Difference in the city -- Maps and 19th century Newspaper Accounts

View of the Fisherman's quarter on Guet N'Dar (part of St. Louis du Senegal) Source: Saint-Louis du Senegal d'hier a aujourd'hui by Abdoul Hadir Aidara

       In March 1855, a short item published in the Detroit Daily Free Press quoted a description of Saint-Louis du Senegal from an American sea captain who visited the island settlement more than four decades earlier in 1810. “On approaching the place all appears enchantment, to behold such monuments of human industry rising amid a barren waste of sands,’’ the captain, unfortunately unidentified, is reported to have said. 

       He continued: “Vessels anchor abreast of the fort, half a league off shore, and the only way to pass through the tremendous surf is by native boats. The town is on a small island of sand, scarcely above the level of the tide and in heavy freshets is often inundated….The town of Senegal is about a mile long and a half a mile wide—houses large and convenient, mostly of stone and brick. At present (1810) the richest inhabitants are blacks, two of whom are worth over $100,000 each. The fort is large, and of sufficient extent to contain all the inhabitants in case of invasion by the natives.”

       This description is interesting from a number of perspectives. It reminds us, first of all, that the original French settlement of St. Louis was limited to the narrow island that lay in the midst of the Senegal river, itself bounded to the west by a sandy peninsula extending south from Mauritania and on the east by the African mainland. The relative isolation of this unoccupied island and the difficulty of access to it were initially selling points for the French settlers because these geographic features made the space easier to protect from European and African competitors. But as the passage indicates the town was always vulnerable to flooding. Throughout the 19^th century, as ships became larger and economic contexts changed, the rough surf and sandbars around St. Louis slowed down commerce, prompting the emergence of Dakar, which had better harbors. 

       The description also mentions housing. Probably, the speaker is referring only to the French-built houses on the island, although sketches of the town indicate that African thatched structures were integrated into the town as well. 

        Finally, the speaker describes what might be called the “social geography” of St. Louis du Senegal at the time. First, he refers to the relative wealth of the town in the 19^th century, asserting that African wealth was more important than that of the French. This statement about Senegal by an American observer and published in an American newspaper must have lent the story an “exotic”-man-bites-dog feeling in that it inverted conventional racial hierarchy. All the more so, because of the lack of specifics…Also, his comments create a binary distinction between “inhabitants” and “natives”, suggesting that one needed to be protected from the other… 

1847 map of Saint Louis du Senegal. Source: Saint Louis du Senegal d'hier a aujourd'hui by Abdoul Hadir Aidara

This map presents an image of the layout of the town around the time that the newspaper article appeared. Stay tuned for a comparison between this image and a contemporary map of the city. For now, though, it is noteworthy that the island is depicted with grid-like streets on either side of the central fort (and Catholic church). Across the river to the west, the peninsula is shown as uninhabited except for a "village of Negros" according to the map maker, called Guet N'Dar. This is roughly the location of the neighborhood of that name on the peninsula today.

1868 map of Segou-Sikoro on the Niger river

         Newspaper accounts in English of Segu are a bit more scattered, but in a quick scan I noticed that Segu is referred to as a “sacred city” and a “religious centre.” In April 1890, the New York Tribune ran a story describing the French conquest of Segou with the following headline: “Capture of Segou Town—King Ahmadou’s Country Raided—Halfway Station to Timbuctoo”. The headline states rather clearly where Segu lay in the French geographical imagination of the region, with the desert-side trading and scholarly town of Timbuktu retaining its centuries old allure. At the time, the French sought to control commercial connections between the Upper Senegal river valley and the Upper Niger river valley (and ultimately to Algeria on the North African coast). Segu is described as “a strongly fortified town situated on the left bank of the Niger.”

        The 1890 French conquest of Segu was actually the second time in 30 years that the settlement on the banks of the Niger river that was the center of an expansive polity, had been conquered. In the 1860s, the non-Muslim Bamana rulers fell to the forces of the Fulani Muslim cleric Umar Tall, an event that was reportedly celebrated as far away as Fez and Cairo as it signalled the defeat of a major “pagan” power. It was the son of Umar Tall, Ahmadou, who the French in turn defeated, carrying away “the royal treasure” and members of his family.

         In an indication of the times, the article is full of ethnocentric rhetoric that belittles the Umarian polity designed to build public support for imperial intervention in Africa. It describes Umar Tall’s supporters as having “no other occupation but that of waylaying and murdering travellers, as they did lately with the Flathers expedition.” It concludes, “The fact is that the capture of Segou deals a terrible blow to the predominance of the murderous Toucouleurs, whose warlike fanaticism offered the greatest obstacle to the extension of the civilizing influence of Europe in the Soudan.”