Names, norms and forms: French and indigenous toponyms in early colonial Dakar, Senegal

Abstract

Research on street naming systems in general and on colonial street names in particular is not abundant. This article examines the French colonial policy regarding street names in Dakar, as well as the accompanying colonial terminology that was applied in Dakar’s quarters. With occasional references to the pre‐colonial and the post‐colonial periods, the main focus of this article is on street names in early colonial Dakar, as they were designated by the preliminary master plan of Pinet‐Laprade in the 1860s. While residential segregation was never a stated policy on the part of the colonial authorities there, who formally fostered assimilation, it will be shown that toponyms had a key role in the alienation of the indigenous population in the city centre. As Dakar’s city centre was considered ‘European’ and a chief lieu de colonisation in West Africa, its colonial urban toponyms reflected an official memory that excluded African histories and identities. Using original historical evidence, alternative naming systems of reference to certain urban areas on the part of the Dakarois will be discussed – systems that sometimes challenged and sometimes supplemented their French counterparts.

Acknowledgement

The author would like to thank to Mrs Joyce Friedler for help with corrections to the English.

Notes

1. M. Gilsenan, Recognizing Islam: An Anthropologist’s Introduction. London: Helm, 1984, 187–8.

2. Engaging a multidisciplinary approach, a few of these studies, indeed too numerous to be mentioned here, are: J. Duncan and J. Agnew (eds), The Power of Place. Boston: Hyman, 1989; M. Featherstone and S. Lash (eds), Spaces of Culture: City, Nation, World. London: SAGE, 1999; W. J. T. Mitchell (ed), Landscape and Power. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994; E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983; P. Nora (ed), Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past. A. Goldhammer (trans), 3 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.

3. For recent literature on place names see, for instance: N. Kadmon, Toponymy: The Lore, Laws and Language of Geographical Names. New York: Vantage Press, 2000; E. C. Kirchnerr, Place Names of Africa, 1935–1986. Netuchen: Scarecrow, 1987; M. Monmonier, How to Lie with Maps. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996; A. Room, Place Names of the World, Origin and Meaning. London: Jefferson, 1997. For literature on street names see, for instance: J. Algeo, From classic to classy, changing fashions in street names. Names 26 (1978) 80–95; Y. Bar‐Gal, Naming city streets – a chapter in the history of Tel Aviv, 1909–1947. Contemporary Jewry 10 (1989) 40–9; A. Pinchevski and E. Togovnik, Signifying passages: the signs of change in Israeli street names. Media, Culture and Society 24 (2002) 365–88.

4. The AOF, the federation of French West Africa, was created in 1895, alongside the neighbouring federation of French Equatorial Africa (AEF), to facilitate the centralist decision‐making process in Paris. The AOF’s overall territory amounted to 4 633 985 km² and included eight colonies: Senegal, French Sudan (today’s Mali), French Guinea, Ivory Coast, Dahomey (today’s Benin), Upper Volta (today’s Burkina Faso), Niger and Mauritania. J. Suret‐Canale, French Colonialism in Tropical Africa, 1900–1945. London: Hurst & Co., 1971, 308.

5. For more about the assimilation and its critique, see: M. D. Lewis, One hundred million Frenchmen: the assimilation theory in French colonial policy, in R. O. Collins (ed) Problems in the History of Colonial Africa, 1860–1960. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1970, 165–78; R. F. Betts, Assimilation and Association in French Colonial Theory, 1890–1914. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961.

6. A. Sinou, Comptoirs et Villes Coloniales du Sénégal. Paris: Karthala, ORSTOM, 1993, 300; P. Rabinow, French Modern. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1989, 284.

7. R. Delavignette, Soudan–Paris–Bourgogne. Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1935, 253 (quoted in G. Wright, The Politics of Design in French Colonial Urbanism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991, 2).

8. See: Z. Çelik, Urban Forms and Colonial Confrontations: Algiers under French Rule. Berkeley, LA: University of California Press, 1997, 71; D. Prochaska, Making Algeria French: Colonialism in Bône, 1870–1920. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, 68; Rabinow, French Modern, 288–91; Wright, The Politics, 1–2.

9. About the métis and the Four Communes of Senegal see the next section.

10. The high rate of Yoruba place names in British Lagos, for example, was outstanding by comparison to the rate of Wolof names in contemporary Dakar. According to the Indirect Rule approach the British should exercise colonial control through the indigenous institutions wherever possible. It is not within the remit of this article to discuss the engendered problematique.

