African Women, Colonial Justice and White Man's Mercy: Female Murderers and Capital Sentencing under British and French Rule in Africa, c.1920-40s

Abstract

This article offers the first comparative analysis of the treatment of African women in British and French criminal law. Using evidence from 115 trial records involving female accused from French West Africa and Kenya, the Gold Coast and Nyasaland, it explores the processes through which ideas of race, status and public order intertwined with European and local African gender norms, both within courtrooms and political offices, to determine the outcome of murder cases involving female accused. The article investigates the development of a colonial “white man’s mercy”, analysing the cultural sensibilities and politico-legal reasoning which led to many African women receiving mercy and judicial leniency. It shows how intersections of racial and gendered stereotypes, many shared across French and British colonial cultures, often worked in favour of African murderesses through the operation of mercy processes. It further explores the treatment of “wicked women” who were only spared execution explicitly on grounds “of [their] sex” and often against the opinion of on-the-ground colonial judges. Finally, it interrogates those cases where women were executed, to highlight the limits of gender in determining sentencing.