¹ Martin, Klein, ‘The Moslem Revolution m Nineteenth century Senegambia’, in Daniel, McCall, Norma, Bennett and Jeffrey, Butler (eds.), Western African History, vol. iv of Boston University Papers on Africa (New York, 1969), 69–101. In trying to understand the processes of modern Senegambian history, I have profited greatly from conversations with other scholars working on the area. I am particularly grateful to Clement Cottingham, David Robinson, Boubacar Barry and Cheikh Tidiane Sy, all of whom have willingly communicated their ideas and the results of their research. The final synthesis and any errors in it are, however, my own.Google Scholar

² The Sarakollé from the upper Senegal river were also involved in some of these transformations. On Senegambian social structures, see Pathe, Diagne, Pouvoir Politique Traditional en Afrique Occidentale (Paris, 1967);Google Scholar on the Wolof, David, Gamble, The Wolof of Senegambia, Ethnographic Survey of Africa (London, 1957);Google Scholar on the Tukolor, , Yaya Wane, Les Toucouleurs du Fouta Tooro (Sénégal) (Dakar, 1969)Google Scholar and Boutillier, J. L et. at., La moyenne value du Sénégal (Paris, 1962);Google Scholar on the Mandinka Charlotte, A. Quinn, ‘Niumi: a Nineteenth Century Mandingo Kingdom’, Africa, xxxvii, (1968), 443–55,Google Scholar and ‘Traditionalism, Islam and European Expansion: The Gambia, 1850–1890’, unpublished dissertation, UCLA, 1967.Google Scholar

³ Cheikh, Tidiane Sy, La Confrérie Sénégalaise des Mourides (Paris, 1969), 85.Google Scholar

⁴ For centuries, Wolof and Serer society has been characterized by intense factional conflict. This factionalism, which seldom has an ideological base, always involves the splitting into two groups, each centred around a candidate for the top post. In Serer Sine, for example, three patrilineages provided burs, but there were always two candidates and two factions. The candidate was obviously always under pressure from family and entourage to act according to their collective interests. Defeat tended to involve total exclusion from power and its rewards, and sometimes, exile in a neighbouring kingdom. A recent and still unpublished study by Clement Cottingham suggests that the higher level of factional conflict among the Wolof may result in part from the relative weakness of paternal authority. Wolof society is characterized by horizontal linkages, that is to say, between brothers, while Mandinka society is more marked by vertical linkages. Mandinica family heads and village chiefs are thus more successful at mediating conflict. The result is greater social cohesion in the Mandinka community. This is obviously not new, and helps to explain the failure of both Muslim and traditionalist groups to unite at key times during nineteenth-century conflicts. Clement, Cottingham, ‘Clan Politics and Rural Modernization: A Study of Local Political Change in Senegal’, unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California (Berkeley) (1969), 568–72.Google Scholar

⁵ Raymond, Mauny, Tableau géographique de l'Ouest africain au Moyen Age (Dakar, 1961), 285–6.Google Scholar On the early importance of the slave trade in Senegambia, see Philip, D. Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade (Madison, 1969), 96–8 and 100–2.Google Scholar

⁶ Jean, Boulègue, La Sénégambie du milieu du XVe siècle au dèbut du XVIIe Siècle. Thé;e pour le doctorat du 3eme cycle, Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines de l'Universitéé de Paris, 47–54.Google Scholar See also Alvise, Ca da Mosto, The Voyages of Cadamosto, trans. Crone, G. R (London: Hakluyt, 1937),Google Scholar and Valentirn, Fernandes, Description de la Côte occidentale d'Afrique (Sénégal au Cap de Monte, Archipels), ed. Monod, T., Texeira da Mota, A. and Mauny, R. (Bissau: Centro de estud. da Guine port., 1951).Google Scholar

⁷ For a modern picture of the samba linguer, see Ousmane, Socé [Diop] Karim (Paris, 1948).Google Scholar

⁸ Rousseau, R., ‘Cahiers de Yoro Dyao’, Bulletin du Comité d'Etudes Historiques et Scientifiques de l'A.O.F., XVI (1933), 167 as quoted in Sy, 167.Google Scholar

⁹ Ernest, Noirot, ‘Aperçu General’ (1896), Archives de Ia Republique du Senegal (ARS), 13 G 327.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Since writing this, my analysis has received support from Boubacar Barry, Le Royaume du Waalo 1659–1859. Thèse pour le Doctorat du 3eme cycle, Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines de l'Université de Paris. 1970. Mimeographed.

