"EVERYWHERE THE HUMBLE SHOW THE MASTERS THEIR TEETH"

-- Citation: Dakar archives, 1857

This page and the next summarize Aubin, pp. 457-94

UPHEAVALS SWEEP THE SAVANNAH

A precocious movement begins in the mid-1850's on the alluvial plain of the Senegal River and establishes a theocracy on the Middle Niger. 

(In 1854)

Factors that made the Futa Toro region distinct:  

• Cattle-raising gave its Toucouleur population a sense of private property that was unusual for the time. Many became traders.

Adapted from a Google map

• The French outpost of Saint-Louis stimulated production, especially after 1830 when the Industrial Revolution led to demanding more hides and peanuts. As well, a greater need for provisions, for the growing population* and for slaves and slave-ship crews with the slave trade at its height.

* In the 1780's 6,000 people, in the 1850's 15,000.

-- Aubin, note p. 454.

 Zoom (among other pictures)

Inauguration of the bridge on the right; costumes suggest the 1850's

 

# # #

Growth enriches some, but many lose their lands and points of reference.

• An early millennial movement deepens social cleavages by letting almamies (Muslim leaders), who are deeply involved in commercial production and long-distance trade, control communal landholdings and impose tithes, which they often keep.

 -- Aubin pp. 465-6, n. 109-116.

   

• Toucouleur prophets appear from the 1770's. In 1830, one of them preaches "the spirit of pillage and devastation" against infidels and "an army of saints [...] ready for martydom [...] grows from village to village [...] with prayer-beads in hand, heads shaved, marches before him [...]". 

-- Abbott P.D. Boilat, 
Esquisses sénégalaises,1853, p. 411.

• In the 1840's, bands of ragged marauders threaten a traveller's boat.

-- Anne Raffenel, 

Voyage en Sénégambie occidentale, 1846, I, pp. 38-9, 47, 177-8, 267-8.

In the early 1850's al-hajj Umar Tall, a Toucouleur merchant, scholar and rare West African to have been to Mecca, calls for a society based on divine law.

Zoom

His followers include one fourth of the Toucouleur population

and subordinates from other ethnic groups: peasants who have lost their lands, slaves and lineage minors.

 -- Dakar archives, 1880.

• They hope for lands and booty, and the collapse of their former communities predisposes them to accept a new one.

• Those armies contrast with royal ones: Pursued, surrounded, they did not change their regular pace and let themselves be killed rather than flee." 

-- Dakar archives, 1880.

The Futa Toro Army on the Match, 1820 / zoom

But the authorities resist. 

Sign of their strength — there are no markets.

-- Raffenel I, 233.

Umar leads his following to the Niger.

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 Next,

A theocracy amps up growth...