Mussa Molo Baldeh of Fuladu. Memories of a slave descendant and slaver

In the historiography of the Senegambia, Mussa Moloh Baldeh of Fuladu is one of the late nineteenth century rulers who negotiated with the colonizers instead of resisting colonial intrusion. This choice cost him the rank of national hero, both in Senegal and in The Gambia, where he spent the last part of his life. Today, his figure continues to ignite debates in the regions he once ruled where he alternatively stands as a symbol of liberation or of violent enslavement. This paper looks at Mussa’s life from two different angles, that of the slave descendant (as he most probably was) and that of the slaver on trial for slave-holding and slave-dealing in front of a British colonial court in 1919. There is abundance of oral and written evidence on his life trajectory, which I shall question to unearth the ordinary dimensions of Mussa’s extraordinary experience.