Burkina Faso is the only African country to have carried out two
migration surveys which are representative at the national level,
one in 1974-1975 and another in 2000. Given that both surveys
are retrospective and entirely comparable, it is possible to use
migration histories to reconstruct the past. The first survey
allows us to go back as far as the beginning of the 20th century
(see Cordell, Gregory and Piché, 1996) while the second survey
fills the gap between 1975 and 2000 (see Ouédraogo and Piché,
2007; Kabbanji, 2008). Using these two surveys, we intend to
2
synchronize the changes in migration patterns and characteristics
between Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire between 1900 and 2000
and link the changes to their parallel migration policies, at both
the national and regional levels.1

In summary, we distinguish
three grand historical periods, each with its migration and policy
specificities. The first one covers the colonial period (1900-
1960) and is characterized basically by a circular migration
system between Burkina Faso (then called Upper Volta) and
Côte d’Ivoire induced by “development” policies geared towards
the needs of the French imperial power. The first sub-period
covers migrations in the years 1900-1946, an era associated with
colonial penetration and the creation of the colony of Upper
Volta. This period has historical coherence: it covers the years
from the imposition of colonial rule through the foundation of
Upper Volta in 1919, the colony’s suppression in 1932 and the
annexation of a large part of the colony to Côte d’Ivoire, the
abolition of forced labor in 1946 and terminates with the
reestablishment of the colony in 1947. In the second sub-period,
from 1947 to 1960, still remaining colonial, “free contract labor”
replaced forced labor in imperial policies aimed at recruiting
labor for its Côte d’Ivoire development projects.