Cercle of Bandiagara Colonial Archive [1897-1960]

The collection includes a heterogeneous corpus of administrative records produced during the French colonial rule in Mali. This "closed fonds" (from 1897 up to 1960) is preserved along with the documents produced by the Cercle in Mali's independence period (“open fonds”, from 1960 to present day). It includes manuscript volumes dedicated to court proceedings and judgments; political reports; dossiers relating to chieftainship, “Land Affairs” or “Muslim Affairs”; reports on the inspections of the different cantons; circular letters; correspondence (in-letters, out-letters, minutes, telegrams), confidential letters and files, Records of births, deaths and marriages, etc. The collection refers to a wide area of Cercle of Bandiagara, an administrative unit introduced in 1903 by the French, that came to encompass a territory reaching up to Burkina Faso.