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RACE, STEREOTYPES AND POLITICS 95reason the US-RDA concentrated its efforts in the North was that it hoped togain the electoral support of the liberated slaves. After all, the bellah constitutedthe demographic majority of the nomadic population in the Niger Bend. Thestrategy was very successful. Many slaves reached the ballot box with a clearunderstanding of the purpose of voting. Voting US-RDA equalled a vote againstthe master, it meant filing a ‘freedom paper’. On 17 June 1951:712 bellah in Gangaber, 59 at In Tillit, 26 at Chunkaye, and 203 at Indeliman havevoted against their master. The results at the ballot box of In Tillit are especiallyinteresting: A particularly isolated post, people untouched by propaganda, and yet59 freedom papers. 56In the Niger Bend, the campaigns of the US-RDA had the most impact, given thenumber of slaves who could be emancipated. In 1955, at the advent of the 1956elections for the Assemblée Territoriale, the US-RDA made the bellah question oneof its main campaign themes in the Cercle of Gao.Even before the start of the electoral campaign, [the US-RDA] seems to orient itsactions on two issues in the central Subdivision. (...) A strong interest in the nomadictribes in general and in the bellah question in particular. The current policy of theadministration in this matter is closely scrutinised. 57The reaction of the colonial government to the ‘bellah question’ was thegradual development of a policy of social and economic emancipation. Most ofthis policy was based on the practical measures taken by the Commandant deCercle in Ménaka to resolve the problems after the 1946 elections. These werethe administrative fissure between former slaves and former masters by givingthe slaves their own identity cards; the redistribution of cattle between formerslaves and masters; and the creation of separate bellah fractions. 58 Thesemeasures were copied by the Governeur Générale in Dakar and dispatched as abasis for the emancipation policy of all bellah in 1949. 59In the Kidal area, US-RDA activists and schoolteachers Amadou Bâ andCheick Bathily tried to use the ‘bellah question’ to promote the US-RDA causein the late 1950s. Both Amadou Bâ and Cheick Bathily were teachers at thenomad school of the Adagh. As an active US-RDA member, Bâ quickly clashedwith the French administrators and with the local population, which was re-56575859Schmitt, E. 1954, CHEAM 2449.Sahara, Soudan, Mauritanie, administration et maintien de l’ordre – les confinssahariens – rapports politiques 1955-1956. Rapport politique 1955, Cercle de Gao.ANSOM – FM 1affpol/2173/1.Forgeot, A. 1955, CHEAM 2577.Haut Conseiller, Directorat Général Intérieur no. 730 INT/ AP2 aux GouverneursMauritanie, Soudan, Niger, 17/08/1949. ACK. Galy & Dandah quote a letter foundin the National Archives of Niger, from the Ministry of Overseas Territories to theHaut Conseiller, dated 08/07/1949 instructing the H.C. to implement these emancipationpolicies. See also Galy, K.A. & M.L. Dandah 2003: 44.