The history of Senegal is commonly divided into a number of periods, encompassing the prehistoric era, the precolonial period, colonialism, and the contemporary era.
Waalo was a kingdom on the lower Senegal River in West Africa, in what is now Senegal and Mauritania. It included parts of the valley proper and areas north and south, extending to the Atlantic Ocean. To the north were Moorish emirates; to the south was the kingdom of Cayor; to the east was Jolof.
Gum arabic is a natural gum originally consisting of the hardened sap of two species of the Acacia tree, Senegalia senegal and Vachellia seyal. However, the term "gum arabic" does not actually indicate a particular botanical source. The gum is harvested commercially from wild trees, mostly in Sudan and throughout the Sahel, from Senegal to Somalia. The name "gum Arabic" was used in the Middle East at least as early as the 9th century. Gum arabic first found its way to Europe via Arabic ports, and so retained its proper name.
Saint Louis or Saint-Louis, is the capital of Senegal's Saint-Louis Region. Located in the northwest of Senegal, near the mouth of the Senegal River, and 320 kilometres (200 mi) north of Senegal's capital city Dakar. It had a population of 254,171 in 2023. Saint-Louis was the capital of the French colony of Senegal from 1673 until 1902 and French West Africa from 1895 until 1902, when the capital was moved to Dakar. From 1920 to 1957, it also served as the capital of the neighboring colony of Mauritania.
Beni Ḥassan is a Bedouin Arab tribe which inhabits Western Sahara, Mauritania, Morocco and Algeria. It is one of the four sub-tribes of the Beni Maqil who emigrated in the 11th century from South Arabia to the Maghreb with the Bani Hilal and Banu Sulaym Arab tribes. In the 13th century, they took the Sanhaja territories in the southwest of the Sahara. In Morocco, they first settled, alongside their Maqil relatives, in the area between Tadla and the Moulouya River. The Sous Almohad governor called upon them for help against a rebellion in the Sous, and they resettled in and around that region. They later moved to Mauritania, and from the 16th century onwards, they managed to push back all black Mauritanians southwards to the Senegal Valley river. The Beni Hassan and other warrior Arab tribes dominated the Sanhaja Berber tribes of the area after the Char Bouba war of the 17th century. As a result, Arabs became the dominant ethnic group in Western Sahara and Mauretania. The Bani Hassan dialect of Arabic became used in the region and is still spoken, in the form of Hassaniya Arabic. The hierarchy established by the Beni Hassan tribe gave Mauritania much of its sociological character. That ideology has led to oppression, discrimination and even enslavement of other groups in Mauritania.
Louis Léon César Faidherbe was a French general and colonial administrator. He created the Senegalese Tirailleurs when he was governor of Senegal.
Île de Gorée is one of the 19 communes d'arrondissement of the city of Dakar, Senegal. It is an 18.2-hectare (45-acre) island located 2 kilometres at sea from the main harbour of Dakar, famous as a destination for people interested in the Atlantic slave trade.
Trans-Saharan trade is trade between sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa that requires travel across the Sahara. Though this trade began in prehistoric times, the peak of trade extended from the 8th century until the early 17th century CE. The Sahara once had a different climate and environment. In Libya and Algeria, from at least 7000 BCE, pastoralism, large settlements and pottery were present. Cattle were introduced to the Central Sahara (Ahaggar) between 4000 to 3500 BCE. Remarkable rock paintings in arid regions portray flora and fauna that are not present in the modern desert.
Rosso is the major city of south-western Mauritania and capital of Trarza region. It is situated on the Senegal River at the head of the river zone allowing year-round navigation.
The Franco-Trarzan War of 1825 was a conflict between the forces of the new emir of Trarza, Muhammad al Habib, and France, ruled at the time by Charles X and the ultra comte de Villèle. In 1825, Muhammad attempted to establish control over the French-protected Waalo Kingdom, then located south of the Senegal River, by marrying the heiress to the kingdom. The French responded by sending a large expeditionary force that crushed Muhammad's army. The war incited the French to expand to the north of the Senegal River.
The Empire of Great Fulo, also known as the Denanke Kingdom or Denianke Kingdom, was a Pulaar kingdom of Senegal, which dominated the Futa Toro region from the early 16th century to 1776.
The Char Bouba war, also known as the Mauritanian Thirty Years' War or the Marabout War, took place between 1644 and 1677 in the tribal areas of what is today Mauritania and Western Sahara as well as in the Senegal river valley. It was fought between the Sanhadja Berber tribes and Muslim populations in the river valley, led by Lamtuna Imam Nasr ad-Din, on one hand; and the Maqil Arab immigrant tribes, foremost of which was the Beni Hassan, as well as the traditional aristocracies of the Wolof states on the other, supported by the French.
The Imamate of Futa Toro was a West African theocratic monarchy of the Fula-speaking people in the middle valley of the Senegal River, in the region known as Futa Toro. Following the trend of jihads in the late 17th century and early 18th century, the religious leader Sulayman Bal led a jihad in 1776. His successor, the expansionist Abdul Kader defeated the emirates of Trarza and Brakna and by his death in 1806, power became decentralized between a few elite families of Torodbes. Threatened by both the expansion of the Toucouleur Empire and the French in the mid-19th century, Futa Toro was eventually annexed in 1859. By the 1860s, the power of the Almamy became nominal and the state was further weakened when a cholera epidemic killed a quarter of its population in 1868.
The Emirate of Trarza was a precolonial state in what is today southwest Mauritania. It has survived as a traditional confederation of semi-nomadic people to the present day. Its name is shared with the modern Region of Trarza. The population, a mixture of Berber tribes, had been there for a long time before being conquered in the 11th century by Hassaniya Arabic speakers from the north. Europeans later called these people Moors/Maures, and thus have titled this group "the Trarza Moors".
Precolonial Mauritania, lying next to the Atlantic coast at the western edge of the Sahara Desert, received and assimilated into its complex society many waves of Saharan migrants and conquerors.
The period from the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries is the colonial period in Mauritania.
The French conquest of Senegal started in 1659 with the establishment of Saint-Louis, Senegal, followed by the French capture of the island of Gorée from the Dutch in 1677, but would only become a full-scale campaign in the 19th century.
The British capture of Senegal took place in 1758 during the Seven Years' War with France, as part of a concerted British strategy to weaken the French economy by damaging her international trade. To this end, a succession of small British military expeditions landed in Senegal and captured Gorée and Fort Saint Louis, the French slave fort located at Saint-Louis, seizing French vessels and supplies. By late 1758 the whole of the French colony on the Senegalese coast had been captured by the British, with administrative matters being handled by the first British Governor of Senegal, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Worge.
The Battle of Dioubouldou was fought on 25 February 1855 between French forces of Colonel Louis Faidherbe and the combined Waalo and Trarza forces under Queen Ndaté Yalla Mbodj.
Gajaaga, also known as Galam, was a Soninke kingdom in on the upper Senegal river that existed from before 1000CE to 1858. The kingdom was mainly located in present day Senegal and some parts of Mali. It was sometimes referred to as the Land of Gold, which it exported in large quantities, and 'Galam' in fact means 'gold' in Wolof. In the middle of the 17th century, Gajaaga was perhaps the most powerful state in the upper Senegal river region. It controlled both banks of the river from the area of Kayes downstream to Bakel.
Mauritania