¹¹ George, Brooks, Yankee Traders, Old Coasters, and African Middlemen, (Boston, 1970), ch. 4.Google Scholar

¹² Martin, Klein, Islam and Imperialism in Senegal: Sine Saloum, 1847–1914 (Stanford, 1968), 36–38.Google Scholar

¹³ This analysis is similar to that of Hopkins, A.G for Yorubaland: ‘Economic Imperialism in West Africa: Lagos, 1880–92’, Economic History Review, xxi (1968), 580–606.Google Scholar

¹⁴ The negative effects of European intervention in Waalo have been documented in Boubacar Barry, Le Royaume du Waalo.

¹⁵ For an excellent study of French West African policy, see Newbury, C. W. and Kanya-Forstner, A. S., ‘French Policy and the Origins of the Scramble for West Africa’, J. Afr. Hist., X (1969), 253–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Kanya-Forstner, A. S., The Conquest of the Western Sudan (London, 1969),Google Scholar ch. Hardy, G., Faidherbe (Paris, 1947);Google ScholarDelavignette, R., ‘Faidherbe’ in Julien, C.A. (ed.) Les techniciens de la colonisation (Paris, 1953).Google Scholar

¹⁶ Gaibraith, J.S, ‘The ‘Turbulent Frontier’ as a Factor in British Expansion’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, II (1960). Faidherbe clearly understood that bases in the interior would be transformed ‘by local rivalries, by political disruption and by civil wars in which our allies would always be the strongest’. Quoted in Kanya-Forstner, 43.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Ca, da Mosto, 31; Fernandes, 7–17.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Le, Maire, Voyage to the Canaries, Cape Verd and the Coast of Africa. Translated from the French by Edmund Goldschmid (Edinburgh, 1887), 41.Google ScholarTorodbe accounts of events in the Futa Toro have influenced us to regard their denianke predecessors as pagan. See Sire, Abbas Soh, Chroniques Fouta Sénégalais, trans and ed. by Maurice Delafosse with the collaboration of Henri Gaden (Paris, 1913).Google Scholar

¹⁹ Mungo, Park, The Travels of Mungo Park (New York, 1907), 13. The term ‘marabout’ is used here for any Moslem cleric.Google Scholar

²⁰ The Bur Sine enjoyed setting up discussions between his marabout and the first Catholic missionaries. He also wanted the missionaries to settle at court and play the same role as the marabout, that of scribe and chaplain. These conversations are reported in letters sent by the early missionaries to the mother house of the Holy Ghost Fathers in Paris.

²¹ Father Arragon to Father Libermann, 29 April 1847, Archives du Congregation du Saint Esprit, 153, III.

²² My information on the Dems comes from Biram Dem of Pikine and from tax lists of the early 1890s.

²³ In the Dakar archives there are fiches de renseignement collected before World War I on Senegambian marabouts. While most administrators were careless in filling these out, 126 have specific references to the fathers' occupations. Of these, 96 were sons of marabouts (76 per cent). Few of the Mourides were of nyenyo origin and 4 tyeddo, but even among the Mourides, 68 per cent (34 of 50) were sons of marabouts. (ANS, fonds territorials, unclassified.) For a more complete analysis of this data and a slightly different reading, see Lucy, Behrman, Muslim Brotherhoods and Politws in Senegal (Cambridge, Mass., 1970), 188–96.Google Scholar

²⁴ Personal communication, James Johnson and David Robinson.

²⁵ Spencer Trimingham, J., Islam in West Afrtca (Oxford, 1961), 246. The soninke of the lower Gambia should not be confused with the Soninke of the upper Senegal river area, who are also called Sarakollé. I have used the term Sarakollé to avoid confusion between the two peoples.Google Scholar

²⁶ Philip, D. Curtin, ‘Jihad in West Africa: early phases and inter-relations in Mauritania and Senegal’, J. Aft. Hist., XII (1971), 11–24;Google Scholar These documents are by Louis Moreau de Chambonneau and provide the fullest available description both of seventeenth-century Islam and of the Toubenan movement. For a full description of the movement in Waalo, see Barry, Le Royaume du Waalo …, 101–31.Google Scholar See also Sy, , 38–9; Le Maire, 48–9;Google ScholarMichel, Jajolet de la Courbe, Premier voyage fait à la Coste d'Afrique, ed. Cultru, P. (Paris, 1913).Google Scholar

