SENEGAL

Area: 75,749 square miles (196,190 sq. km.)

Population: 11,987,121 (2006 estimate)

Capital: Dakar, population 2,476,400 (2003 estimate)

Ethnic Groups: Wolof (43.3%), Fulani (23.8%), Serer (14.7%), Diola (3.7%), Mandingo (3%), Soninke (1.1%), European & Lebanese (l%), other (9.4%)

Languages: Wolof, Pulaar, Jola, Mandinka, other African languages; French (official)

Religions: Islam (94%), Christian, mostly Roman Catholic (5%), traditional (1%)

Literacy: 40 % (2003 estimate)

Life Expectancy: 56.6%

Industry: Agricultural and fish processing, phosphate mining,

petroleum refining, construction materials

Exports: Fish, peanuts, cotton, petroleum products, phosphates

Food Crops: Peanuts, rice, corn, millet, sorghum, vegetables

The area in West Africa comprising Senegal today has been inhabited by human beings since at least 13,000 B.C.E. Archeologists believe that the development of metalworking technology in the 4th century C.E. contributed to the rise of the Tekrur kingdom in the Senegal River valley, the region’s first centralized state. Present-day Senegal was also once part of the great West African Kingdom of Mali (1235-1468). Islam reached the area in the 11th century. Its spread was accelerated when Islamic invaders from Morocco defeated the Ghana Empire in 1076. At the same time, Wolof, Serer, Fulani, and Tukolor people migrated south into the area as a result of extended droughts in the Sahara. The Wolof kingdom of Jolof emerged at the beginning of the 15th century and was later divided into Jolof, Walo, Cayor, and Baol states.

In 1444 Portuguese traders landed at Cape Verde, near present-day Dakar. That date marked Europe's first contact with West Africa. For the next 150 years, the Portuguese traded in slaves and other goods such as gold and ivory. In 1658 the French settled on an island at the mouth of the Senegal River, which they named St-Louis, after Louis XIV. By the late 1600s the French displaced the Portuguese as well as the Dutch and the English and established their sphere of influence in the area. All along the West African coast, European nations (Sweden, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Italy, and Spain) traded in slaves. Between the 16th and the 19th centuries, 12 to 20 million West Africans were shipped to the Americas as slaves. Gorée Island, two and a half miles off the coast of Senegal, became one of the principal slave ports of the Atlantic slave trade through the 1700s, and millions of Africans were shipped from there to the New World.

In 1815 the Council of Vienna banned the slave trade. The French were forced to look for new sources of wealth. Louis Faidherbe, who was appointed governor of St-Louis in 1845, forced the local people to grow groundnuts (peanuts) as a cash crop with the proceeds going into the coffers of the colonial administration. In this way, Faidherbe also paid for the French military campaigns into the West African interior. He founded the Tirailleurs sénégalais (West African Infantry), whom the French then used to conquer kingdoms and states throughout West Africa.

During the European "Scramble for Africa," the European nations involved in Africa met at the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 to divide up the continent among them. Ignorant of complex ancient cultures, diverse ethnic and language groups, and different religious belief systems, they drew borders creating countries where none had existed before. In this process Great Britain - with Germany and Portugal - acquired most of East and Southern Africa, while France received the greater part of West Africa. Resistance to European colonialism developed from the early days of French penetration into the interior of Senegal. Lat Dior, the ruler of Cayor, and Samory Touré (c. 1830-1900) led extensive campaigns against the French in the 19th century, and mass resistance movements like those of the Mourids and the Hamalists extended into the 20th century.

Three centuries of French administration ended on April 4, 1960, with the independence of Senegal as part of the Mali Federation. After rivalry between Senegal and Mali broke up the federation in August 1960, Senegal became an independent state with Léopold Sédar Senghor as the country's first president. Senghor kept the French closely involved in Senegal's affairs and replaced multiparty democracy with an authoritarian regime. He served as president until 1980 when he retired at the age of 74, becoming the first African president to give up power voluntarily. Besides his long career as a politician, Senghor had an even longer career as one of Africa's most important poets. Along with Aimé Césaire of Martinique and Léon Damas of French Guyana, he founded the Négritude movement in the late 1920s. They were inspired in large part by their reading of African American writers, W. E. B. DuBois, Alain Locke and Langston Hughes, and the Harlem Renaissance. According to Senghor, Négritude is "the awareness, defense and development of African cultural values." In poetry and prose, the Négritude writers celebrated the rediscovery of Africa and reaffirmed their solidarity with the black race. In 1984 Senghor was elected to the Académie Française, France's highest literary honor.

In 1980 Senghor's protégé and successor, Prime Minister Abdou Diouf, became Senegal’s second president. He was reelected in 1988, 1993, and 1998. Many Senegalese charged that the ruling party’s hold on power was the result of rigged elections and manipulated votes. In March 2000, opposition party leader Abdoulaye Wade won 60% of the vote in multiparty elections. After 39 years in power, Mr. Diouf stepped down and turned over the presidency to Mr. Wade in what was hailed as a rare smooth transition of power in Africa. In January 2001, the Senegalese voted in a new constitution that legalized opposition parties and granted women equal property rights with men.

A long-running, low-level separatist war in the southern Casamance region continues to claim hundreds of lives. The conflict originated over claims by the region’s people of being marginalized by the Wolof, Senegal’s main ethnic group. The government and rebels signed a peace pact at the end of 2004, raising hopes for peace and reconciliation. On the world stage, Senegal has sent peacekeeping troops to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, and Kosovo.

Senegal is a country of arid desert in the north and moist tropics in the south. Forests occupy about 30 percent of the land, 27 percent is under some form of cultivation, and about 30 percent is pasture or rangeland. The country has a developing market economy based largely on agriculture. Economic stagnation and large income disparities are among the problems facing the country. Nevertheless, many people hope that Senegal’s continued role as the intellectual and cultural center of French-speaking Africa and its relative stability might serve as a beacon of hope and an example to other countries.

Last but not least, Senegal has produced some of Africa’s, if not the world’s, outstanding filmmakers. Ousmane Sembène, acknowledged as the “father of African cinema,” is the best known and most influential of sub-Saharan African filmmakers. He is also a great novelist and short story writer. Among the younger generation of Senegalese filmmakers who have followed in Sembène’s footsteps are Djibril Diop Mambety, Safi Faye, Moussa Sene Absa, Mansour Sora Wade, Moussa Touré, and Joseph Gaï Ramaka.

SOURCES:

French, Howard W. “Once Seen as a Political Beacon, Senegal Backslides,” The New York Times, March 31, 1998.

Newton, Alex, & David Else. West Africa. Oakland, California: Lonely Planet Publications, 1995.

“Senegal,” BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/Africa/country_profiles/1064496.stm, 2007

“Senegal,” Microsoft Encarta Africana: Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Black History and Culture, edited by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Microsoft Corporation, 1999.

“Senegal,” Lycos Network: www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107951.html, 2007.

Zell, Hans. A New Reader's Guide to African Literature. New York: Africana Publishing Company, 1983.

Compiled by Linda Elegant and Mary Holmström and updated in January 2007.

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