Batouk. Batouk was created by Max-André Dazergues and appeared in the French pulp Batouk, le Roi de la Forêt Vierge #1-18 (1945-1946). Batouk is a brave, noble young native of the French colony in Niger. In the years before World War Two Batouk helps patriotic French colonial agents and Africa Hands keep the peace in Niger and elsewhere in Africa. Batouk is “intrepid” and “courageous” and tries to protect poor Africans whenever he can. He knows the jungles, rivers, and savannahs intimately, and is a great tracker. He is “strong as an elephant, cunning as a monkey, agile as an antelope, knows the plants that kill and the plants that heal. He is a wizard, a genius, a warrior.” Batouk appears in stories with titles like “The Boat of Sorcerers,” “The Stranglers of Dahomey” and “The Island of Leopards.”
I’ve written some about how the pulps (which I use broadly, as what Barthes called a metaphor without brakes) were less stereotypical than common memory today thinks of them as. Well, Batouk, le Roi de la Forêt Vierge is a kind of rebuke to that judgment–or, rather, it stands on the stereotypical end of things, in a particularly distasteful way.
Regarding the Africa Hands mentioned above. Great Britain’s colonies in Africa were many and varied, and each colony was ruled by a Governor, with District Commissioners ruling individual sections. Each Commissioner’s district could be thousands or even tens of thousands of square miles in area, and the Commissioner was assisted by only a handful of white officials and a few squadrons of (non-white) soldiers. These officials were expected to enforce local and Imperial laws, collect taxes, prevent international crimes (like slave-trading), and above all prevent any conflict, between local peoples or between nations. In fiction, these officials were Africa Hands: experienced veterans of Foreign Service in Africa; intimately familiar not just with flora, fauna, and native cultures of Africa; deeply patriotic; and convinced that colonialism is the best thing for the natives—that British “civilization” can and will create a kind of moral uplift on the natives. To help this uplift and the peace and success of the Empire, the Africa Hands are willing to commit a wide range of acts, whipping natives for disrespecting a white man or hanging a corrupt native king without hesitation. Africa Hands have a great deal of respect for Africans, but in the same way that a hunter respects a lion—for its ferocity and power, but not as an equal. Curiously, most Africa Hands are Britons active in the jungles of West Africa, where Great Britain had no colonies. The Africa Hands in Batouk, le Roi de la Forêt Vierge are an interesting exception–you didn’t get many pulp French Africa Hands.
So, yeah. Batouk, le Roi de la Forêt Vierge is deeply imperialist and racist, despite its attempt at portraying Batouk himself in a positive manner. Especially unpleasant considering when it appeared, when the pro-independence movements in Africa, fueled by the many returning African servicemen who had served the Allies in WW2, was gathering steam. Batouk is not just an imperialist document, it’s one that was published to actively convince its reading audience that the African pro-independence movements were wrong, that the natives were, like Batouk, happy to be ruled.