²⁷ I have chosen not to deal here with these ideological bases. They have not been studied for Senegambia, though two ideas recur in the correspondence of reformist leaders: the obligations of Muslims to convert pagans, if necessary by force, and the wrongs done to Muslims by traditional élites. For a good general discussion, see John, Ralph Willis, ‘Jihad Fi Sabil Allah—its doctrinal basis in Islam and some aspects of its evolution in nineteenth century West Africa’, J. Afr. Hist., VIII (1967), 395–416.Google Scholar

²⁸ Many of the earlier marabout families have Sarakollé names, but both groups seem to have integrated themselves effectively in the areas where they settled. The two groups seem to have co-operated effectively. Ma Ba taught the Koran to the sons of a number of the older families.

²⁹ Brigaud, 113−14.

³⁰ Gaspard, Mollien, Travels in the Interior of Africa to the Sources of the Senegal and the Gambia, ed. Bowditch, T.E. (London, 1825), 83.Google Scholar

³¹ Boubacar, Barry, ‘Le Royaume du Walo du traité de Ngio en 1819 à la conquěte en 1855’, Bulletin de l'I.F.A.N., XXXI (1969), 339–444.Google Scholar

³² Park, 25. See also Gray, J. M., A History of the Gambia (Cambridge, 1940), 373, 388–96. The fullest treatment, however, is in Quinn, ‘Traditonalism’, Chapter iv.Google Scholar

³³ On 'Umar, see Yves, Saint-Martin, L'Empire Toucouleur et la France (Dakar, 1967)Google Scholar and L'Empire Toucouleur (Paris, 1970);Google ScholarMohammadou, Aliou Tyam, La Vie d'El Hadj Omar. Tr. from the Poular by Henri Gaden (Paris, 1935);Google ScholarJamil, Abun-Nasr, The Tjaniyya (London, 1965); and the forthcoming work of John Ralph Willis.Google Scholar

³⁴ For a discussion of 'Umar's influence in Senegambia, see Sy, , 43–57.Google Scholar

³⁵ Klein, Chapter iv; Charlotte, Quinn, ‘Maba Diakhou Ba: Scholar-Warrior of the Senegambia’, Tarikh, ii (1968), 1–12;Google ScholarTamsir, Ousman Ba, ‘Essai historique sur le Rip’, Bulletin de 1'I.F.A.N. XIX (1957), 564–91.Google Scholar

³⁶ Monteil, V., ‘Lat-Dior, damel du Cayor et l'islamisation des Wolofs au XIXe siècle’, Archives de Sociologie des Religions, No. 16 (1963), 77–101.Google Scholar Reprinted in Monteil, , Equisses Sénégalaises (Dakar, 1966), 71–113.Google Scholar Monteil's description of social conflict in Cayor and the way it shaped islamization influenced my analysis, but I agree with Cheikh Tidiane Sy that Monteil exaggerates Lat Dior's role when he describes this period as one of mass conversion. Lat Dior sought to use Islam because it was already strong, but it was not strong enough. When he fled to Keur Amadou Yela, tyeddo pressure forced him to return. With the French getting increasingly involved, Lat Dior could not afford a major showdown. In the end, Demba Warr Sail, the tyeddo leader, was France's key collaborator. Sy, , 72–103;Google ScholarGanier, G., ‘Lat Dyor et le chemrn defer de l'arachide (1876–1886)’, Bulletin de l'I.F.A.N., XXVII (1965), 223–81;Google ScholarJulian, Witherell, ‘The Response of the Peoples of Cayor to French Penetration’, unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1964.Google Scholar

³⁷ Monteil, V., ‘Le Dyolof etAl-Bouri Ndiaye’, Esquisses Sénégalaises, 115–58. In studying Al-Bouri, Monteil unfortunately does not ask some of the questions he asked of Cayor. Though once the centre of a Wolof empire, Djolof was out of the main stream of Wolof history during most of the nineteenth century. No published account gives us a picture of the Islamization of Djolof, its roots, or its chronology. The conquest by Ma Ba was followed by the emigration of some Muslim elements, including the Niasse family which has subsequently been important in Saloum. It is possible that Ahmadou Cheikhou played a key role in Islamization. Certainly, from 1875 to 1890, Al-Bouri was able to play an important role in other people's conflicts, because he led a Djoloff which seems not to have been troubled by internal conflict. Like Lat Dior, Al-Bouri was converted by Ma Ba in 1864, and remained a practising Muslim. After the French invaded Djoloff, he fled east, where he continued to resist colonial rule until his death in Niger in 1902.Google Scholar

