Jean Ennemond Barbier, commonly known as Joannès Barbier, was a French photographer known for his images in colonial West Africa in the 1890s, operating out of Senegal.[1][2] His images reached notoriety when he took pictures of massacred Africans,[3] in some cases arranging the scenes for photographic effect.[3] Later, he acted as an organizer of "black villages" or human zoos at the colonial exhibitions in Lyon in 1894,[4][5] Paris in 1895,[5] and Rouen in 1896.[6]
Photographs in West Africa in the 1890s
1890. While some photos which Barbier is known for were controversial, he also took images of normal life, such as this image of a group of Fulani musicians from Mali playing hoddu lutes.
1891. Tam-tam at Bakel in honor of the capture of Nioro.
1894. Photo of a black albino woman from Senegal by Joannès Barbier on the occasion of the colonial exhibition in Lyon.
c. 1894-1896 Cabinet card showing a woman from Senegal working while carrying a child.
Photographer of the Bakel massacre in 1891
In 1891, Joannès Barbier accompanied French officers during the Tukulor War conflict, when the French attacked the Toucouleur empire. He arrived in Bakel at the time when the executions of Toucouleurs were taking place.[3] He took several views of piled-up or decapitated corpses of "supposed fugitives from the enemy army", probably for the private albums of the soldiers.[1] However, some prints were sent to the photographer's brother (Louis Barbier) in France, and the latter sold them to the newspaper L'Illustration.[1][6] While this newspaper was usually "not very critical of colonial policy", its editors published his photos in controversial article entitled The Work of Civilization in Africa on April 11, 1891.[3][1] Among those images were pictures from Bakel and from Nioro (where Emporer Amadhu had set his capital during a war for succession with his brothers.[7]
Photographs of the Tukulor War; Massacre at Bakel, 1891. fall of Nioro
Joannès Barbier, "Bodies dragged to the river bank to be thrown into the water", January 1891, aristotype print glued to cardboard.[3]Army Museum, Paris. Inv. 2015.10.4.
Joannès Barbier, "Native having just brought to Bakel the heads of prisoners captured among the fugitives of Ahmadou’s bands," 1891, aristotype print glued to cardboard. Army Museum, Paris.
Émile Tilly, "Corpses of prisoners executed after the battle of Nioro", engraving from a Joannès Barbier photograph, in “The work of civilization in Africa”, L'Illustration, no. 2511, April 11, 1891.
"Native having just brought to Bakel the heads of prisoners captured among the fugitives of Ahmadou’s bands" (L’Illustration, no. 2511, Saturday April 11, 1891).
References
Foliard, Daniel (2020). Combattre, punir, photographier. Paris: La Découverte. ISBN978-2348059636.
^ abcdDaniel Foliard; Marina Bellot. "La photographie a été l'un des outils de la domination coloniale" [Photography was one of the tools of colonial domination]. RetroNews (in French). ...turned into real photographic scandals. This is the case of the photographs of the Bakel massacre (1891). Joannès Barbier, a photographer who accompanied French officers during the conflict against the Toucouleur empire, took several particularly harsh views of the deaths of supposed fugitives from the enemy army. They were apparently intended to join the private albums of the soldiers. Prints were then rather imprudently sent to the photographer's brother in France who sold them to the newspaper L'Illustration . This publication, which was not very critical of colonial policy at that time, would publish a scathing article against the army's practices in West Africa, accompanying it with engravings based on Barbier's terrible photographs.
^Mathilde Benoistel; Sylvie Le Ray-Burimi; Anthony Petiteau, eds. (2022). Photographies en guerre. Paris: Musée de l'Armée - RMN. p. 78. ISBN978-2-7118-7905-2.
^ abcdeFoliard, Daniel (1 August 2019). "Bakel, 1891: anatomie d'une crise médiatique". Revue d'Histoire du XIXe Siècle (58). Societe D'Histoire de la Revolution de 1848 et des Revolutions du XIXe Siècle: 189–206. doi:10.4000/rh19.6494. Archived from the original on 20 June 2022. Dozens of soldiers from Ahmadou's army, then in disarray, were executed and beheaded from mid-January, not far from the French post led by Captain Émile Roux 21 . Joannès Barbier was then in Bakel and took several photographs of the atrocities. They ended up in the Parisian offices of the newspaper L'Illustration , which published engravings based on these documents on April 22, 1891. Photography was included in the colonial debate for the first time.
^Bouyer, Anaëlle (2003). "Exotisme et commerce : Les « villages noirs » dans les expositions françaises (1889-1937)" [Exoticism and commerce: The "black villages" in French exhibitions (1889-1937): the State and administrative practices in a colonial situation]. Outre-Mers. Revue d'histoire (in French). 90 (338–339): 274, 281–284. Archived from the original on 2 June 2018. space was allotted to African colonies by presenting a "village noir"...(Black African village): a closed space inside an exhibition in which...housing from African colonies had been reconstructed...inhabitants who re-enacted scenes from their everyday lives for European spectators...As for the one hundred and sixty Africans present in Lyon, they had been recruited by J. Barbier, a photographer from Dakar, responsible for the installation of the black villages at the exhibition...1894
^ abManceron, Gilles (2005). "6. La construction du sauvage". Marianne et les colonies Une introduction à l'histoire coloniale de la France. La Découverte. p. 123. [In 1894] The local chamber of commerce authorized a businessman established in Dakar, Joannès Barbier, to install one hundred and sixty Africans in a "negro village" in the Parc de la Tête d'Or. In 1895, the same Barbier was officially charged, in Paris, with the installation on the Champ-de-Mars of three hundred and fifty "negroes", Sudanese (today's Malians) and Senegalese, men, women and children, supposed to engage in their daily activities under the gaze of the public.
^ abJean-Michel Bergougniou; Rémi Clignet; Philippe David (2012). Villages noirs et Visiteurs africains et malgaches en France et en Europe : 1870-1940. Paris: Karthala. pp. 120–121. ISBN978-2-8111-0723-9. brothers Joannes and Louis Barbier... It was in the Parc de la Tete d'Or (both in Lyon and Villerbanne) in 1894 that the two brothers presented their first ethnographic exhibition bringing together subjects from various sources, African and Malagasy, which would be up to 350 at the Champ-de-Mars in Paris in 1895...but only 120 in Rouen the following year.
^Hanson, John H. (1985). "Historical Writing in Nineteenth Century Segu: A Critical Analysis of an Anonymous Arabic Chronicle". History in Africa. 12: 105–106. doi:10.2307/3171715. JSTOR3171715. Retrieved 27 October 2023. Amadu met this challenge, imprisoned them and installed another brother, Muntaga, in Nioro to supervise the western domains of the empire... Amadu returned to Nioro in 1884 to defeat this challenge. Amadu remained at Nioro after he defeated Muntaga, only to leave when the French military forces attacked the Umarians during the early 1890s.)
