside the archives of the SHD in Toulon, some journals dealing with colonial psychiatry and mental hygiene in the colonies, by integrating them into the corpus of the AMIAF library. The fact that some of these journals are already accessible online—on Gallica and in the Medic@ digital library14—might raise doubts about whether it was opportune for us to do so. However, while we may appear here to be “duplicating” work that has already been done, this is not in fact the case. First, we made a preliminary selection of only those materials that were connected to our subject of interest. Then, the publications selected were indexed, using a pre-filled Excel table, according to a uniform system of criteria for classification, with the aim of allowing cross-referencing of the various types of sources within the same tool (for further details on this process, see Collier, Falconieri, Thiebau and Zasadzinski 2022). These considerations have led us to provide online access to colonial law journals that we are in the process of classifying, even though these may be in open access elsewhere.15
- 16 We would like to thank Mr Makone Touré, archivist, head of the contemporary archives department at (...)
19The AMIAF library aims to endure and to add new sources to its collection, among which we would like to include legal archives which, because they have been kept in Africa, remain difficult to access, or are difficult to access in full or sometimes are completely inaccessible. The number of studies drawing on them still remains low, and is in itself evidence of these difficulties (Razafindratsima 2011). A collaborative endeavour to draw up an inventory of these various fonds, aimed at providing information regarding their location and accessibility, would be a desirable large-scale project to try to overcome the difficulties of reconstituting archival puzzles in Africa (Guignard 2015). When legal archives are more easily accessible and better preserved, as is the case of the série M in the Archives nationales du Sénégal (ANS), which is devoted to the justice system (both French and “indigenous”), the digitisation and uploading process can pose numerous difficulties, connected for example to logistics or, again, to the fact that the virtual site aiming to host the digitised documents is located abroad.16
20The scattered nature of the set of archival sources collected within the framework of the AMIAF research project has been described in detail in other places, which we refer readers to (Collier, Falconieri, Thiebau and Zasadzinski 2022). By mainly relying on the documentation kept in the ANOM, we have shown that, in spite of the fragmentary and dispersed nature of these materials, it is possible to build up a substantial documentary corpus. We observed a flagrant geographical disparity between the different French colonies on the continent. The heterogeneous nature of the producers of the documents consulted clearly shows a rupture in the legal treatment of madness in different contexts—arrests, procedures of internment under the indigénat regime, complaints, reforms of the legislative framework, management of healthcare facilities that existed before colonisation, financial issues, legal procedures— independently of healthcare institutions, which largely went beyond public health preoccupations and instead tended to touch on colonial policies, the upholding of public order and issues of a financial nature. The wellbeing and health of the colonised populations do not seem to have been the main concern of the agents of the administration and of the colonial justice system.
- 17 At present (May 2024), the AMIAF library hosts 1,660 items, of which 1,401 are documents sourced fr (...)
21We have also shown that, faced with this impressive and heterogeneous set of documents, it was vital to apply a rigorous method of indexing and comparative analysis of these various documents, and that, in the context of this approach, collaborating with the “digital world” of engineers and technicians specialised in the design of digital tools for use by academic researchers, turns out to be of precious support. The development of the AMIAF digital library aims to facilitate the work of researchers, by making available to them a considerable collection of documents, most of which were not previously available online.17 In its current state, the AMIAF library brings together documents from the fonds of the ANOM, the SHD in Toulon, as well as journals of colonial medicine (see Box 1). It is worth noting that the archive documents collected do not correspond to whole boxes in their respective archives. They may have been just a few folios found, sometimes unexpectedly, inside boxes related to a completely different subject.
Box 1. Provenance of the Documents in the AMIAF Library
1. Documents from the Archives nationales d’outre-mer (ANOM)
Algérie, 1 K 751 (1) Hospitalisations d’urgence
Algérie, 1 K 751 (2) Activité Politique
Algérie 1 K 751 (3) Hôpital Sainte-Elisabeth
Algérie, 1 K 751 (4) Demandes de transfert
Algérie, 1 K 751 (5) Courriers adressés par des déséquilibrés mentaux
Algérie, 915-132 Sous-préfecture de Tizi-Ouzou
Algérie 915-235 (1) Sous-préfecture de Tizi-Ouzou (Hôpitaux)
Algérie 915-132 (2), Sous-préfecture de Tizi-Ouzou (Internement Psychiatrie)
Algérie 93 703/48, Maâdid
SLOTFOM XII 3, Asiles d’aliénés
1 AFFPOL 2254, Enquête judiciaire (dossier 5)
TP 1101 Construction (dossier 1)
AGEFOM 920 (dossier 2811)
AGEFOM 920 (dossier 2812)
3 ECOL 15 (Mémoire École Coloniale)
3 ECOL 20 (Mémoire École Coloniale)
52 APOM 3, Maristane Sidi Fredj
SENEGAL XI 44
SENEGAL XI 47
1 AFFPOL 187 bis (dossier 7)
1 AFFPOL 539 (dossier 5), Police Sûreté
1 AFFPOL 579, Rapports Service Santé
1 AFFPOL 663, Indigénat AEF. Révoltes féticheurs
1 AFFPOL 3240, Rapport Œuvre Sanitaire AOF
1 AFFPOL 869 Aliénés loi 1838.
2. Service historique de la défense (SHD) in Toulon
2013 ZK 005-250
2013 ZK 005-328
2013 ZK 005-406
2013 ZK 005-621
3. Journals
La prophylaxie mentale. Bulletin trimestriel de la Ligue d’hygiène mentale
Annales de Médecine et de Pharmacie Coloniales
Annales d’Hygiène et de Médecine Coloniales
L’Hygiène Mentale
4. Currently Undergoing Indexing, Digitisation and Incorporation
Anom
1 AFFPOL 664, Justice. Indigénat AEF
1 AFFPOL 3948, Justice AEF et AOF
SÉNÉGAL VIII, 33, Balantes en Casamance
Journals
Journal Officiel de l’Afrique Occidentale Française
Recueil Dareste
Recueil de législation et de jurisprudence marocaine
Recueil Penant
22The documents collected or currently being incorporated into the library include: correspondence between the Colonial Ministry, governors general and public prosecutors regarding the application of the Law of 30 June 1838 regarding lunatics in the French overseas territories; files relating to the suppression of revolts and acts of rebellion according to the indigénat regime (Merle and Muckle 2019); police and security services reports which mention minor offences recorded by the municipal and administrative police; annual reports of the healthcare services; documents regarding prisons receiving persons in conditions of mental distress; registers of the courts; letters from patients sent to political authorities…
23Focussing on these sources and on legal questions has already allowed researchers to reveal new ways of understanding madness in France’s overseas territories. For example, the study of files on the suppression of revolts according to the indigénat regime, in the territories that constituted French Equatorial Africa from 1910 to 1940, has shown how the argument of mental alteration was used and manipulated in order to suppress any popular movement that might hinder pacification (Falconieri 2023). The analysis of the debate concerning the application of the Law of 30 June 1838 in the overseas territories, which unfolded in the first two decades of the 20th century, has revealed the heavy influence exerted by the conflict of interest between various players—Colonial Minister, local agents—who tended to be concerned with holding on to their pre-eminence in the management of madness in loco, by thus impeding the establishment of a legislative framework (Falconieri 2021). The study of the role played by the colonial administration in the procedures for the placement of lunatics into specialised institutions, in Algeria from 1933 to 1962, has enabled a focus on the internal dynamics that governed exchanges between these players when they were confronted with the general public (Collier 2022).