³⁸ Captain Baurès to Governor, Senegal, 3 Aug. 1894, ARS, 13b 372. Charlotte Quinn places less emphasis on Islam than Captain, Baurès, ‘A Nineteenth Century Fulbe State’, J. Afr. Hist., XII (1971), 427–40.Google Scholar See also monographon Fouladou ANS, ib, 295, and Paul, Marty, Etudes sur l'Islam au Sénégal (Paris, 1917), 1, 372–6.Google Scholar

³⁹ Beresford Primet, C. to Governor, , Gambia, , 9 03. 1863, ANS, 1F6.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Governor D'Arcy to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 8 Aug. 1862, quoted in Gray, J.M., History of the Gambia (Cambridge, 1940), 419.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Archives Nationales, Section Outre-Mer, Sénégal, IV, 48a.

⁴² Administrator, Gambia, to Governor-in-Chief, 26 July 1869, Gambia Archives. The puritanism of the Muslims was a key factor in their success. While Ma Ba's forces accumulated guns, cattle and prisoners, and he regularly dispatched his brother, Mamour N'Dari, to Bathurst to buy more weapons, the tyeddo drank up much of their revenue. In 1862, the Bur's men were going to their own villages for food and for cattle to trade for guns.

⁴³ Martin, Klein, ‘Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Legitimate Commerce in Late Nineteenth Century Africa’, Etudes d'Histoire Africaine, II (1971), 5–28. See also Hopkins, ‘Economic Imperialism’.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Paul, Pelissier, Les Paysans du Sénégal (Saint Yrieix, 1966), 133.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Mahmadou, Ahmadou Ba, ‘Notice sur Maghana et le canton du Littama’, Bulletin de l'I.F.A.N., I (1939), 743–61. David Robinson tells me that the image of Tierno Ibrahim in the oral tradition is similar.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ ARS, 13 G 157, no. 12 (1864).

⁴⁷ Commandant, Podor, , to Governor, , 21 09 1869, ARS, 13 G 124.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Undated 1871, ARS, 13 G 253.

⁴⁹ 20 Dec. 1874, AES 2 B 73.

⁵⁰ ARS, 13 G 376.

⁵¹ Marty, , I, 377–79, Fay Leary's dissertation on the Casamance should make possible comparison between Muslim reformers to the south of the Gambia and those operating further north.Google Scholar

⁵² See Gray, J.M., A History of the Gambia (Cambridge, 1940).Google Scholar

⁵³ Quinn, , 259.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ See the introduction to the second edition of The Trumpet Shall Sound (New York, 1968).Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Mamadou Lamine operated east of the area I am concerned with, though he certainly belongs in any list of major Muslim reformers. His prestige was based on his learning and his pilgrimage to Mecca, but he operated in an area that had been hostile to 'Umar and exploited Sarakollé hostility to Tukolor domination. I am grateful to Professor Ivan Hrbek for sending me his thoughts about Mamadou Lamine. Hrbek will soon publish a book on Mamadou Lamine, and an article in John, Ralph Willis, Studies in the History of Islam in West Africa, vol. I.Google Scholar See also Humphrey, Fisher, ‘The early life and pilgrimage of al-Hajj Muhammed al-Amin the Soninke (d. 1887)’, J. Afr. Hist., xi (1970), 51–69.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Newbury and Kanya-Forstner, ‘French Policy and the Origins of the Scramble’.

⁵⁷ For a general discussion of West African trade in this period see Cohn, W. Newbury, ‘Trade and Authority in West Africa from 1850 to 1880’, in Gann, L.H and Peter, Duignan (eds.) The History and Politics of Colonialism 1870–1914, vol. I of Colonialism in Africa (Cambridge, 1969), 66–99. See also Hopkins, ‘Economic Imperialism’.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Sheldon, Gellar, ‘The Politics of Development in Senegal’, unpublished dissertation, Columbia University (1967), 17.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Many became Mourides. On the success of the Mourides in integrating the ‘losers’ into a Muslim community, see Donal, B. Cruise O'Brien, The Mourides of Senegal (Oxford, 1971).Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Pellissier, , III.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Many marabouts leaders did become chiefs. Though some, including several Bas, were effective because of their control over the Muslim communities, their authority was soon surpassed by those central figures who preserved a reputation for piety and remained free from responsibility for administration. The latter exercised authority only within the framework of the religious orders and in the local community, where they were less compromised and more able to dominate.