FAIDHERBE, LOUIS

Louis Faidherbe (b.1818) was the son of a Lille (France) merchant.  He attended the Polytechnic School and later the Metz Military School from which he passed out a Lieutenant and on being appointed to the engineer corps, was posted to Algeria in 1842. The Franco-German war necessitated his return to France in 1870, and ended his stay in Algeria and his colonial career.  Back in France, he led the northern Army into two victories over the Germans at Bapaume and Pont-Noyelles.

PHOTO CAPTION: Louis Faidherbe. SOURCE: EA Library.

At the end of the conflict, Faidherbe, who had become a Senator, member of the Institute and Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honour remained in France.  It was for his accomplishments in France in this latter part of his life that his countrymen put up a statue for him in his home town.  In Saint-Louis, Senegal, the colonial authorities put up another statue which honoured him for his colonial work, in particular for his career in that colony.

Faidherbe’s colonial career was in fact, a Senegalese one.  After a short stay in Algeria and the West Indies, (he was there when slavery was abolished in 1848) he landed in Africa at the Ivory Coast where he built the Dabou fortifications in 1850.  In 1852 he arrived in Senegal.  He stayed there for 13 years except for an interval of 18 months (from 4th December 1861 to 14th July 1863).  Faidherbe was the founder of modern Senegal.

First as the deputy director of the engineer corps (1852-1854) under Governor Protet, he directed the fortification of several outposts in the valley of the Senegal river.  While he was carrying out these tasks, the Saint-Louis merchants (both Europeans and mulattoes) found him to be an energetic man capable of protecting their trade (the gum trade) which was then considerably hampered by insecurity.

At the same time the Industrial Revolution, which was beginning in France at the same time that slavery was disappearing, called for a new form of colonial expansion.  In 1850 the French Parliament adopted a plan of action based on the autonomy of colonial trade and a policy of firmness towards the natives.  This plan fired the Saint-Louis merchants with enthusiasm and they called for its rapid implementation in two petitions in 1851 and 1852.  Napoleon III, therefore, gave strict instructions to Governor Protet to put the policy in operation. The governor, however, had to return to France in 1854 for health reasons.

The Saint-Louis merchants in a petition asked that Faidherbe be appointed to the head of the colony and expressed the wish that future governors remains in office for at least 7 years.  This was agreed to, and on the 16th of December 1854 Faidherbe was appointed Governor.

The conditions under which he was appointed and the fact that from 1854 to 1859 Goree and its dependencies (up to Sierra Leone) were not part of Senegal, explain the act that Faidherbe’s activity was essentially limited to the River Senegal.  He cut Saint-Louis from the grip of the Moors (1855-1858) defeated El Hadj Omar upstream (1857-1858) and imposed treaties on the Tucolors of the Middle Senegal Valley (1858).

After the return of Goree to Senegal in 1859, he undertook “pacification” of the outskirts of the Cape Verde peninsula (occupied in May 1857) through expeditions carried out right up to Sine Saloum where the Kaolack outpost was established (1859-1861).  But between 1859 and 1865 his main activity turned on the region between Cape Verde and River Senegal which was annexed.  Thus by July 1865, when Faidherbe was leaving Senegal, the colony, though not completely “pacified”, had taken on the essential features of its final boundaries.

Besides his military action, Faidherbe created the basis of territorial organisation and native policy which were later generally applied to the whole of Rench West Africa. This consists first of all of the division of the country into districts with administrators, and secondly the establishment of a bureau of political affairs with responsibility for directing action towards the African masses and for training African cadres, as auxiliaries to the colonial administration.

Among all the governors of Senegal, Faidherbe is perhaps the one who left the greatest mark on the country and its people.

ASSANE SECK