History of Senegal

The history of Senegal is commonly divided into various distinct periods including the prehistoric period, the precolonial period, the colonial period and the contemporary era.

Prehistoric period

Archaeological finds throughout the area indicate that Senegal was inhabited in prehistoric times.

Paleolithic

The earliest evidence of human occupation in Senegal was found in the valley of the Falémé River in the southeast. The presence of man in the late Paleolithic is attested to by the discovery of stone instruments characteristic of the Acheulean such as hand axes from the which Théodore Monod reported at the Fann point on the Cap-Vert peninsula in 1938, or on blades found in the southeast. Stones shaped using the Levallois technique, characteristic of the Middle Paleolithic, have also been found. The Mousterian industry is represented by scrapers found on the Cap-Vert peninsula, as well as in the middle and lower valleys of the Senegal and Falémé rivers. Some pieces have been directly related to hunting, such as those found in Tiémassass, near M'Bour, a controversial site as some belong to the Upper Paleolithic, while others argue in favor of Neolithic.

Neolithic

In Senegambia, the period during which hunter-gatherer-fishermen became sedentarized and became farmers and artisans is well studied. In the archaeological record, the appearance of elaborate objects and ceramics is observed. Although these findings do not cover the entire territory and there are regions without much information. Although the characteristics and manifestations of this Neolithic culture are well identified, its origin and relationship with other areas still need more study. What has been found is this:

• The excavation of Cabo Manuel: the deposit of the Manuelino Dakar was discovered in 1940. This deposit shows that sue used pieces of basalt, including ankaramite, to manufacture microlytic tools such as axes and planes. These utensils were found in Gorea and the Magdalena Islands, which indicates that there was the activity of shipbuilding by the nearby fishermen.
• Bel-Air's excavation: Bel-Air's enolytic tools are usually made of silex and have been embedded in the western dunes, near the capital. In addition to axes, hoes and pottery, a statuette was found, the Venus of Thiaroye
• Khant excavation: the Khant stream, located north near Kayar in the lower part of the Senegal River valley, is used to name the neolithic industry that uses mainly bone and wood.
• The excavation of the Falémé river located in the southeast of Senegal, has exposed neolytic utensils that were manufactured and polished using materials as diverse as arenisca, hematita, shale, quarzo and silex. There is also well preserved pottery from this archaeological site.
• The neolithic civilization of the Senegal River and Ferlo Valley are the ones that are known worse because they do not always differ from the previous ones.

Precolonial period

In the territory of present-day Senegal there are various peoples of the Western Mande and Senegambian (North Atlantic) linguistic families. These two groups are only remotely related, so they could correspond to peoples who entered Senegal at different times. Most linguists accept that there is a distant relationship between the Mande languages, the Atlantic languages and other Niger-Congo languages. Some of the main current ethnic groups in Senegal such as the Serer, the Wolof or the Fula speak Senegambian languages.

The first known empire that occupied territories of present-day Senegal is that of Takrur, which lasted between the IX century and the XIII. Islam was established in the Senegal River Valley in the 11th century. Currently, 84% of Senegalese today are Muslims. The empire of Ghana that would last until the 13th century exerted a certain cultural and commercial influence on Senegal. Also between the 12th and 14th centuries, the area was under the influence of the Eastern Mandinka empires such as the Mali Empire.

The Yólof or Wólof empire of Senegal was also founded during this time and is the only one of these African kingdoms and empires whose origin is indigenous Senegalese. In the 16th century, the Yolof empire divided into four competing kingdoms: the Wolof, Waalo, Cayor, and Baol.

The era of trading posts and traffic

According to several ancient sources, including occasions by Ferdinand Buisson's Dictionnaire de pédagogie et d'instruction primaire in 1887, the first French settlement in Senegal dates back to the Dieppe in the century XIV. Flattering to the Norman sailors, this argument also lends credence to the idea of a precedence of the French presence in the region, but is not confirmed by later works.

In the middle of the XV century, several European nations arrived on the coasts of West Africa, invested successively or simultaneously by the Portuguese, Dutch, English and French. The Europeans settled first on the coasts, on the islands at the mouths of the rivers and then a little higher up. They opened trading posts and dedicated themselves to 'commerce', a term that, under the Old Regime, designated any type of trade (wheat, pepper, ivory...), and not necessarily, or only, the trade of slaves, although this "infamous traffic", as it was called at the end of the 18th century, was effectively at the heart of a new economic order, controlled by powerful privileged companies.

The Portuguese sailors

Encouraged by Henry the Navigator and always in search of the Passage to India, without forgetting gold and slaves, Portuguese explorers explored the African coast and ventured further south.