24Far from limiting itself to bringing together a documentary corpus, the AMIAF library allows its users to analyse the documents it hosts following new pathways, or pathways that are at least difficult to imagine outside of the cross-referencing enabled by our tool, which allows researchers to sort and order the sources in original ways (Collier, Falconieri, Thiebau and Zasadzinski 2022).
25These tools include the “index” (https://amiaf-imaf.cnrs.fr/s/amiaf/page/index), designed to allow researchers to view, with just one “glance,” and with quantified information regarding the number of documents concerned, the administrative and legal “contexts” for the treatment of mental illness, the “colonial territory” the documents are referring to, their “place of writing”, the “institutions involved”, and, finally, the “words used” in the sources to designate madness (https://amiaf-imaf.cnrs.fr/s/amiaf/page/amiaf-indexMotsUtilisesPourDesignerLaMaladieMentale). Aside from the index, the “tag cloud” (https://amiaf-imaf.cnrs.fr/s/amiaf/page/tags) constitutes an additional search tool offering an immediate “visual quantification” of some major issues that are fundamental to the AMIAF research programme and the documentation consulted (Collier, Falconieri, Thiebau and Zasadzinski 2022).
26Using these search tools, we will focus on the vocabulary used by the agents of colonial law to designate the mental alteration of African populations, as well as the elements, the “signs,” which they used to detect such alterations. What words were used to name the alteration of the mental state in legal and administrative texts relating to Africa? Did the ways of naming madness vary according to the players, the period, the territory involved etc.? What concept of mental illness is conveyed through these words? Is there a connection between the words used and the legal measures applied? What elements did administrators and legal experts rely on to define madness? Did they relate to speech? To gestures?
27The insertion of the “words of madness” index into the AMIAF library is directly related to scientific concerns that the AMIAF team has had in mind since the beginning of its research. It is vital to reflect on the vocabulary used by the agents of the administration and the justice system in order to establish a distinction between the “common language” used by these agents and legal categories (Yakin, Bejermi and Dupret 2022). This is all the more relevant in the colonial context, in which the psychiatrisation of faiths by Westerners (Collignon 2002) fostered constant uncertainty regarding the limits between what was ordinary and what was pathological in the “indigenous soul” (Falconieri 2021). We have thus wanted to facilitate the researcher’s task, by inventorying and indexing the multiple ways of referring to mental pathology in our sources.
- 18 From this point on, we will use quotation marks around the term “madness” when it is found in the s (...)
28The words “madness,” “mad,” “madman,” “madwoman” (folie, fou, folle)18 are among the most frequently used in colonial law, in all periods, after “lunatics” (aliénés) and “lunacy” (aliénation). In their various specifications, of which “raving lunacy” is the most frequent, these occurrences may appear in administrative correspondence relating to hospitalisation procedures (whether these are official reports of investigations, requests for sectioning or witness statements); in correspondence between the representatives of various institutions regarding the legislative framework for mental health in the colonies; in the studies of trainee administrators, drawing a connection between illness and magic; in documents relating to the suppression of movements of revolt, falling under the indigénat regime, to refer to the acts and rituals carried out by the participants or the whole of the movement—“collective madness” (folie collective).
29The words “lunacy,” “mental lunacy” (aliénation, aliénation mentale) and “lunatic” (aliéné/aliénée), with their different specifications—“chronic” (chronique); “dangerous” (dangereux/dangereuse), etc.—are without contest the most used by the agents of the administration and justice system in very heterogeneous documents (police and security service reports, procedures for forced hospitalisation, transfer of patients to mainland France). The expression “mental disorder” (trouble mental), which is third in frequency, mainly appears in documents relating to forced hospitalisations or in healthcare service reports.
30As well as “madness,” “mad,” “madman,” “madwoman” and “lunacy,” “lunatic,” colonial administrators, legal experts and legislators drew on a whole range of formulations that could coexist during one and the same period and refer to one and the same individual. The indexes of the AMIAF library allow us to detect that the most recurrent formulations are: “idiocy”, “mental idiocy” (débilité, débilité mentale) and “idiotic, idiot” (débile) in their various variations—“congenital” (congénitale); “familial mental” (mentale familiale); “imbalance” (déséquilibre) and “mental imbalance” (déséquilibré mental); “mental illness” (maladie mentale) and “mentally ill” (malade mental); “psychopath” (psychopathe), which was very frequent in the language of Algerian prefects in the 1950s.
- 19 ANOM, 1 AFFPOL 869, Circulaire n° 152 du ministre des Colonies aux Gouverneurs généraux et aux gouv (...)
31Let us consider for a moment the terms “lunatic” (aliéné/aliénée) and “lunacy” (aliénation) in their various specifications. Let us examine the aforementioned correspondence, which was exchanged on two occasions, in 1914 and 1926, between the governors general and the Colonial Minister regarding the potential application of the Law of 30 June 1838 on lunatics in the French overseas territories. Indeed, on two occasions, the Colonial Minister enquired about the condition for the treatment of mental illness, with a view towards a possible promulgation of the duly adapted law from the mainland.19
- 20 ANOM, 1 AFFPOL 869, Lettre du gouverneur général de l’AOF au ministre des Colonies, 10 juin 1914, A (...)
- 21 ANOM, 1 AFFPOL 869, Lettre du gouverneur général de l’AEF au ministre des Colonies, 4 juin 1914, AN (...)
- 22 ANOM, 1 AFFPOL 869, Lettre du Gouverneur général de l’AEF au ministre des Colonies, 22 décembre 192 (...)
- 23 Lettre envoyée par le Commissaire p.i. de la République française du Cameroun au ministre des colon (...)
