Africa in World History° Benin
° Cameroon
° Congo
° Cote d'Ivoire
° Gabon
° Ghana
° Guinea
° Kenya
° Liberia
° Mauritania
° Mozambique
° Nigeria
° Senegal
° Sierra Leone
° Somalia
° Tanzania
° Zanzibar
In the 1680s the French send a detachment from Gorée to establish a settlement at Albreda on the north bank of the river opposite Fort James. At that time, France and Britain were me on the verge of a century and a half of almost continuous warfare against each other.
The fortified settlements in Africa changed hands between the two nations repeatedly during the 18th century. By the mid-19th century, Britain was the established European power on the Gambia, with the valuable addition of Bathurst (now known as Banjul). This island in the mouth of the river was used from 1816 as a base against the slave trade.
France held the Senegal and the important outpost of Gorée between the two rivers. Moreover the French were much more ambitious than the British in pressing inland. They established a station at Médine, far up the Senegal, in the 1850s. In 1883 a French expedition reached Bamako on the Niger. They outflanked the British, who restrict their interests to the banks of the Gambia.
As a result, when the scramble for power in Africa began in 1884, the British were at a disadvantage. When boundaries were agreed between the two nations, in 1889, Britain secured a narrow strip along each bank of the Gambia. This territory was entirely surrounded by French Senegal.
The establishment of Senegal as a French colony was merely one part of the French colonial effort in west Africa during the 1880s and 1890s. By 1895 there were six French colonies in the region, covering a vast unbroken stretch of the continent. They were grouped together as French West Africa. Among them Senegal is the colony with the strongest French presence.
Dakar, founded by the French in 1857 on the mainland opposite the island of Gorée, became the capital of the territory in 1902 (succeeding St Louis in the role). Senegal remained at the centre of France's west African empire until independence in 1960.
Gorée Island, a few miles out to sea from Dakar, established itself as a place of transit for slaves and merchandise, and its fate came to be linked to that of the European trading companies. In the eighteenth century, when the slave trade was at its height, this trading post was the subject of bitter disputes among the various powers vying for its control. Accordingly, the French and the English took turns in taking over until the early nineteenth century. With the proclamation of the end of slavery, Gorée became the base of the naval division in charge of cracking down on illicit slave trading.
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Courier, London, United Kingdom
October 10, 1837
Among the foreign possessions remaining to the French Crown were the colonies in the East Indies, small in extent but of considerable value. In 1722 it obtained the important trading place, Mahe (8 square miles) on the Malabar coast and in 1739 from the Rajah of Tanjore, Caricalla, with a territory of 312 square miles. In 1769 the Government abolished the privileges of the East India Trading Company, and took possession of its property In land and colonial produce, amounting in value to about 5,367,450£ engaging, in return for this, to become responsible for their debt of 3,461,250£. lu the seven years' war, by land and sea, France lost the major part of its immense territories in North America. By the first treaty of Versailles . . . , she lost in Africa the colonies on the Senegal and island of Goree.
Evening Gazette, Sterling, Illinois
May 7, 1892
The French Have a Tough Job
A dispatch from Sierra Leone says: "A messenger from the interior reports that King Samadon of Dahomey, as a piece of strategy, allowed the French to capture three native towns, and afterward recaptured two of them, the French issuing heavily in the engagements. The messengers says he saw eighty-one French prisoners and Senegal natives and the heads of four French officers in King Samadou's camp. King Samadou commands 20,000 warriors, 8,000 of whom are armed with chassepots.
A Continent For The Taking
Author Howard W. French, a veteran correspondent for The New York Times, gives a compelling firsthand account of some of Africa’s most devastating recent history–from the fall of Mobutu Sese Seko, to Charles Taylor’s arrival in Monrovia, to the genocide in Rwanda and the Congo that left millions dead. Blending eyewitness reportage with rich historical insight, French searches deeply into the causes of today’s events, illuminating the debilitating legacy of colonization and the abiding hypocrisy and inhumanity of both Western and African political leaders.
