Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964.
The trade unions organized townspeople and these the PDG structure attached to an already existing rural base. As an interterritorial movement the RDA had the advantage not to divide the loyalties of peoples joined for centuries before the Europeans drew the frontiers. The party had dominated Ivory Coast politics since the end of the war and spread naturally across the forest from the frontier town of Nzo with the migrants who went to vvork on the farms of Ivory Coast, and with the African traders. These dioula regularly travelled the ancient routes of kola nuts, slaves, and Islam. 1 In the twentieth century kola and imported goods which entered at Abidjan moved along roads from the port of Abidjan to Man and Danané, through Beyla, Macenta, and Nzérékoré, from there to Bamako by way of Kankan; and sometimes from there through Bobo-Dioulasso back to Abidjan by way of Bouaké. The inhabitants of the forest, many belonging to 'headless' tribes, welcomed the RDA message of protest and change brought by the travellers.
1. Cardaire, Marcel. “L'Islam et le terroir africain”, Etudes Soudaniennes, I.F.A.N., Soudan, 1954.
