Fatou Khan

Fatou Khan (also Fatu or Fatoo ; born around 1880 in Njau ; died around 1940 ) was a Gambian politician.

Khan belonged to the Wolof ethnic group . She married for the first time in 1900 but divorced in 1910 to marry JK McCallum , under Sharia law . In 1901 he was sent to the North Bank Province as a Traveling Commissioner . She taught her husband Wolof . He wrote a grammar and dictionary of the language that were still used decades later.

Khan used her position to exert great influence in the province, especially from 1910 to 1918, and took on many functions herself, although she was illiterate. She used the annual taxes on couscous and rice for her own purposes and protected her uncle Sawalo Sise , Chief of Upper Saloum , from the colonial authorities.

Under her influence, her husband is believed to have married two other women who were both related to Khan, Fana Kumba Lowe and Fatim Mbowe . In 1919, Governor Edward John Cameron set up a committee of inquiry in Kau-ur on charges of having multiple affairs . As a result, McCallum was retired.

Fatou Khan died around 1940.

literature

• Hassoum Ceesay : Khan, Fatou . In: Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong (Ed.): Dictionary of African Biography . tape 3 . OUP USA, 2012, ISBN 978-0-19-538207-5 , pp. 360–361 ( google.de [accessed January 19, 2019]). ; almost identical to Hassoum Ceesay: Gambian women: an introductory history . 1st edition. Fulladu Publishers, Gambia 2007, p. 63-64 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ In the African Biography the name is wrongly given as JC Callum.
2. ^ Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research: Conference Proceedings . The Institute, 1958, p. 156 ( google.de [accessed January 19, 2019]).