ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the twentieth century, when colonial conquest and rule sought to reshape the internal and external relations of Burkinabe societies, the ultimate form these transformations took was determined in part by the precolonial social and economic organizations of Burkinabe societies, and by their scale and relative power. At the most fundamental level, the dynamics of burkinabe societies in the nineteenth century arose from domestic social relations of production. French colonial policies successfully sowed discord between the old and new African elites in colonial Burkina until independence. Savonnet-Guyot divides the societies of Burkina into three types based on social organization: lineage societies, village societies, and centralized state societies. In general, Savonnet-Guyot argues that among village and lineage societies, political power was consultative, divided, and negotiated. The mobilization of Burkinabe labor required the elimination of domestic slavery, another form of involuntary work and a move that encountered considerable opposition from slaveowners.
