Background
Louis Faidherbe, the son of a poor enlisted man, was born in Lille on June 3, 1818.
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
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Louis Faidherbe, the son of a poor enlisted man, was born in Lille on June 3, 1818.
An engineering graduate of the famed École Polytechnique, he had a lengthy colonial experience in Algeria and Guadeloupe, where he participated in the emancipation of the slaves in 1848, before he was stationed in Senegal in 1852. For 2 years he completed many engineering surveys, gaining a detailed knowledge of the region before the administration named him governor of the area at the age of 36.
One of France's great military conquerors, he carved out the boundaries of contemporary Senegal. During Faidherbe's tenure as governor from 1854 to 1865 his major accomplishment was to create a vast colony dominated by Europeans. From 1854 to 1858 he subdued a number of tribes in the western African hinterland through a combination of military victories and negotiated treaties. His greatest opponent, al-Hajj Omar, was the leader of an Islamic holy war. Al-Hajj Omar was born into a noble and well-educated family, made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and sought to create a religious empire in West Africa. To defeat al-Hajj Omar and secure the colony, Faidherbe recruited the first batallion of Senegalese troops, the origin of all the African soldiers that fought the wars of France. He also developed a system of administration that relied on indigenous personnel, a system designed to enable trade to prosper. An educational system, geared to accomplish the French goals of assimilation, included a school for the sons of chiefs. The encouragement of trade involving Africans as businessmen was a pillar of his policy, and for this purpose he developed Dakar into a great maritime city. Faidherbe later served in the Franco-Prussian War (1870 - 1871) in command of the Army of the North after the fall of Sedan. He won victories at Pont-Noyelles and Bapaune and suffered a defeat at Saint-Quentin. In 1872 he led a French government expedition to study monuments in Upper Egypt and as a result wrote a book on Numidian inscriptions. Other books treated of the campaign of the Army of the North (1871), of Senegalese languages (1887), and of Senegal (1889). He died in Paris on September 29, 1889.
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
French military forces had previously avoided conflicts with the most powerful states in the area, the Toucouleur empire along the Niger River, and the Cayor in the south. By sending emissaries to sign protectorates with weaker states (Bubakar Saada of Bundu, King Samba of Khasso) and by completing the "pacification" of Casamance and the Wolof peoples through what is now northern Senegal, Faidherbe quickly came into direct conflict with these states.
To accomplish even the first part of his design, he had very inadequate resources, especially in view of the opposition from El Hadj Umar Tall, the Muslim ruler of the countries of the middle Niger. By advancing the French outposts on the upper Senegal, and particularly by breaking Umar Tall's siege of Medina Fort, Faidherbe stemmed the Muslim advance. Striking an advantageous treaty with Umar in 1860, Faidherbe brought the French possessions into touch with the Niger. He also brought into subjection the country lying between the Senegal river and Gambia.
He was a member of the National Assembly for the département of the Nord.
An enthusiastic geographer, historian, philologist and archaeologist, he wrote numerous works, including Collection des inscriptions numidiques (1870), La Campagne de l'armée du Nord (1871), Epigraphie phenicienne (1873), Essai sur la langue poul (1875), and Le Znaga des tribes sénégalaises (1877), the last a study of the Berber language. He also wrote on the geography and history of Senegal and the Sahara.
Soon after his arrival in Saint-Louis Faidherbe took as a mistress, Diocounda Sidibe (Dionkhounda Siadibi), a fifteen-year-old Sarakolé girl. She helped him in his study of the Wolof, Pular, and Sarakolé languages. On 15 February 1857, she bore him a son, Louis Léon Faidherbe. In 1858, when Faidherbe was 40, he married his 18-year-old niece, Angèle-Emilie Marie Sophie Faidherbe. She was the daughter of his older brother, Romain, who had died eight years earlier. The marriage produced three children: Gaston, Mathilde and Wilhem. Angèle also helped care for Louis, the son of Sidibe.
Another of Faidherbe's nieces, his wife's older sister Clarence, married the naval officer Théophile Aube in May 1861. At the time Aube was serving in Senegal. He would later be promoted to admiral.