11. For these quotations see: Archives nationales du Sénégal (henceforth the Archives will be abbreviated as ‘ANS’) P190: Assainissement et urbanisme de Dakar, village de Médina, création de village, 1915–1919.

12. J. Gallais, Dans la Grande Banlieue de Dakar: Les Villages Lébous de la Presqu’île du Cap Vert. Dakar: Institut des Hautes Études, 1954, 5–6.

13. J. Charpy (ed), La Fondation de Dakar (1845, 1857, 1869). Paris: Larose, 1958, 542.

14. C. Faure, Histoire de la Presqu’île du Cap Vert et des Origins de Dakar. Paris: Larose, 1914, 148–54.

15. Ibid., 148.

16. For a short history of the National Archives of Senegal see S. Mbaye, Guide des Archives de l’Afrique Occidentale Française. Dakar: Imprimerie Saint‐Paul, 1990, 11–15.

17. Faure, Histoire, 150–2.

18. Ibid., 148.

19. Ibid., 149, 153.

20. For more, see W. Johnson, The Emergence of Black Politics in Senegal: The Struggle for Power in the Four Communes, 1900–1920. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1971, 38–62.

21. The monetary value of these was much below the Lebu evaluations, who felt cheated and politically embittered. The land question was, in fact, left unsolved until the independence era. About the Lebu interpretations and feelings in this early period, see Johnson, The Emergence, 30–7.

22. P. Loti, Le Roman d’un Spahi. Paris: Pierre Lafitte, 1923 [1881], 69. This fiction was written following the visit of Loti, a nineteenth‐century colonial novelist, in Senegal.

23. Daniel Milo traced the historical complexity and the tensions between the collective communal memory and popular initiative in the street naming of Paris versus the external symbols of publicity, state monopoly, and nationhood there. D. Milo, Street names, in P. Nora (ed), Realms of Memory. A. Goldhammer (trans). New York: Columbia University Press, 1997, 363–89.

24. ANS P167: Urbanisme de Dakar, rues et places; P173: Assainissement et urbanisme de Dakar, construction de l’Avenue Gambetta; K19: Assainissement de Dakar, l’ouverture de l’Avenue de la République, (1900s–1910s).

25. G. Ribot and R. Lafon, Dakar: ses origins, son avenir. Paris: Larose, 1908, 77–8.

26. As noticed by Paul Rabinow, particularly in relation to Morocco under Lyautey: Rabinow, French Modern, 278.

27. E. Gellner, Encounters with Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell, 1995, 42–3, 148.

28. A. L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize: The Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa, 1895–1930. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997, 248–9.

29. P. David, Paysages Dakarois de l’époque coloniale. Dakar: ENDA, 1978, 41.

30. For a comparison of the street names in several AOF capital cities in the 1950s, see H. d’Almeida‐Topor, Le modèle toponymique colonial dans les capitales de l’ouest africain francophone, in C. Coquery‐Vidrovitch and O. Goerg (eds) La ville européenne outre mers. Paris: l’Harmattan, 1996, 235–43.

31. Ibid., 239–41.

32. Prochaska, Making Algeria, 209–15. This is true in spite of the obvious differences between the character of the colonial (urban) situation in French north Africa and in French west Africa, as already mentioned above, in brief.

33. A Map of Dakar in 1895, Public Record Office (London), FO 925/320.

34. Map of Dakar in 1915, was published in Delcourt, Naissance et croissance de Dakar. Dakar: Clairafrique, the 1960s, n.p.

35. R. F. Betts, The establishment of the Medina in Dakar, Senegal, 1914. Africa 41 (1971) 143–52. For full details on the 1914 expropriations, see: CAOM, FM 1tp/95: Création d’un village de ségrégation, expropriation des terrains du village indigène de Médina près Dakar, 1915; ANS, P190: Village de Médina, création de village, 1915–1919.

36. Town Plan of Dakar, 1941, was prepared by the AOF’s Geographical Service. Cambridge University Library, Map Collection.

37. Map of Dakar in 1957, was published in G. Houlet, Dakar, Saint‐Louis et leurs environs. Paris: Hachette, 1957.

38. Plan of Dakar in 1958. Cambridge University Library, Map Collection.

39. For an analysis of the relations between the early French colonial regime in Senegal, Omar and Bamba, see: D. Robinson, Beyond resistance and collaboration: Amadu Bamba and the Murids of Senegal. Journal of Religion in Africa 21, 2 (1991) 149–71; D. Robinson, French “Islamic” policy and practice in late nineteenth‐century Senegal. Journal of African History 29 (1988) 415–35. For an illuminating and updated biography of Sy, see D. Robinson, Paths of Accommodation: Muslim Societies and French Colonial Authorities in Senegal and Mauritania, 1880–1920. Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2000, 194–207.

