Searching for Borders in West Africa
Travel Blog • Eva Holland • 09.22.08 | 2:40 PM ET
Photo by It’s a truism that Africa’s colonial borders were drawn virtually on a whim, but in this compelling essay in The Smart Set, Peter Chilson learns first-hand just how arbitrarily some of those lines on the map were traced—and the real-life impact of those colonial decisions.
At Mali’s national archives, an employee (who initially accuses Chilson of spying for Senegal) lets him in on the practical importance of the borders’ origins: “At this moment, two army officers from Niger are here to look over documents about their border with Burkina Faso,” the archivist tells Chilson. “There is gold on that border, you know.”