32The responses from the governors general reveal several different ways of naming mental alteration, which are sometimes used synonymously. In the responses addressed in 1914 by the governors general of the AOF and AEF, the word “lunatic” (aliéné) is used together with those of “madmen” (malades), “mental disorders” (troubles mentaux), “psychosis” (psychose)20 or “psychic disorders” (troubles psychiques), which in this case are synonymous with “mental disorders” (troubles mentaux).21 In the missive sent by the AEF governor general in 1926, “lunatics” (aliénés) and “psychopaths” (psychopathes) are interchangeable.22 The terms “lunatic,” “demented” (dément), “criminally insane” (fou criminel) and ”madmen” (malades), figure in the letter sent by the commissioner of the French Republic in Cameroon.23 This letter explains that “dangerous” indigenous “lunatics” (déments dangereux) are the “lunatics” (déments) who have committed a crime and that a special institution built in Douala and governed by the decree of 4 June 1924 targets them in order to isolate them.
Document 1: Letter from the AOF Governor General to the Colonial Minister, 10 June 1914 (first page)
4 pages. ANOM classification: 1 AFFPOL 869, Aliénés loi 1838.
See document transcript annexed to the present article.
Digital identifier (ANR AMIAF): ark:/67375/7QS9ZbhfZGwD
URL: https://amiaf-imaf.cnrs.fr/s/amiaf/item/2218.
Document 2: Letter from the AEF Governor General to the Colonial Minister, 4 June 1914 (first page)
4 pages. ANOM classification: 1 AFFPOL 869, Aliénés loi 1838.
See document transcript annexed to the present article.
Digital identifier (ANR AMIAF): ark:/67375/7QSr99tzfGpb.
URL: https://amiaf-imaf.cnrs.fr/s/amiaf/item/2216.
33One notes a certain lexical continuity in the writings of the agents of colonial law from the end of the 19th century to 1950. The documents hosted in the AMIAF library reveal a shift around the 1950s which would merit further examination and deeper analysis in order to understand whether it affected certain geographic areas more than others. For example, the word “psychopath” (psychopathe), used in some documents as a synonym for “dangerous lunatic” (aliéné dangereux), occurs more frequently in the second decade of the 20th century, especially in texts drafted in the prefectures of Algeria. Furthermore, a “psychopaths’ division” (section des psychopaths), operating within the 4th division of the Prefecture of Algiers, is mentioned in several sources.24
34The AMIAF digital library enables a comparative analysis not just of legal and administrative sources, but also of medical sources, allowing researchers, through the “indexes”, to simultaneously display all the types of sources present in the base (excluding iconographic sources). It is thus far easier to study the points of contact between the terminology used by legal experts, administrators, doctors and psychiatrists. The words used can indeed provide a clue to the medical theories and/or knowledge which the justice system and the administration were drawing on at a given period (Koubi, Hennion-Jacquet and Azimi 2015). Was the vocabulary of legal agents drawn from medical knowledge? Was the way of referring to mental alteration more part of a form of knowledge about madness that was shared by administrators and legal experts?
- 25 Dr Cazanove, “Compte-rendu du Congrès des médecins aliénistes et neurologistes de France et des pay (...)
35The words “madness,” “mad,” “madman,” “madwoman” were also used in medical publications—the Annales d’hygiène et de médecine coloniale or the journal Hygiène mentale—during all of the first half of the 20th century, and above all during the years 1920–1930. In medical publications, however, it is possible to observe that the word “madness” often comes with certain specifications, providing further information of a technical nature, which is usually absent from the texts of the administration and justice system: “cyclical madness” (folie cyclique), “persecution madness” (folie de la persécution), “manic-depressive madness” (folie maniac-dépressive), “moral madness” (folie morale), “puerperal madness” (folie puerpérale).25
- 26 “tous les états d’insuffisance mentale bien prononcée”—“Compte-rendu de l’ouvrage intitulé Les débi (...)
- 27 Gouzien, Paul, “L’assistance psychiatrique et l’hygiène mentale aux colonies”, La prophylaxie menta (...)
36“Idiot” (débile) and “idiocy” (debilité), which were legal categories, also figure in medical articles, with detailed explanations and attempts to create sub-categories. In a forensic medicine study published in the 1910s, mental idiocy refers to “all well-pronounced states of mental insufficiency.”26 “Idiocy” can in turn be “congenital” (congénitale) or “acquired” (acquise), and a distinction must be made between “simple idiots” (débiles simples) and “delinquent idiots” (débiles delinquents). The term “colonial idiot” (débile colonial) appears when the author of the article stops to consider the specificity of mental illness for people who are native to the colonies compared to the French military population present there.27
37Some ways of referring to mental alteration would however seem to come up more frequently in medical discourse. The term “mental confusion” (confusion mentale) is mainly to be found in medical certificates, in articles by experts in colonial psychiatry, as well as in healthcare service reports. The concept of “mental health” (santé mentale) appears more frequently in medical sources and, especially as many countries were about to gain their independence from the 1950s, in documents relating to the organisation of symposia and scientific conferences on the treatment of mental disorders in Africa and in all the overseas territories.28
38There is an obvious and indissoluble link between the words used to refer to madness, the different concepts that these words can underpin, and the elements that lead legal experts and administrators to believe that an individual is mentally affected (Guignard 2010). For this reason, the fact sheet that accompanies every document added to the AMIAF library includes, among other pieces of information, the elements which the various agents use to define mental alteration. In order to facilitate the identification of these elements, we include the formula “signs of madness” in our library’s “tag cloud.” The combination of these two search systems—the index and the tag cloud—facilitates the association of the words used to refer to madness to the elements used to identify it.
Tag Cloud on the Home Page of the Amiaf Website
Source: https://amiaf-imaf.cnrs.fr/s/amiaf/page/home.
39The questions raised by legal experts and administrators regarding the signs indicating an altered mental state when they are discussing the madness of colonised African populations are some of the central preoccupations of the AMIAF research project. We have thus carried out a systematic classification of those elements which, in our corpus, led institutional agents to detect a psychopathological state.
- 29 ANOM, 1 AFFPOL 869, Lettre du Gouverneur général de l’AEF au ministre des Colonies, 22 décembre 192 (...)
40In the series of documents relating to the application of the Law of 30 June 1838 to the colonies, the only sign of mental alteration that is mentioned is “excitement” (excitation), which incidentally was a consequence of trypanosomiasis.29 The related correspondence powerfully reveals the distance between the different agents—governors general and administrators, public prosecutors, ministries—in terms of their way of approaching madness in the colonial context (Falconieri 2021).
41Other series of documents provide more information about the clues that led the agents of colonial law to refer to madness. These might include behavioural attitudes, gestures, mimics, acts that were carried out in the public space. Remarks and statements, whether made orally or in writing, also led to particular issues being qualified as mental disorders.
- 30 We use as a reference the psychiatry textbooks of the period that are most cited by administrators (...)