In 1444 Dinis Dias left the mouth of the Senegal River to reach the westernmost point of Africa, which he calls Cape Verde, Cape Verde, due to the lush vegetation seen there. He also arrived at the island of Gorée, called by its inhabitants Berzeguiche , but which he called Ilha de Palma , the island of Palm Trees. The Portuguese did not settle there permanently, but used the place to land and trade in the region. They built a chapel in 1481. Portuguese trading posts were installed at Tanguegueth in Cay, a city they renamed Fresco Río (the future Rufisque) for the freshness of its sources in the Baol Sali (later coastal city of Saly) which takes the name Portudal, or Joal in the Kingdom of Sine.

They also crossed lower Casamance and founded Ziguinchor in 1645. The introduction of Christianity accompanied this commercial expansion.

The Dutch West India Company

After the Act of Abjuration of 1581, the United Provinces flouted the authority of the King of Spain. They based their growth on maritime trade and expanded their colonial empire in Asia, America and South Africa. In West Africa, trading posts were opened in some parts of present-day Senegal, Gambia, Ghana and Angola.

Created in 1621, the Dutch West India Company purchased the island of Gorée in 1627. The company built two forts that are now in ruins: in 1628 on the face of the Nassau Inlet and in 1639 at Nassau in the hill, as well as warehouses for goods destined for the mainland's trading posts.

In his Description of Africa (1668), the Dutch humanist Olfert Dapper gives the etymology of the name his compatriots gave him, Goe-ree Goede Reede , i.e. good port, which is the name of (part of) an island in the Dutch province of Zeeland as well.

Dutch settlers occupied the island for almost half a century, trading in wax, amber, gold, ivory and also participating in the slave trade, but they stayed away from foreign trading posts on the coast. The Dutch were evicted several times: in 1629 by the Portuguese, in 1645 and 1659 by the French, and in 1663 by the English.

In the context of the Anglo-French rivalry

The "trade" and the slave trade intensified in the 17th century. In Senegal, the French and British competed mainly over two issues, the island of Gorée and St. Louis. On February 10, 1763, the Treaty of Paris ended the Seven Years' War and reconciled, after three years of negotiations, France, Great Britain and Spain. Great Britain returned the island of Gorée to France. Great Britain then acquired from France, among many other territories, "the river of Senegal, with the forts and trading posts of San Luis, Podor and Galam and all the rights and dependencies of said river of Senegal"..

Under Louis XIII and especially Louis XIV, privileges were granted quite widely to certain French shipping companies, which continued to have many difficulties. In 1626 Richelieu founded the Norman Company, an association of merchants from Dieppe and Rouen in charge of exploitation in Senegal and Gambia. It was dissolved in 1658 and its assets were acquired by the Cape Verde and Senegal Company, in turn expropriated after the creation by Colbert in 1664 of the French West India Company.

The Senegal Company was founded in turn by Colbert in 1673. It became the main instrument of French colonialism in Senegal, but loaded with debts, it was dissolved in 1681 and replaced by another that lasted until 1694, the date of creation of the Royal Company of Senegal, whose director, André Brue, would be captured by the Damel de Cay and released for ransom in 1701. In 1709 a third Company of Senegal was founded, which lasted until 1718. On the British side, the monopoly on trade with Africa was granted to the Royal African Company in 1698.

Grand Master of the naval war of Louis again by the French four months later. In 1698, the director of the Senegal Company, André Brue, restored the fortifications. But Gorée became English again in the middle of the 18th century.

Its excellent location caught the attention of the English, who occupied it three times for a few months in 1693, then during the Seven Years' War of 1758 until it was taken by the Duke of Lauzun in 1779, and finally in 1809 in 1816.

In 1783 the Treaty of Versailles returned Senegal to France. The monopoly of acacia gum is granted to the Senegal Company.

Appointed governor in 1785, Knight Boufflers focuses for two years on strengthening the colony, while he dedicates himself to smuggling gum arabic and gold with signares.

In 1789, the inhabitants of St. Louis draw up a list of grievances. That same year the French were expelled from Fort San José in Galam and from the kingdom of Galam.

A commercial economy

Europeans were sometimes disappointed because they expected to find more gold in West Africa, but when the development of plantations in the Americas, mainly in the Caribbean, in Brazil and in the southern United States, posed a great need for labor cheap, the area received more attention. The Papacy, which had at times opposed slavery, did not explicitly condemn it until the end of the 17th century; In fact, the Church itself has interests in the colonial system. The trafficking of "ebony" It was a problem for warriors, who traditionally reduced the defeated to slavery. Some peoples specialized in the slave trade, for example the Dyula in West Africa. States and kingdoms competed, along with private traders who became very rich in the triangular trade (although some shipments resulted in a real financial disaster). The political-military instability of the region was aggravated by the slave trade.

The Black Code, enacted in 1685, regulated the slave trade in the American colonies.

