Senegal and France: A History Although Belleville


structure, bureaucracy takes place in Paris, two of the


characters, Amina and Alioune, are from the country of Senegal.


Senegal is located in the northwest part of the continent of Africa. A little smaller than the state of South Dakota, it is bordered on two sides by Mauritania and Guinea- Bissau and on a third side by the Atlantic Ocean. Te capital of Senegal is Dakar, the city that the character Alioune is from.


Te country’s coastal location made it an attractive destination for European countries looking to acquire new territory and increase trade. Te Portuguese were the first to arrive and settle at the mouth of the Senegal River in the 15th century. Tey maintained control of the region until the beginning of the 17th century and were followed by the Dutch and the English.


and political practices. Tis


process also involved the conversion of the Senegalese people, a majority of whom were Muslim, to Catholicism.


Te Door of No Return, Goree Island


Millions of men, women and children passed through this door and boarded slave ships bound for the Americas.


“As was the case in many of the other French West African countries, the French colonial mission was to assimilate mostly urban Senegalese because they were more accessible to French influence than the rural population and the French had no desire to live in difficult areas such as the countryside. In their minds and policies,


the Senegalese could Map of Senegal


Te French first arrived in Senegal at the end of the 18th century and established slave holding forts in St. Louis and Goree Island. Tis slave trade would continue intermittently until the 1840s when France ended slavery in all of its colonies.


From the 1800s to the mid 1900s, the French government attempted to increase its control of the Senegalese people by forcing them to adopt the French language, educational


14


become ‘French’ if they learned the language and adopted French characteristics, thus acting more like European civilized peoples. Tis assimilation project aimed to civilize Africans, but in the end, even those who did abide by the new French imposed rules of behavior were never accepted by the colonialists as truly being French.” Exploring Africa, msu.edu


By the beginning of the 20th century, there were two different political systems coexisting in Senegal, one


http://www.flickr.com/photos/kate-mckenna/5272955193/


Central Intelligence Agency (www.cia.gov)


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