42There is interesting information on the “signs of madness” to be found in particular in a series of documents relating to the suppression of the aforementioned revolt movements, which were suppressed using disciplinary measures in accordance with the indigénat regime (Merle and Muckle 2019). During these uprisings, the participants would engage in rituals where they acted “like madmen,” by adopting attitudes—such as hearing voices, talking to nobody, gesticulating in an uncoordinated manner—that were very close to those recorded by the psychiatric nosography of the period.30 The colonial administration and justice system often associated such acts with a form of mental alteration they viewed as specific to African populations, which, while it was not strictly pathological in nature, was rather a constitutive element of the “indigenous mentality” (mentalité indigène). The assignment of pathological meaning to a gesture did not in fact usually occur in relation to isolated individuals, but rather would be extended to a community whose rites, dances and ceremonies could constitute, in the view of the coloniser, just so many collective displays of psychopathology that might need suppressing (Bennani 2008).
- 31 “les indigènes de l’authenticité d’une mission divine”—ANOM, 1 AFFPOL 869, Lettre du gouverneur gén (...)
43Alongside attitudes and physical manifestations, speech also has its place. The preaching that went along with proselytising acts were liable to be viewed as evidence of mental derangement, while also constituting a peril for public order. For example, in the case involving the “mystic” (mystique) Benoît Ogoula Iquaqua (Falconieri 2021 and 2023), “preaching” (des predications) convinced “the natives of the authenticity of a divine mission,”31 leading the governor general of AEF to initiate administrative proceedings.
Document 3: Letter from the AEF Governor General (p.i.) to the Colonial Minister, 7 March 1933 (first page)
4 pages. ANOM classification: 1 AFFPOL 663, Indigénat AEF. Révoltes féticheurs.
See document transcript annexed to the present article.
Digital identifier (ANR AMIAF): ark:/67375/7QSvmXnBx1cC.
URL: https://amiaf-imaf.cnrs.fr/s/amiaf/item/2200.
44In the AMIAF library, the “signs of madness” (signes de la folie) tag allows us to identify a series of letters dating back to the 1950s, taken from the fonds of the Prefecture of Algiers (ANOM), relating to the sanitary and security services. Kept in the file Courriers adressés par des déséquilibrés mentaux (Letters Sent by Mentally Disturbed Persons,)32 these letters, the authors who were mostly French citizens, were forwarded on to the Prefect of Algiers by his colleagues within the Sanitation and Public Security Office, with terms such as “forwarding of a delirious” (transmission d’une lettre délirante) or “incoherent letter” (incohérente), and the proposal to classify the author as one of the “lunatics” (aliénés) or “mentally disturbed people” (déséquilibrés).33 Repeated receipt from the same sender is a patent sign of someone being affected by a psychological disorder. Correspondence within the administration regarding some of these letters, as well as the annotations that were often added to them, show that this aspect was taken into account.
- 34 Without any claim to exhaustiveness, FR ANOM 91/1K751(5), Lettre ANONIMISÉ (aliéné) au Préfet de po (...)
45Statements from the “delirious” (délirantes) also received additional annotations and remarks by the administration regarding the statements, the sequences of sentences, or the contents of the request that their authors were addressing to various institutions. These elements were clearly designated using comments or highlighting certain words or phrases, especially in those cases that led to the opening of an enquiry into the dangerousness of the sender. And indeed, a considerable number of these letters mention political events. For example, their authors would refer to the War in Indochina, to “civic resistance programmes,” to De Gaulle’s travels overseas or to Pétain’s death, sometimes explicitly threatening individuals who were imbued with public authority.34 This is rich and important documentary material, which could feed into a wider enquiry into the connections between history, politics and madness in the colonial context (Murat 2011).
Document 4: Letter from [Anonymised] (Lunatic) to the Algiers Police Prefect, 1 July 1954 (first page)
![Document 4: Letter from [Anonymised] (Lunatic) to the Algiers Police Prefect, 1 July 1954 (first page)](docannexe/image/2397/img-5-small480.jpg)
2 pages. ANOM classification: ALGERIE 1K 751 (5), Courriers adressés par des déséquilibrés mentaux.
Digital identifier (ANR AMIAF): ark:/67375/7QSGdngsgXTB.
URL: https://amiaf-imaf.cnrs.fr/s/amiaf/item/2547.
Document 5: Letter from [Anonymised] (Lunatic) to the Police Prefect, 29 July 1954 (first page)
![Document 5: Letter from [Anonymised] (Lunatic) to the Police Prefect, 29 July 1954 (first page)](docannexe/image/2397/img-6-small480.jpg)
2 pages. Classification in the ANOM fonds: ALGERIE 1K 751 (5) Courriers adressés par des déséquilibrés mentaux.
See document transcript annexed to the present article.
Digital identifier (ANR AMIAF): ark:/67375/7QSTPZ2KVPmT
URL: https://amiaf-imaf.cnrs.fr/s/amiaf/item/2553.
46Elements that allowed the administration and justice system to detect mental alteration are regularly mentioned in the files for forced hospitalisation procedures in the Algerian territory. The “signs of madness” tag allows us to thus find documents belonging to different (ANOM) fonds relating to putting under observation mentally affected persons in the hospitals of various départements, at the request of the administration, of the prefecture or of their families.
47Let us examine, still by way of example, an administrative case study relating to hospitalisations, from the period preceding the inauguration of the Bilda-Joinville Hospital (Algeria), dating back to the years 1920–1930, a period during which the discussions about the construction of the psychiatric hospital in Bilda were moving forward and the lunatics requiring care were sent for observation to the ad hoc services of the general hospitals of the various départements (Marquis 2021).
- 35 “actes de démence auxquels s’est livrée la personne”—ANOM 93703/48 Mâadid: Lettre circulaire de la (...)
- 36 “un procès-verbal d’enquête sur les faits et gestes relevés à son encontre”—ANOM 93703/48 Mâadid, L (...)
- 37 ANOM 93703/48 Mâadid, Circulaire du sous-préfet de Sétif aux maires et aux administrateurs de l’arr (...)
48In Constantine, the file that mayors and administrators had to send to the director of the hospital the lunatic was being transferred to was made up of a series of specific elements, including a detailed report from the police superintendent regarding the “acts of insanity which the person engaged in.”35 The formulation used on the eve of the 1930s mentioned “an investigation report regarding the actions recorded against this person.”36 A “considerably detailed report” (rapport amplement circonstancié) collecting all the medical information relating to the person due to be hospitalised was required from the administrators and the mayors who appealed to the prefect of Sétif for psychologically troubled persons to be placed under observation.37 In all cases, as well as these reports, the file had to include the written statements of four individuals who were close to the person who was to be hospitalised.
- 38 ANOM, Algérie 93703/48 Mâadid, Procès-verbal d’enquête, 29 April 1935, ANR AMIAF library: ark:/6737 (...)
- 39 ANOM, Algérie 93703/48 Mâadid, Procès-verbal d’enquête, 29 April 1935, ANR AMIAF library: ark:/6737 (...)
