The Sarr-Savoy Report & Restituting Colonial Artifacts

By Clara Cassan.

In 1885, The General Act that emerged from the Berlin conference read as follows: “The Signatory Powers exercising sovereign rights or authority in African territories will continue to watch over the preservation of the native populations and to supervise the improvement of the conditions of their moral and material well-being” (Article 11).^[i] The text was signed by the United States and thirteen European nations, including France, with the intention of “protecting” African countries and enabling free trade and transit through the continent. Its language gives us a clear illustration of colonization, one’s appropriation of a place without its owner’s consent, which, more simply, can also be defined as theft. The conference gave way to the division Africa endured until the 1970s. France acquired Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, most of the northern Sub Saharan countries, and Madagascar.

Amongst European material appropriations were artworks and sacred objects of various African communities. French colonizers imported these acquisitions to France and slowly integrated them into their national collections. Some objects entered the Louvre Museum, while others reflecting “the history of manners and customs” of colonized countries were placed in the newly created musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadéro, near the Eiffel Tower. As these importations scattered across France, the government organized “colonial exhibitions,” attracting tourism and contributing to the country’s growing economy. Paris consequently experienced the birth and expansion of specialized institutions, starting with the Colonial Museum in 1931. Today’s Musée du Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, in Paris, is a concentration of 70,000 Sub Saharan African treasures, which represent about two-thirds of the African objects still held in France. Most of the institution’s artworks originate from Tchad, Madagascar, Mali, and Benin.