Senegal - Colonial History
The Senegal was discovered by navigators from Dieppe in the fourteenth century. In 1582 a French company established a factory at the mouth of the Senegal, which became,the town of Saint-Louis in 1626. The Dutch settlements along the coasts were acquired by the French through the Treaty of Ximeguen in 1678. In 1758 the French possessions of Senegal were taken by the British and restored in 1783, but seized again in 1800 and 1809 and finally restored to the French in 1817. The Moorish tribes of the north, who showed the greatest resistance to the French rule, were pacified by General Faidherbe in 1860.
When France gained control of the Senegal River valley in the 1870s, it was able to begin transforming into a colony the network of forts and trading posts it had by then established in territory once part of various empires and kingdoms. Hierarchical, strongly Islamized societies, after some resistance, proved highly co-optable by French colonialism. The Sufi brotherhoods initially resisted, but subsequently in central and northern Senegal (but not in southern or eastern Senegal), they became facilitators of French colonization. Over the course of the remainder of the 19th Century, France imposed the production of cash crops, chiefly groundnuts, millet, and cotton, and commenced two railroad construction projects in Senegal.
Political patronage, without being an evil specific to Senegal, had been a crucial factor throughout its history. To ensure functional rule, the French colonizers learned they needed the cooperation of traditional chiefs and the leaders of the Sufi brotherhoods, to which the vast majority of Senegalese belong.
France discriminated among the different types of subjects it conquered. Most groups fell under the Code of Indigenous Status, while marabouts and traditional chiefs enjoyed different treatment. In 1848, the natives of the four municipalities of St. Louis, Gorée, Dakar, and Rufisque were recognized as French citizens with the privilege of electing their municipal councilors and one deputy to the French National Assembly.
In 1902 the part east of Kays, comprising the protected Stales along the upper Senegal and the Middle Niger, was detached from Senegal and was constituted a separate division of French West Africa under the name of the Senegambia and Niger Territory. In 1904 this Territory was dissolved, one part of it, the Senegal Protectorate, having been restored to that colony, but with a separate budget, and the rest of it formed into the Colony of Upper Senegal-Niger, with its capital at Bamako, on the Niger.
The imports of Senegal proper amounted in 1904 to $9,620,000, and the exports to $5,775,000. Over one-fourth of the imports consisted of cotton goods. Earthnuts formed three-fourths of the exports, and rubber one-seventh. Cotton goods (chiefly from England) form the most imrtant articles of import, and after them come kola nuts (mainly rom Sierra Leone), rice, wines and spirits, tobacco, implements, sugar, coal and fancy goods; the exports are mostly ground-nuts; rubber (much of which came from the Niger regions), gum and gold coming next in value.
The rubber was exported in large solid balls of varying diameter, showing a smooth stringy outside appearance. The outside was pale pink, often turning black through slight heating, cutting from white with or without darkish veins to pink, according to age and condition. Somewhat pungent in smell, the quality was rather strong and elastic, but often inclined to become sticky from admixtures of inferior rubber milk. Freedom from sand has the effect of good prices being realised in the market.
Adulterations and imperfections were mainly sand and rubber milk not suited for the purpose, which caused portions of the balls to grow “deadish”. The washing out of the sandy matter was rather troublesome, and great reductions in price had therefore to be made for the lower qualities. In the market a distinct line was drawn between the various qualities, about five in number, while the dealers tampered with the same in their usual manner, thus reducing the value of individual lots, and partly spoiling its otherwise good reputation.
The chief waterway, the Senegal, was navigable during the rainy season as far as Kays, 490 miles from its mouth. Saint-Louis, the capital, was connected by a railway line (103 miles long) with Dakar, the chief seaport of the colony and seat of the Government-General of French West Africa. Another line from Kays, the head of navigation on the Senegal, to Bammaku on the Niger was being built as of 1904.
The local budget of Senegal amounted in 1900 to $648,328; of the Senegal Protectorate, $686,501; and of Upper Senegal-Niger (including the Military Territory of the Niger), $1,138,797. The Governor-General of French West Africa, of which Senegal is one of the colonies, is assisted by a privy council and a general council of 20 members. The colony was represented by a Deputy, who is elected by the four communes in the French Chamber of Deputies. The internal administration differed in various parts. The communes of Saint-Louis, Goree, Dakar, and Rufisque — were organized like the French communes, but elsewhere the rule of the natives, especially in the northern part, was little interfered with.
Senegal colony proper consisted of the towns of Dakar, St Louis, Goree and Rufisque, a narrow strip of territory on either side of the Dakar-St Louis railway, and a few detached spots, and had an area of 438 sq. m. with a population (census of 1904) of 107,826. The total white population of the four towns was about 5000. The rest of the country consisted of native states under French protection, and included, since 1909, the northern bank of the river Senegal below Bakel. In this larger sense, Senegal covered about 74,000 sq. m., with an estimated population of 1,800,000. Among the protected states was Bondu, lying immediately west of the lower Faleme.
Telegraph lines connect the colony with all other parts of French West Africa. Dakar is in direct cable communication with Brest, and another cable connects St Louis with Cadiz. Steamship communication between Europe and Dakar and Rufisque is maintained by several French, British and German lines. Over 50% of the shipping is French, Great Britain coming second.
In 1945, the French Provisional Government allocated 10 seats to French West Africa in the new Constituent Assembly, of which five would be elected by African subjects. In 1946, France granted rights of limited citizenship to all its African subjects, and each territory was able to elect local representatives, bringing to prominence a nascent political class of French-educated Africans who began advocating for independence. In 1956, France granted universal suffrage, and municipal elections were held throughout Senegal; the following year in 1957, there were elections to a Territorial Assembly. Three years later, Senegal became independent.
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