- 40 ANOM, Algérie 93703/48 Mâadid, Procès-verbal d’enquête, 29 April 1935, ANR AMIAF library: ark:/6737 (...)
- 41 ANOM, Algérie, 915-235, Sous-préfecture de Tizi-Ouzou (2) Internement psychiatrie, Lettre du commis (...)
49The elements proving alienation include a whole range of gestures and behaviours which both witnesses and the administration viewed in similar ways. References are thus made to the “incomprehensible statements” (propos incompréhensibles), to the fact that the person speaks “in a continuous manner” (d’une façon continue),38 to individuals “overestimating” (surestime) their own “intellectual means” (moyens intellectuels), to their “puerile inventions” (inventions puériles), to their “theatricality” (théâtralisme), to their “cries” (cris), to their “drunkenness” (ivrognerie), to the fact that they “argue with everybody” (se disputer avec tout le monde), or “don’t keep company with anybody” (ne fréquenter personne) and are “taciturn” (taciturne), to the fact of their “jumping” (sauter) and “breaking” (casser), “going out on the streets naked” (sortir nu dans les rues), “rolling on the ground” (se rouler par terre), and wearing extravagant clothes. The violence of a sick person’s gestures proved that they were dangerous, for example the facts of entering “a house by force” (de force dans une maison),39 of throwing objects,40 of threatening “the people around them” (son entourage), of attacking people, of carrying out “strangling attempts” (tentatives d’étranglement) on “their peers” (ses camarades), of hitting children, of breaking tiles, of insulting people or throwing stones, of throwing objects likely to inflict harm, of carrying out acts of depravity.41
Document 6: Investigation Report, 29 April 1935 (first page)
4 pages. ANOM classification: ALGERIE 93 703/48, Maâdid.
Digital identifier (ANR AMIAF): ark:/67375/7QSsW6gNmFcg
URL: https://amiaf-imaf.cnrs.fr/s/amiaf/item/3160.
Document 7: Letter from the Police Superintendent of Tizi-Ouzou to the Sub-Prefect, 28 August 1954
1 page. ANOM classification: ALGERIE 915-235, Sous-Préfecture de Tizi-Ouzou (2) Internements psychiatrie.
See document transcript annexed to the present article.
Digital identifier (ANR AMIAF): ark:/67375/7QSpdHm8GTjz
URL: https://amiaf-imaf.cnrs.fr/s/amiaf/item/2851.
50To what extent were the signs used to talk about madness common to the agents of the medical, legal and administrative worlds? How did these different fields borrow from each other? Is there any convergence of perspectives on the specificities of specific indicators of the psychopathology of African populations? How did these relate to words and practices used in mainland France? These are questions and pathways for research which the AMIAF library hopes to facilitate by providing a reliable initial collection of documents.
51Far from making any claims to exhaustiveness, we have attempted to offer a selective overview of the typology of sources that can be drawn on in writing the history of the legal and administrative approaches to madness in the African territories formerly colonised by France. The condition of these sources immediately makes clear how necessary it is to give archival work a central place in studying a subject that certainly cannot be investigated if researchers limit themselves to using only the “traditional” sources of the legal historian.
52With this in mind, the development of the AMIAF library has allowed us to bring together in one and the same (virtual) place a considerable, heterogeneous documentary collection which had previously been dispersed, as well as a new classification, by granting it on open and free access to the scientific community and to any members of the public who may be interested. The AMIAF library has set itself the aim of guiding and facilitating the researcher’s approach to the study of their subject, by supporting a comparative analysis of its documents. This result has been made possible by the setting up of multiple research modes, designed by the researchers and engineers on the basis of factual criteria and scientific concerns. The outline of words which we have provided of it is a patent example of this. By clicking on “Index” and then on “words” (mots), a researcher will find themselves faced with the full array of definitions used in the documents that have been classified.
53The same applies to the overview of the way in which madness was understood by French legal experts and administrators in the African colonial context. Thanks to the index “words for referring to madness” (mots pour désigner la folie), as well as to the tag cloud and to the classification relating to “signs of madness” (signes de la folie), the documents housed in the AMIAF library are displayed and organised according to an order and criteria which allow the researcher to easily carry out entirely new comparative analyses.
- 42 For any information, questions and suggestions: silviafalconieri [à] gmail [.] com.
54Our AMIAF digital library, freely accessible to all members of the public, hopes to be a collaborative tool that will endure. We therefore wish to continue to add to it with sources that are relevant to the legal study of madness in a colonial context in Africa. We are thus calling on the scientific community working in this field to support our endeavour by suggesting archival fonds that might find their place in this virtual location.42
References
ANOM classification: 1 AFFPOL 869, Aliénés loi 1838.
Digital identifier (ANR AMIAF): ark:/67375/7QS9ZbhfZGwD
URL: https://amiaf-imaf.cnrs.fr/s/amiaf/item/2218.
French Republic
Liberty - Equality - Fraternity
General Government of French West Africa
GENERAL INSPECTORATE of Sanitary and Medical Services
Dakar, on 10 JUNE 1914
The Governor General of French West Africa to the Colonial Minister.
(Secretariat and Countersignature – 2nd Section)
Subject: Regime for Lunatics
In your circular No. 152, dated 31 January 1914, you kindly asked me for any observations I might have to make on the subject of the application within the Colonies of French West Africa of the text of a bill relating to the regime applied to lunatics.
I have the honour of requesting that you allow me to note, first of all, that the new draft bill is currently much debated and criticised by the majority of alienists, and that it is currently being newly debated before the Academy of Medicine (Prof. THOINOT. rapporteur).
The main criticism that is made of the new law is that it is becoming a judiciary law instead of remaining a medical law.
It will thus fall to the courts to definitively decide on the placement of a lunatic in an asylum or the monitoring of a lunatic being treated within their family.
This law subjects all lunatics, without exception, to the judiciary regime, and, as a result, becomes vexatious.
As it is, is this law applicable in A.O.F.?
To answer this question, we must first examine what different categories of lunatics can be found in the colony.
Mental disorders there can be divided into 2 groups:
A). - Mental disorders due to exotic ailments such as malarial psychoses, psychoses of sleeping sickness.
B). - Mental disorders common to France and to the Colony, such as mania, general paralysis.
The first cases being treatable in hospital, and the second requiring treatment in an asylum.
The mental disorders of the two aforementioned categories can affect Europeans and natives.
EUROPEANS. - I. Patients in the first group A, intoxicated by exotic ailments, will be treated in hospital and, once the acute crisis has passed, will be repatriated.
2. - Patients in the second group B, chronically ill patients such as general paralytics who one cannot envisage keeping in a hut in the colony where they would soon be carried off by cachexia, will be sent to the mainland with a view to their being interned in an asylum.