40. For more about Diagne, see Suret‐Canale, French Colonialism, 440–3.

41. For more about the ‘third‐culture’ and about its distinct architectural representations, such as the bungalow‐compound complex and the verandah, see A. D. King, Colonial Urban Development. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976, 58–66.

42. A. D. King, Spaces of Global Cultures: Architecture, Urbanism, Identity. London, Routledge, 2004, 141–60. In this chapter the author examines the architectural developments and cultural orientations in present‐day metropolitan Delhi through the spatial language of three of its main quarters/townships.

43. King, Colonial Urban Development, Ch. 7. This is true regarding Sierra Leone as well: O. Goerg, From Hill Station (Freetown) to Downtown Conakry (First Ward). Canadian Journal of African Studies, 32, 1 (1998) 1–31.

44. C. Winters, Urban morphogenesis in Francophone black Africa. The Geographical Review 72, 2 (1982) 141.

45. For more on these opposed imageries in the North African colonial context see: Gilsenan, Recognizing Islam, 195–201; S. Hamadeh, Creating the traditional city: a French project, in N. AlSayyad (ed), Forms of Dominance. Aldershot: Avebury, 1992, 241–60.

46. Winters, Urban morphogenesis, 141; Senegambie‐Niger reports: reports to the Governor General from local officials, vol. 4 (5 vols): Cercle de Kayes, CASE A59, Royal Commonwealth Society Collection, Cambridge.

47. J. L. Abu‐Lughod, Rabat: Urban Apartheid in Morocco. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980, 330.

48. ANS P190 and P191: Assainissement et urbanisme de Dakar, village de Médina, création de village, 1915–1919.

49. Abu‐Lughod, Rabat, 63–7.

50. This argument was inspired by Sinou, Comptoires et villes coloniales, 281.

51. A. Seck, Dakar: métropole ouest‐africaine. Dakar: IFAN, 1970, 136.

52. As noted (with no further reference) by J. Bugnicourt, Dakar Without Bounds, in the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, Reading the Contemporary African City. Singapore: Concept Media, 1982, 30.

53. Çelik, Urban Forms, 35, 37.

54. ANS 4P 133, Urbanisme à Dakar: aménagement de la Médina, plan d’extension, 1927.

55. For the spatial organization of these settlements, see: D. P. Gamble, The Wolof of Senegambia. London: International African Institute, 1957; E. Ross, Sufi City: Urban Design and Archetypes in Touba. Rochester: The University of Rochester Press, 2006. The latter updated source mainly refers to the topographic semiosis and configuration of Senegalese Mourid towns from a geographical viewpoint.

56. Flutre’s proficiency with local languages spoken in the AOF territory enabled him to carry out an extensive research (1957) on toponymy prior to the French effective colonization. See L. F. Flutre, Pour une étude de la toponymie de l’AOF. Dakar: Université de Dakar, Faculté des lettres, 1957. The next paragraph is based on this source.

57. According to A. Diouf and A. Fatim Diop, two old residents in Dakar who were interviewed by I. Mbaye Dieng in the 1970s, in P. David, Paysages dakarois de l’époque coloniale. Dakar: ENDA, 1978, 7, 25–8, 38.

58. Gamble, The Wolof, 93–5; For the importance of these trees, see Ross, Sufi City, Ch. 4.

59. For more about Fortier’s series, see D. Prochaska, Fantasia of the photothèque: French Postcard Views of Colonial Senegal. African Arts, 24 (1991) 40–7.

60. For detailed geographical descriptions of these displacements in Dakar during the colonial period, see Seck, Dakar, 122–30.

61. As was testified by A. Diouf in David, Paysages, 9.

62. Cited in ANS H22, l’Hygiène à Dakar, 1919–1920: Rapport sur l’hygiène à Dakar de 1899 à 1920, 384.

63. Ibid., 384.

64. About the reasons for the establishment of the Médina, the stimulating role of the 1914 plague in its creation, and the partial ‘failure’ of the project, see: Betts, The establishment; M. Echenberg, Black Death, White Medicine: Bubonic Plague and the Politics of Public Health in Colonial Senegal 1914–1945. Portsmouth, NH: Heinmann, 2002, part I; E. M’Bokolo, Peste et société urbaine à Dakar: l’épidémie de 1914. Cahiers d’Études africaines 12 (1982) 13–46.