The Establishment of Elective Institutions in Senegal, 1869–1880

Abstract

As the oldest and, for a long time, the most important French possession in West Africa, Senegal occupied a privileged position among the French West African colonies. This exceptional status was boosted by the elective institutions conceded to the colony between 1870 and 1880, namely, municipal organization, a conseil général, and deputy representation. In 1870, ‘Senegal’ was no more than a congeries of scattered military posts and trading stations. By far the most important of these establishments were the quatre communes, famous for their special legal status and their privileged inhabitants, made up of the French and the mulattoes, who controlled the political situation, and the Senegalese. By 1870 the colony had acquired some of the important ingredients which could accelerate the growth of political consciousness: a relatively good communications network; growing urban centres; a developing élite, made up largely of traders and agents of the Bordeaux commercial firms who controlled the economic situation; and an administrative regime which had little or no place for unofficial representation. The élite demanded a conseil général which alone, they felt, could protect their interests effectively. The outcome of their agitation was determined by three main factors: their influence; the attitude of the local administration, notorious for its hostility to elective institutions; and political vicissitudes in France. The institutions were conceded in the 1870s; that is, during the first years of the Third Republic, when the policy of assimilation began to be consciously applied in French colonies. The establishment of these institutions widened the gap between the quatre communes, to which the reform was limited, and the rest of Senegal, where the system of indirect rule held sway, and marked the beginning of mutual jealousy and conflict between the two sections. It put Senegal ahead of the rest of French West Africa, which continued until after World War II to be governed in a less liberal fashion. It marked France's first major effort at political assimilation in West Africa, and witnessed the determination of the Bordeaux firms, who had spearheaded the movement for the conseil général, to control not only the economic but also the political life of the colony. And lastly, it helped to create the situation whereby the Senegalese, who had until then been no more than mere pawns on the political chessboard of the French and the mulattoes, emerged, with the advent of Blaise Diagne in 1914, as the politically dominant group in Senegal.

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