In both cases, since the Europeans will be sent to France, the new law could not be applied to them in the colony.
NATIVES. - may also belong to one or the other group of patients.
I°. - Patients presenting with disorders belonging to the 1st group A will be, as we have seen in the case of the Europeans, treated in hospital.
These patients will leave the hospital either healed, or having become chronic patients, in which case they will be placed in the second group.
2° - Patients in the second group, who are chronically ill and incurable, must be placed in an asylum.
It thus follows from this classification that the law will only need to apply in the colony to indigenous lunatics:
1° . - Suffering from chronic forms of psychosis, intoxication or infection (e.g.: sleeping sickness… leprosy).
2° . - Suffering from commonly observed forms of psychosis (mania, melancholy, persecutory delusion).
As we have seen, these mental disorders are usually nothing more than the manifestation of the intoxications, infections or parasitic diseases which are so numerous and common in natives, to the point that they constitute almost the entirety of exotic pathology, so that it does indeed seem that the internment of indigenous lunatics must first and foremost be not just medical, but even more, subject to medical supervision, in order for the patient to be able to undergo possible treatments using new medicines (e.g.: sleeping sickness is improved by atoxyl, emetine, ludyl and gallyl).
To summarise, we can say that the indigenous lunatic, once placed in an asylum, remains a clinically curable hospital and laboratory patient.
The new law has been mainly directed at arbitrary sequestration: - The latter does not exist among the negroes; they isolate madmen themselves in the villages, but it is very rare for them to lock them up or mistreat them.
In fact, the view they have of madness goes against this.
For them as for all primitive peoples, madness is always viewed as being of a religious nature, the lunatic being an emanation of God or of the Devil. As such, they respect this manifestation of a superior power.
We might also ask ourselves how this concept could be reconciled with judicial interference. Given the negro’s apprehension of judicial authority, we can easily affirm that the intervention of the court in placing and monitoring lunatics will be absolutely unpopular.
Thus, from this twofold, both medical and social perspective, the new law has even more drawbacks in A.O.F. than in France. For it to be able to be applied to the colony, we must leave enough time to the higher authority to build the asylums required to house lunatic natives who, up until now, have been and still are directed towards the asylum in Marseille.
References
ANOM classification: 1 AFFPOL 869, Aliénés loi 1838.
Digital identifier (ANR AMIAF): ark:/67375/7QSr99tzfGpb.
URL: https://amiaf-imaf.cnrs.fr/s/amiaf/item/2216.
- 43 “cabine spéciale matelassée pour les aliénés”
French Republic
Liberty - Equality - Fraternity
General Government of French Equatorial Africa
POLITICAL AFFAIRS
N 390
Brazzaville, 4 June 1914
The Governor General of French Equatorial Africa
to Mr the Colonial Minister.
(Secretariat and Countersignature. – I/st Section)
Subject: Regime for Lunatics
[handwritten: unfavourable opinion]
[stamp:
COLONIES. Secretariat and Countersignature. – 2nd Section
Received on 2 JUL 1914
Delivered to Mr Bouygue
Responded via Official Record No.
Classified as an enquiry
File No.]
In your letter from last 31 January No. 132, you were so kind as to send to me the text of a bill relating to the regime for lunatics and which, having been passed by the Chamber of Deputies, has been accepted, with modifications during the first deliberations, by the Senate.
In this same letter, you invite me to examine the conditions in which this possible Law might be applied in French Equatorial Africa, and to inform you of any amendments it may require due to local circumstances.
I hereby have the honour of informing you that the regulations you were so kind as to put forward for my examination do not seem to be amenable to be applied currently in French Equatorial Africa.
As far as regards European lunatics, the first measure to be taken is evacuation to France, for it of course could not be acceptable to keep this category of patients in a Colony where, due to the rigours of the climate, the average length of stay of Europeans barely comes to 18 months. The repatriation of lunatics is anyway not met with any very considerable material difficulties, since the Administration du Chemin de fer Belge [Belgian Railway Administration] provides special carriages for the transport of patients and the Convention passed on 4 June 1912 between the Département des Colonies [Colonial Department] and the Compagnie des Chargeurs Réunis [United Shippers Company] provide that a “special padded cabin for lunatics”43 should be installed on every liner (Article 26 of the Convention and Annex H).
It will therefore be sufficient, in order to respond to momentary needs, to create special quarters reserved for European and assimilated lunatics in the sanitary structures of Brazzaville, Libreville, Bangui and Fort Lamy. The Director of the Healthcare Service of French Equatorial Africa has already provided for such a service to be created as part of his project for the improvement of the military hospital of Brazzaville, and I would be obliged to you, Minister, if you were to receive this proposal favourably.
° °
°
Mental disorders among natives are most often observed in cases of trypanosomiasis, and these patients are treated in villages for the segregation of sleeping sickness. Harmless lunatic natives and those not affected by trypanosomiasis are handed over to the village chiefs; as for those affected by mental disorders requiring their internment, it will be appropriate to set up special premises in each sanitary institution with a view to providing them with essential care.
Since we are not considering keeping Europeans affected by mental alienation in the Colony, the measures taken by the local Administration in favour of indigenous lunatics seem to quite happily reconcile the Colony’s budgetary resources, its administrative organisation and the obligations that are incumbent upon it. It is only in a still distant future that it will be possible for the natives of French Equatorial Africa to benefit from regulations that will doubtless be more improved than the existing ones, but which, precisely due to the many organs required for them to function, could not be applied to the Colony in the present state of affairs without being subjected to reorganisations that would compromise its economy.
These considerations seem to be of such a nature as to support the opinion expressed at the start of this letter, namely that the implementation of the bill on the regime for lunatics in French Equatorial Africa adopted by the Chamber of Deputies should be deferred./.
References
ANOM classification: 1 AFFPOL 663, Indigénat AEF. Révoltes féticheurs.
Digital identifier (ANR AMIAF): ark:/67375/7QSvmXnBx1cC.
URL: https://amiaf-imaf.cnrs.fr/s/amiaf/item/2200.
- 44 D.M. stands for “ministry directive” (« directive ministérielle »).
French Republic
Liberty - Equality - Fraternity
General Government of French Equatorial Africa
Office of Political Affairs
N 122/c
Brazzaville, on 7 March 1933
The Governor General of French Equatorial Africa
Commander of the Légion d’Honneur
to the Colonial Minister.
(Office of Political Affairs – 2nd Desk)
27 Rue Oudinot
Paris
Subject: Internment of the Native OGOULA.
[2 P.J.]
In your D.M.44 dated last 24 January relating to the internment of the native OGOULA, you informed me that the examination of the file seemed to have revealed that the Public Prosecutor and Head of the Judicial Service, had not been consulted regarding this matter. Furthermore, you drew my attention to the fact that the internment that the aforementioned native was subjected to does not seem to you to be commensurate with his medically recognised irresponsibility due to the derangement of his mental faculties.
