The “Reaction from Below”: Colonial Archives, Communist Propaganda and Messianic Movements in French Equatorial Africa

The aim of this essay is to re-analyse the archival material used by the author in the 1980s and 1990s in preparation for the publication of a book entitled L'Africa equatoriale francese fra colonialismo e fermenti rivoluzionari. The main objective was to study the reaction of the colonised to the intention of transforming African societies according to the vision of the European colonial powers. In terms of a general methodological plan, the first fundamental consideration is that the reaction from below in Africa has long been neglected. The historian's task is therefore to bring the masses under the colonial yoke out of their silence. A critical analysis of the archival document shows that for every repressive action of the coloniser, there is a reaction of the colonised. Therefore, we make a critical study of a written and an unwritten but inferable voice. So we let the archives, the documents, speak. Of course, there are, were and will be limited, because the colonised speak through words often transcribed by the colonisers, unless other historiographical sources are discovered.