French Niger
The first French expedition into the heart of the Niger country was undertaken in 1863, when General Faidherbe sent Lieut. E. Mage and Dr Quintin to explore the country east of of the Senegal. The two travellers pushed as far as of the Segu on the Niger, then the capital of the almany upper Ahmadu, a son of Omar al-Haji. At Segu they were forcibly detained from February 1864 to March 1866.
During this period they gathered much valuable information concerning the geography, ethnology and history of the middle Niger region. In 1878 the explorer Paul Soleillet (1842-1886) also penetrated to Segu. In 1879 Colonel Brière de l'Isle (governer of Senegal, 1876-1881) appointed Captain Joseph S. Gallieni to investigate the route for a railway and to reopen communications with the almany Ahmadu, and at this time the post of Bafulabé was constructed.
The armed conquest began in 1880, and for more than fifteen years was carried on by Borgnis-Desbordes, J. S. Gallieni, H. N. Frey, Louis Archinard, Col. Combes, Tite Pierre Eugène Bonnier and other officers. In 1881 the Niger was reached; the fort of Kita was erected to the south-east of Médine to watch the region between the Senegal and the Joliba (upper Niger); the fort of Bamako on the Niger was built in 1883; a road was made, 400 m. of telegraph line laid down and the work of railway construction begun. In 1887 Ahmadu, who had formerly been anxious to obtain British protection, signed a treaty placing the whole of his country under French protection. Besides Ahmadu the principal opponent of the French was a Malinké (Mandingo) chieftain named Samory, a man of humble origin, born about 1846, who first became prominent as a reformer of Islam, and had by 1880 made himself master of a large area in the upper Niger basin.
In 1887, and again in 1889, he was induced to tecognize a French protectorate, but peace did not long prevail either with him or with Ahmadu. The struggle was resumed in 1890; Ahmadu lost Segu; Nioro the capital of Kaarta was occupied (1891); Jenné was taken in 1893. Samory proved a veritable thorn in the flesh to his opponents. Wily and elusive, he made and broke promises, tried negotiation, shifted his “empire” to the states of Kong, and after numberless encounters was finally defeated on the Cavalla to the north of Liberia, and taken prisoner in September 1898. He was deported to the Gabun, where he died in 1900.
Timbuktu was occupied in December 1893, in defiance of orders from the civil authorities. Colonel Bonnier, who went to the relief of the advance party, after having effected that purpose, was slain by the Tuareg (15 January 1894), whom he had pursued into the desert. In the meantime France had signed with Great Britain the convention of 05 August 1890, which reserved the country east of the Niger and south of the Sahara to Great Britain.
Determined to profit by the convention, the French government despatched Colonel P.L. Monteil to West Africa to visit the countries on the Anglo-French frontier. That officer, starting from St Louis in 1891, traversed the Niger bend from West to East, visited Sokoto and Zinder and arrived at Kuka on Lake Chad, whence he made his way across the Sahara to the Mediterranean.
In the following years French expeditions from Senegal penetrated south-east into the hinterland of the British colonies and protectorates on the Guinea coast and descended the Niger (February 1897) as far as Bussa, the limit of navigation from the ocean. These actions brought them into contact with the British outposts in the Gold Coast, Lagos and Nigeria. A period of tension between the two countries was put an end to by a convention signed on the 14th of June 1898 whereby the territories in dispute were divided between the parties, Great Britain retaining Bussa, while France obtained Mossi and other territories in the Niger bend to which Great Britain had laid claim.
In 1904, in virtue of a convention between Great Britain and France, the Senegal colony obtained a port (Yarbatenda) on the Gambia accessible to sea-going vessels, while the trans-Niger frontier was again modified in favor of France, that country thereby obtaining a fertile tract the whole way from the Niger to Lake Chad. During 1905-1906 the oases of Air and Bilma, in the central Sahara, were brought under French control, notwithstanding a claim by Turkey to Bilma as forming part of the Tripolitan hinterland.
At first the whole of the conquered or protected territories were either administered from Senegal, or placed under military rule. Subsequently the upper Senegal country and the states included in the bend of the Niger were formed into a separate administration and were given the title “French Sudan.” As the result of further reorganization (October 18, 1899) the colonies of French Guinea, Ivory Coast and Dahomey were given their geographical hinterlands, and in October 1902 the central portion was created a protectorate under the style of the Territories of Senegambia and of the Niger. A further change was made in 1904 (decree of 18 October) when this central portion was changed into “The Colony of Upper Senegal and Niger.” The new colony was placed under a lieutenant-governor.
Colonial resistance to the French was organized by chiefs (like Amadou Kourandaga, Sultan of Damagaram) and noblemen (like Kaocin of Agadez), who are still heroes in contemporary Niger. Unlike the British in Nigeria, the French followed conquest with a system of direct rule that reduced traditional rulers to implementing agents of the state. The French also developed clear lines of authority (and physical borders) between chiefs via a cascading system of responsibility.
At the summit of Nigerien chieftaincy are the Sultans of Damagaram (Zinder) and the Air (pronounced "aye-air"), or Agadez. In Maradi and Dosso Regions, the highest chiefs are the Provincial chiefs of Gobir and Katsina (Maradi), and Dosso. Below Sultans and Province Chiefs are Canton Chiefs. At the lowest level are village and urban "neighborhood" chiefs (reftel A). Under French rule, Nigerien chiefs collected taxes and meted out local justice, but at the behest of French Prefects and Governors.
The French policy of subordinating chiefs to civil administrators, changing boundaries between traditional kingdoms and cantons, and deposing resistant chiefs in favor of docile or French-speaking candidates weakened chieftaincy as an institution and lessened popular reverence for it.
Soon after the reorganization of the country in 1902, the effective area of French control was increased by M. Coppolani, secretary-general of French West Africa, who in February 1903 induced the emirs of certain Trarza and Brakna Moors inhabiting a fertile region on the northern bank of the lower Senegal to place their country under the direct supervision of French officials. In the following year these regions were formally constituted the Territory of Mauretania, being placed under the direct control of the governor-general of French West Africa represented on the spot by a civil commissioner.
In 1905 M. Coppolani, the commissioner, was murdered by a band of fanatics at an oasis in the Tagant plateau. During 1908-1909 a force under Colonel Gouraud, after considerable fighting - the natives receiving help from Morocco - made effective French influence in Adrar Temur.
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