The first French expedition into the heart of the Niger country was undertaken in 1863, when Faidherbe sent Lieut. E. Mage and Dr. Quintin to explore the country east of the Senegal. The two travellers pushed as far as Segu on the Niger, then the capital of the almany Ahmadu, a son of Omar al-Haji. At Segu they were forcibly detained from Feb. 1864 to March 1866. After a pause of some years, chiefly the re sult of the Franco-Prussian war of 187o-71, Colonel Briere de l'Isle (governor of Senegal, 1876-1881) appointed Captain Joseph S. Gallieni in 1879 to investigate the route for a railway and to reopen communications with the almany Ahmadu. The armed conquest began in 188o, and for more than 15 years was carried on by Borgnis-Desbordes, J. S. Gallieni, H. N. Frey, Louis Arch inard, Col. Combes, Tite Pierre Eugene Bonnier and other officers. Their forces consisted almost entirely of Senegalese troops. In 1881 the Niger was reached ; the fort of Bamako on the Niger was built in 1883 ; a road was made and the building of a railway from the Senegal to the Niger was begun. In 1887 the governor of Sen egal took possession of a small uninhabited group of islands, named the Alcatras, lying off the coast of French Guinea. This act had a tragic sequel. By agreement with the governor, a chief tain of the neighbouring mainland sent four of his warriors to the islands to guard the tricolor. These soldiers were, however, like the islands themselves, completely forgotten by the authorities, and, the Alcatras producing nothing but sand, the four men starved to death. In the same year (1887) Ahmadu, who had formerly been anxious to obtain British protection, signed a treaty placing the whole of his country under French protection. Besides Ahmadu the principal opponent of the French was a Malinke (Mandingo) chieftain named Samory, a man of humble origin, born about 1846, who first became prominent as a reformer of Islam, and had by 1880 made himself master of a large area in the upper Niger basin. In 1887, and again in 5889, he was induced to recognize a French protectorate, but peace did not long prevail either with him or with Ahmadu. The struggle was resumed in 1890; Ahmadu lost Segu ; Nioro the capital of Kaarta was occu pied (1891) ; Jenne was taken in 1893. Samory proved a veritable thorn in the flesh to his opponents. Wily and elusive, he made and broke promises, tried negotiation, shifted his "empire" to the states of Kong, and after numberless encounters was finally de feated on the Cavalla to the north of Liberia, and taken prisoner in Sept. 1898. He was deported to the Gabun, where he died in 1900. Timbuktu (q.v.) was occupied in Dec. 1893, in defiance of orders from the civil authorities. In the meantime France had signed with Great Britain the convention of Aug. 5, 1890, which reserved the country now known as Nigeria to Great Britain.
In the following years French expeditions from Senegal penetrated south-east into the hinterland of the British colonies and protectorates on the Guinea coast and descended the Niger (Feb. 1897) as far as Bussa, the limit of navi gation from the ocean. These actions brought them into contact with the British outposts in the Gold Coast and Nigeria. A period of tension between the two countries was put an end to by a con vention signed on June 14, 1898, whereby the territories in dispute were divided, Great Britain retaining Bussa, while France obtained Mossi and other territories in the Niger bend to which Great Britain had laid claim. This convention removed the last barrier to the linking up of the French colonies on the gulf of Guinea with the hinterland of Senegal, so that henceforth the countries of the middle Niger were free to seek, through French territory, direct access to the sea. In the same year as this convention was signed it was determined to send an expedition to Lake Chad, which should co-operate with other expeditions from Algeria and the Congo. The Senegal expedition was entrusted to Captains Voulet and Chanoine, officers who had served many years in West Africa. They were obviously affected by the climate and were victims of the moral degeneration to which all Europeans, espe cially those entrusted with great powers, are subject, when long in contact with races of lower standards than their own. Reports of their misconduct and cruelty reaching St. Louis, Lieut.-Colonel Klobb, of the Marines, was sent to supersede them. Colonel Klobb overtook the expedition at a spot east of the Niger on July 14, 1899. Voulet, fearing arrest and punishment, ordered his men to fire on Klobb and his escort, and the colonel was killed.