In response, I have the honour of informing you, as far as the first point is concerned, that while the report which I sent to you in my letter No. 861/c of last 13 December is insufficiently explicit, and in particular does not mention the prior consultation of the Public Prosecutor, the latter was nevertheless regularly informed of the issue. This matter found its solution during a session of the Council of Government, during the ordinary session which was held in Brazzaville last November. I had deemed it preferable, given its importance and its particular nature, and also in order to ensure I benefitted from all desirable opinions and guarantees, to defer its settlement to the deliberations of the Council of Government and not of the Permanent Commission. Please find attached an extract from the minutes of the sessions of the Assembly in question, which the Public Prosecutor took part in. I am enclosing a new, detailed opinion from the Public Prosecutor, Mr SANNER, on this issue.
As far as regards the second point, the documents related to this case, such as medical findings, reveal that, while the individual named OGOULA must be considered to be affected by a cerebral disorder, he is at any rate a particularly dangerous madman.
There are in fact many examples of cases where the simple mysticism presented by individuals who had long been considered harmless has provoked regrettable movements of dissidence.
Our neighbours in the Belgian Congo have had to combat the N’Gounziste movement, which occupied them for quite a long time, and the mystical character of those who sparked the sedition did not prevent our neighbours from punishing the political aspect of the profound and harmful hold these individuals had on their peers.
Here in 1929–1930, the sorcerer KARINOU sparked a revolt in the region of Haute-Sangha, and is it not proof of a genuinely unsettling mysticism that he convinced the natives of the ineffectiveness of the means of defence of the white people, against whom this sorcerer would lead his peers while assuring them that his medicine had magical powers.
The refusal to grant satisfaction to a request viewed as perfectly legitimate, the deep wound inflicted on a delicate sense of self-esteem or to an easily-developed pride, have at times caused difficulties among populations subject to the influence of a mystic, sometimes considered by us to be a harmless simpleton.
If truth be told, the witch doctors who exert a profound influence on indigenous populations are mystics whose mental state frequently presents all the hallmarks of insanity. However, the natives do not view them as lunatics. Especially since, as far as genuine lunatics are concerned, the native custom is not to lock them up, but rather to entrust them to their families in the villages. The question of mental alienation among natives in the A.E.F. is currently the subject of an ethnographic study of which I suggest I should communicate the results to the Department.
The native mentality is so different from the European mentality, retards and primitives so easily allow themselves to be led by proud speechifiers, the witch doctor’s “medicine” has such power over them that it is often difficult to rely on the principles of European law to offer an equitable and effective solution to these difficulties which, in France, would be considered as falling only under the regulations pertaining to psychiatric care.
Be that as it may, while the decree that has been communicated to you may seem, due to the visa of the decree dated 15 November 1924, to take the form of a disciplinary sanction, one should not lose sight of the fact that, as the Public Prosecutor has shown, this is a question of pure form, and that the conclusions of the medical authorities which it is expressly aimed at re-establish, in reality, its real character. Furthermore, the chosen place of internment is precisely the centre of Bambari, which, while being sufficiently distant from the conurbations where the presence of OGOULA might pose a danger, is equipped with a sanitary institution where this individual will be able to receive the care required by his condition. Finally, I have invited the Lieutenant-Governor of Oubangui-Chari to take, with regard to this native, all measures liable to soften the treatment to which our concern for public order obliges us to subject him.
Such are the various considerations that explain and justify the decision that was made. I would like to add that the internment ordered in the conditions I have thus outlined would only be maintained in as far as it is strictly necessary to safeguard the public interest, and that it may come to an end as soon as an improvement to the state of mind of the interned individual allows us to consider him as no longer posing a danger to public order./-
References
ANOM classification: ALGERIE 1K 751 (5), Courriers adressés par des déséquilibrés mentaux.
Digital identifier (ANR AMIAF): ark:/67375/7QSGdngsgXTB.
URL: https://amiaf-imaf.cnrs.fr/s/amiaf/item/2547.
H. Dey on 1/7/54
Prefect Bailot
to
The Police Prefecture in
Paris
Dear sir,
I am invented already make a bomb ball explosion took fire succeed. useful by incendiary bomb against viet Mint in Indochina
The war will be ended by 5 bombs with absolute XX during 1 day is enough. A serious very powerful X.X.X. incendiary bomb, without gas or phosphorus, an electric grenade bomb thrown through help of X without man or canon or Heavy Machine Gun
Carrier an electric grenade bomb ball capable of 50 or 100 kilometres,
usefulness by a serious bomb, by terrorist or fellagha against Police or Military forces in Danger. sabotage against a train in Danger etc if you refuse. then I would have the intention going to India or EGYPT. I do not want give a more terrible fast electric bomb ball to UNITED STATES to English 100%. former French Canada by powerful English. for impossible accept. I know that the electric Atomic bomb. Radium. Uranium salt purify plutonium etc. In Scientific laboratory
I am experience make electric bomb without gas. without phosphorus, without petroleum. nor potassium
I say to you, how lead. copper. zinc with absolute X.X.X.. I am secret special great man. find impossible because very difficult by French scholar in Paris. a bomb very dangerous
I am French originally 34 years old
Please be assured, Mister the Prefect, of my very high consideration
Here my address [Anonymised]
Mr [Anonymised]
91 rue de Constantine
Hussein Dey
By Algiers
(a fire like a bit of Piece of sugar took fire for 30 minutes level 50C
not wood or iron)
(simple to make manufacture Light in the house very easily against the forces of law and order in danger)
References
Classification in the ANOM fonds: ALGERIE 1K 751 (5) Courriers adressés par des déséquilibrés mentaux.
Digital identifier (ANR AMIAF): ark:/67375/7QSTPZ2KVPmT
URL: https://amiaf-imaf.cnrs.fr/s/amiaf/item/2553.
Mr [ANONYMISED]
Algiers, 29 July 1954
Cl. Lunatics [note affixed by the prefecture]
Mister the Prefect,
After sequestration, it is intoxication that I have often complained about and which was already making me sick when I wrote my last complaint.
But they have branches everywhere and it is probably for this reason that the emanations occurred again both in the evening and the night from 27 to 28 July, the emanations of natural or prepared alcohol were so strong that it took my robust health and my invincible will for their desires not be fulfilled.
On the morning of the 28th I had to open up all the draughts and stand guard in order not to be taken.
The atmosphere was unbreathable as was observed by a doctor from the telephone sent by the little que ding who had an announcement placed in my name in the Echo d’Alger of Saturday 24 July.
Finally, for two days, I was, according to their desire, unsteady and nevertheless lucid enough to have loudly protested, it being so that this abuse of this degree of alcohol and of drugs can only have come from [ANONYMISED].