In Senegal, trading posts were established at Gorée, St. Louis, Rufisque, Portudal and Joal and the upper valley of the Senegal River, including Fort Saint Joseph, in the kingdom of Galam, was in the 18th century XVIII a French traffic engine in Senegambia.

At the same time, a mestizo society developed in San Luis and Gorée.

Slavery was abolished by the National Convention in 1794, then reinstated by Bonaparte in 1802. The British Empire abolished slavery in 1833; in France it was finally abolished in the Second Republic in 1848, under the leadership of Victor Schœlcher.

The progressive weakening of the colony

In 1815, the Congress of Vienna condemned slavery. But this would not change much economically for Africans.

After the departure of Governor Schmaltz (he had assumed office at the end of the shipwreck of the Medusa), Roger Baron especially encouraged the development of the peanut, "the ground pistachio", whose monoculture would be long due to Senegal's serious economic backwardness. Despite the Baron's ferocity, the enterprise was a failure.

The colonization of Casamance also continued. The island of Carabane, acquired by France in 1836, was profoundly transformed between 1849 and 1857 by resident Emmanuel Bertrand Bocandé, a Nantes businessman.

Colonial period

Several European powers—Portugal, the Netherlands, and England—competed for trade in the area since the 15th century, until in 1677 France ended possession of what had become an important starting point of the slave trade, the island of Gorée near Dakar. It was only in the 1850s that the French, under Governor Louis Faidherbe, began to expand into Senegalese territory itself.

Faidherbe was appointed governor of Senegal (1854-1861 and 1863-1865), slowly penetrated the interior of the country, and laid the foundations of the future French West Africa. In a region where, after the abolition of the slave trade, agriculture was based on millet, sorghum and tubers. Faidherbe promoted the cultivation of peanuts. In the administration he imposed the end of local governments and created native courts and schools that were a means of exerting coercion on local chiefs such as l'École des Otages, intended for the children of chiefs. and the interpreters. On July 21, 1857, the first body of indigenous Senegalese troops was created, commanded by Faidherbe.

Led by Captain Protet, French troops took possession of the coast in 1857 and a small fort was built, but battalion chief Émile Pinet-Laprade, who drew up the first cadastral plan in June 1858, was the true founder of Dakar. Work on the port of Dakar, which was originally nothing more than a fishing village, began in 1862.

Contemporary era

Independence of France

In January 1959, Senegal and French Sudan united to form the Federation of Mali, which became a fully independent nation on June 20, 1960, as a result of independence and the signed transfer of power agreement. with France on April 4, 1960. Due to internal political difficulties, the Federation was dissolved on August 20, 1960. Senegal and Soudan (renamed the Republic of Mali) proclaimed their independence. Léopold Senghor, a well-known international poet, politician and statesman, was elected as the first president of Senegal in August 1960.

After the dissolution of the Federation of Mali, President Senghor and Prime Minister Mamadou Dia governed together under a parliamentary system. In December 1962, their political rivalry led to an attempted coup by the prime minister. The coup was reduced bloodlessly and Dia was arrested and imprisoned. Senegal adopted a new constitution that consolidated the power of the President. In 1980, President Senghor retired from politics and transferred office to his hand-picked successor, Abdou Diouf, in 1981.

Senegambia

Senegal joined with Gambia to form the Senegambia confederation on February 1, 1982. However, the envisioned integration of the two countries never took place and the union was dissolved in 1989. Despite peace talks, a southern separatist group in the Casamance region has clashed sporadically with government forces since 1982. Senegal has a long history of involvement in maintaining international peace.

Abdou Diouf was president from 1981 to 2000. He encouraged broader political participation, reduced government intervention in the economy, and expanded Senegal's diplomatic engagements, particularly with other developing nations. Domestic politics sometimes spilled over into street violence, border tensions and a violent separatist movement in the southern Casamance region. However, Senegal's commitment to democracy and human rights has been consolidated over time. Diouf served four terms as President. In the 2000 presidential election, he was defeated in a free and fair election by opposition leader Abdoulaye Wade. Senegal experienced its second peaceful transition to power and its first from one political party to another.

21st century

On December 30, 2004, President Abdoulaye Wade announced that he would sign a peace treaty with two separatist factions of the Mouvement des Forces Démocratiques de la Casamance (MFDC) in the Casamance region.A In late 2006, it appeared that the peace treaty was holding, as both the factions and the Senegalese army appeared to honor the treaty. With prospects for peace recognized, refugees began returning home from neighboring Guinea-Bissau. However, in early 2007, refugees began to flee again due to fears of a new outbreak of violence between the separatists and the government. By 2014, a unilateral ceasefire was established, despite this, the Conflict Casamanza has continued, but at a lower intensity.

Abdoulaye Wade admitted defeat to Macky Sall in the 2012 election. In February 2019, President Macky Sall was re-elected and won a second term. The duration of the presidential term was reduced from seven years to five.