Thereupon Voulet, joined by Chanoine, declared his intention to set up an independent state, and with the majority of his troops marched away, leaving the junior officers with a small remnant.
Within a fortnight both Voulet and Chanoine had been killed by their own men, who returned to the French camp. Lieut. Pallier assumed command and led the force to Zinder, reached on July 29. Here, in the November following, they were joined by F. Foureau and Commandant Lamy, who had crossed the Sahara from Algeria. The combined force marched to Lake Chad, and, having been joined by the Congo expedition, met and defeated the forces of Rabah (q.v.).
In 1904, in virtue of another convention between Great Britain and France, the Senegal colony obtained a port (Yarbatenda) on the Gambia accessible to sea-going vessels, while the trans Niger frontier was again modified in favour of France, that country thereby obtaining a fertile tract the whole way from the Niger to Lake Chad. During 1905-1906 the oases of Air and Bilma were brought under French control, notwithstanding a claim by Turkey to Bilma as forming part of the Tripolitan hinterland.
In 1916 the Tibesti highlands, in the central Sahara, were attached politically to French West Africa ; they mark its eastern limit.
In the extreme west, in the region which merges into the Sahara the effective area of French control was increased in 1903 when Coppolani, secretary-general of French West Africa, induced the emirs of certain Trarza and Brakna Moors inhabiting a fertile region on the northern bank of the lower Senegal to place their country under the direct supervision of French officials. In the following year these regions were constituted the Territory of Mauretania. In 1905 Coppolani, who was administering this new territory, was murdered by a band of fanatics at an oasis in the Tagant plateau. During 1908-09 a force under Colonel Gouraud, after considerable fighting—the natives receiving help from Morocco—made effective French influence in Adrar Temur. An agreement with Spain concerning Rio de Oro had previously, in 1900, fixed the frontier in this direction, on paper.
At first the conquered territories were administered either from Senegal or placed under military rule. The ancient kingdoms were no longer recognized; the de scendants of former rulers were deprived of all titles indicating sovereignty and ranked as ordinary chiefs. Native customs were respected as far as possible and the chiefs became in effect gov ernment agents. The legal status of slavery was abolished in 1901 but no attempt was made to break up violently the system of domestic slavery, which lingered for a good many years. As the various regions occupied developed they were given separate civil establishments; by 1922 the whole of French West Africa had been divided into eight colonies with local autonomy while matters affecting them all were entrusted to a governorship-gen eral (see FRENCH WEST AFRICA). Since 1823 natives had been trained as soldiers and the Senegalese furnished France with many thousands of soldiers during the World War. In Dakar Senegal possesses the only first class port in French West-Africa.
Senegal proper, in accordance with the assimilation idea, was the subject of special legislation, its government being modelled on that of a department in France. The inhabitants of municipal "communes with full powers" (i.e., St. Louis, Dakar and Rufisque) are, without distinction of race or colour, French citizens, and by the law of April 1879 they elect to the French chambers one deputy. The former commune of Goree was amalgamated with Dakar in April 1929. The circonscription of Dakar (i.e., Dakar outside the commune) and dependencies form a unit administered by an officer responsible to the governor-general.
BiBuoGRAPHY.-Senegal, a British Foreign office handbook (192o) ; E. Joucla, Bibliographie de l'Afrique occidentale Francaise (Paris 1912) ; J. Ancelle, Les Explorations au Senegal et dans les contrees voisines depuis l'antiquite jusqu'd nos jours (1906). For current affairs see l'Afrique Francaise (monthly).
Upper Senegal and Niger (192o), a British Foreign Office handbook; Le Haut Senegal et Niger (1908), an official compilation; L. Desplagnes, Le Plateau central-nigerien: une mission archeologique et ethnographique au Soudan franiais (1907), La Mauritanie (an official record) (1908) ; P. J. Andre, L'Islam Noir (1924) ; M. Abadie, La Colonie du Niger (1927). (F. R. C.)