I beg you, Sir, to take note of my complaint, for I will return to it.
Yours sincerely.
Mr [ANONYMISED]
References
ANOM classification: ALGERIE 93 703/48, Maâdid.
Digital identifier (ANR AMIAF): ark:/67375/7QSsW6gNmFcg
URL: https://amiaf-imaf.cnrs.fr/s/amiaf/item/3160.
Investigation Report
In the year nineteen hundred and thirty five and on the twenty-ninth of April, We, de Mazières Roger, Administrator […] of the Mixed Commune of the Maadid, Judicial Police Officer, assistant to the Public Prosecutor, undertaking an administrative investigation into the case of Mr [anonymised], affected by mental disorder, have received the following statements:
My name is [anonymised], 48 years old, homeowner in Galbois and I hereby declare:
For around eight days I have been able to observe that the gentleman [anonymised] who I know very well for having him in my service and who I still meet every day in the streets of the village, is displaying very marked signs of mental disorder.
I have thus observed that this native makes absolutely incomprehensible remarks and drools continuously; furthermore his gaze is vague or exalted, in turn.
A few days ago, the people of [..] […] came to tell me that [anonymised] was getting naked and running after women, he forced entry into a house and wanted to abuse a native woman who lived there. It was at this point that his neighbours felt that they were obliged, to avoid any regrettable events, to lock him up in his home.
I have personally seen him tear his burnous suddenly and for no reason.
Read, confirmed and signed
My name is [anonymised] , 28 years old, warden in Galbois.
I have observed that for around eight days [anonymised] has been wandering around the streets of the village speaking incoherently and drooling continuously.
Two days ago, I saw him at the café maure throwing down a cup of coffee he was being offered, and tearing, also for no reason, his burnous.
Furthermore, he often throws around stones with no specific aim and thus risks hitting someone.
Read, confirmed and signed
My name is [anonymised], 65 years old, farmer in Galbois, member of the Sidi Embarek djemmaa
[anonymised] displays clear signs of madness, he runs around the streets of the village of Galbois or of the Anaceur mechta [El Anasser] speaking incomprehensibly.
I have seen him tear his burnous for no apparent reason; furthermore, he throws stones and he has attempted to hit his cousin [anonymised] who was trying to calm him down.
Read, confirmed and signed
My name is [anonymised], 25 years old, day labourer in Galbois.
I am the distant cousin of [anonymised] and his neighbour; seeing that he was displaying signs of mental alienation I wanted to calm him down and take him home, he then violently hit me using a stone.
Read, confirmed, does not know how to sign
For the witness:
My name is [anonymised], 23 years old, day labourer in Galbois, […]
I saw my neighbour [anonymised], completely naked, run after women screaming, finally he followed one of them into her house and wanted to assault her.
I then ran up, for this woman is my own wife, and I pulled her out of the hands of [anonymised] who seemed completely struck with madness.
Read, confirmed, does not know how to sign
My name is [anonymised], 48 years old, farmer in Galbois.
I saw my neighbour [anonymised] display clear signs of madness yesterday: he violently tore his burnous while shouting incomprehensibly.
To calm him down, the gentleman [anonymised], a warden, [..] attempted to give him a 10 sous coin, he took it and violently threw it away.
Read, confirmed, signed and we sign
We then went to the El Anaceur mechta [El Anasser] in order to personally observe the mental state of Mister [anonymised]: we found him lying down in a shack; he got up at our invitation and appeared very calm and did not make any incoherent remarks; nevertheless, his eyes had a crazed look.
According to the information we gathered at the mechta [anonymised] does indeed have clear attacks of madness, but nevertheless intermittently becomes calm, if not reasonable, again.
Of all [..] we have signed for all legal intents and purposes.
References
ANOM classification: ALGERIE 915-235, Sous-Préfecture de Tizi-Ouzou (2) Internements psychiatrie.
Digital identifier (ANR AMIAF): ark:/67375/7QSpdHm8GTjz
URL: https://amiaf-imaf.cnrs.fr/s/amiaf/item/2851.
Tizi-Ouzou, 28 August 1954
The Police Superintendent, Chief of the Police District of TIZI-OUZOU
to
Mr the SUB-PREFECT of the Arrondissement of TIZI-OUZOU
SUBJECT: Mental alienation
I hereby have the honour of reporting to you that on this day, at 6 hours 30, an individual affected by mental alienation, during a violent attack of fury, armed with a stick, broke the glass panes of the notice boards of the Town Hall of Tizi-Ouzou. He then took hold of a stone and threw it forcefully in the direction of the window of the office of Mr HAMOUCHE, Deputy Secretary-General. Under the violence of the impact, the glass pane was broken. This stone continued its trajectory and in turn broke the glass pane of a small piece of furniture, which it penetrated.
This madman caused a public gathering of over 200 people. He was overpowered a few moments later by the police officer BRACHEMI, who was alerted by telephone.
The individual in question is named [ANONYMISED], presumed to have been born in 1916 in Tizi-Ouzou, son of [ANONYMISED] and of [ANONYMISED], married with 5 children, farmer, resident in the douar Béni Zemenzer, Tizi-Ouzou.
His father, Mr [ANONYMISED], a bailiff in Blida, was quickly informed of these facts. He arrived in Tizi-Ouzou in the course of the morning. He immediately took all useful measures to have his son taken to Bilda to undergo the treatment required by his condition.
I must also inform you that these facts occurred on the day of the weekly market which concentrates the activity of the State Police on the market of Sebt and that of the place de l’Eglise, which are over a kilometre away from each other. At the time when this incident occurred, there was no police officer present at the location. On busy days, the many duties incumbent upon the State Police no longer allow it to adequately guarantee security across the whole area of the city. Numbers are limited as a result of secondments, sick leaves and holiday leaves. Furthermore, we are missing four units (two sergeants and two police officers) which it would be opportune to have appointed in our city.
As far as regards the mental lunatics who still circulate within our city and who, at any moment, can become very dangerous for public safety, we do not have any effective means at our disposal to have them admitted into the appropriate hospital complexes.
Pp. the Police Superintendent, on leave
The Deputising O.P.J. (Judiciary Police Officer) Secretary
[In the left-hand margin:
CERTIFIED COPY to: Mr the Public Prosecutor
Tizi-Ouzou
Mr the Mayor, Councillor for the département
TIZI-OUZOU
Archives]
![Document 4: Letter from [Anonymised] (Lunatic) to the Algiers Police Prefect, 1 July 1954 (first page)](docannexe/image/2397/img-5-small580.jpg)
![Document 5: Letter from [Anonymised] (Lunatic) to the Police Prefect, 29 July 1954 (first page)](docannexe/image/2397/img-6-small580.jpg)
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