Senegal Company
The Senegal Company ( French Compagnie du Sénégal ) was a French trading company . It was founded in 1673 on behalf of Louis XIV and served in particular the slave trade . One of its first directors was the Admiral Jean-Baptiste du Casse .
Emergence
The Senegal Company replaced the French West India Company, which was dissolved in 1674 , because it was too fixated on tobacco cultivation and this was seen by the plantation owners as an obstacle to sugar cultivation in Guadeloupe and Martinique - an industry that relied heavily on the consumption of young slaves whipped were forced to work.
At that time France was in the Dutch War . The aim was, among other things , to achieve the monopoly in the Atlantic triangular trade , which was previously held by the Netherlands. Jean-Baptiste Colbert , the founder of the former West India Company, was against this war. Colbert had tolerated the Dutch smuggling trade into the French colonies in Africa and the Antilles and had higher customs duties for the legally imported goods.
The Senegal Company was founded at the same time as the sugar cane plantations in Jamaica were established and the privateer Henry Morgan was imprisoned by the English in 1672, pardoned in 1674, elevated to the nobility and appointed lieutenant governor of Jamaica. Morgan successfully defended Jamaica against pirates from then on.
Louis XIV hoped for something similar for Martinique and Saint-Domingue, which is why he made the Marquis of Maintenon, Charles François d'Angennes , who was also a former pirate, governor of Marie-Galante . After a few years, Angennes became the richest sugar plantation owner in Martinique.
The French West India Company , founded in 1664 by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, had the trade monopoly for the French colonies in Africa after it took up the activities of the dissolved Compagnie du Cap-Vert et du Sénégal . The West India Company was dissolved in 1674 due to the establishment of the Senegal Company, to which the King sold the territory of Senegal.
In contrast to the West India Company, the Senegal Company did not have a monopoly on the import of slaves. Traders from Nantes , Saint-Malo and Bordeaux also traded with slaves, as the colonies in the Antilles wanted to expand sugar cultivation and slave consumption was enormous. Between 1674 and 1682 the black “population” in Martinique quadrupled from 2,400 to 10,600.
The price of slaves rose on the coast of Africa. The Senegal Company had to contend with great competition. It was dissolved in 1681, leaving more than a million livre in debt. A new company replaced them and existed until 1694.
In 1685 the company's employees revolted against the director and the travel agent . In the same year the Code Noir was enacted, which regulated the conditions of slaves in the French colonies.
Expansion of slavery
Since the new company, unlike the West India company, did not have a trade monopoly, the merchants of the large French port facilities could compete on their own account with the Netherlands in the area of supplying America with slaves. The British sister company, the Royal African Company , which was founded in 1672, was ahead of the French Senegal company in terms of sugar growing and slave trade in Jamaica. One of the Senegal company's first major customers was the richest planter of Martinique, Charles François d'Angennes , former Marquis of Maintenon and Governor of Marie-Galante . Louis XIV had given him the monopoly on trade with Spanish Venezuela.
The Senegal company soon found itself in a financial disaster: Due to the high demand for slaves in the English and French colonies, the prices for slaves on the coast of Africa exploded. At the same time, transport costs fell in favor of the owners of the sugar plantations in Martinique. At the time the Senegal Company was founded, there were no more than 2,400 slaves there, whereas at the time the West India Company was founded there were around 2,700 slaves. Six years after the founding of the Senegal Company, the number of slaves in Martinique had doubled to 4900 in 1680. Their number increased sixfold in the following 25 years, reaching 15,000 to 17,000.
The same phenomenon was observed in Guadeloupe . In the period from 1664 to 1671 the number of slaves decimated from 6323 to 4627. By 1700 their number increased again to 6076. This increase in the number of slaves was less pronounced than on Martinique, as it was provided with younger and healthier slaves. This was also due to the fact that Louis XIV had induced parts of the nobility to move to Martinique and they enjoyed preferential treatment there.
First attempts to colonize Saint-Louis
In 1626 Richelieu founded the Compagnie Normande , an association of the Dieppe and Rouen merchants who were entrusted with the management of Senegal and Gambia . In 1628 the first office was installed in Senegal . 1638 was the on the island of Bocos near the mouth of Senegal by Thomas Lambert established a first settlement.
However, this first attempt failed in 1658 due to the dissolution of the Compagnie Normande and the company's activities were taken over by the Compagnie du Cap-Vert et du Sénégal , which Colbert then expropriated and incorporated into the Company in 1664 when the Compagnie des Indes was founded of the Indes incorporated.
In 1659 the settlement of Bocos was transferred to the island of N'Dar, which was owned by the Brak de Waalo . The Fort of Saint-Louis was then built by Louis Caullier. At this time the slave trade began to flourish along the east coast of Africa.
In 1677 the French conquered Gorée and Rufisque .
The predecessor: The French West India Company
The Senegal Company replaced the French West India Company, which , according to Colbert's ideas about the management of the French colonies in Africa and America, was a privileged company with a trade monopoly from 1664 to 1674.
The French West India Company originally called itself the "concession royale du Sénégal" and its main purpose was to exchange fabrics, glass jewelry and iron from France for ivory, gold dust, palm oil and rubber from Senegal.
Over time, slaves also became an exchange commodity, although the Atlantic triangular trade was not originally the purpose of the French West India Company.
The British sister company: the Royal African Company
The House of Stuart founded the Royal African Company in 1672 , which was run by the cousin of Louis XIV, the future King James II . The emergence of these two trading companies brought about a decrease in the price of slaves, but also a decrease in margins. Both Louis XIV and the Stuarts wanted to push the buccaneers out of tobacco cultivation in order to set up larger and more profitable plantations.
After a difficult start, the two new companies succeeded in ousting the Netherlands from West Africa, which was accused of selling arms to India and the buccaneers and not giving enough support to sugar growing. The Netherlands reacted by founding the first colonial city in Africa a little further south on the Cape.
When Jacob II tried to retake England with the help of the Irlandais de Nantes after his overthrow from his exile in France , the British reacted with a tightened course against France and occupied Saint-Louis in 1693. In 1701 France obtained an Asiento de Negros , from then on France had the monopoly on the import of slaves and dominated West Africa.
The 1680 riots in the Antilles
In 1689, Cap-Français, a settlement on the north coast of Saint-Domingue, was rumored that the Senegal company, which was already in charge of supplying the Antilles with slaves, had followed Jean Oudiette , who was mainly active in the area of the had a flourishing tobacco trade and had signed a contract with Louis XIV, which enabled Oudiette to profit from the slave trade in the Antilles and supported the intention of Louis XIV to establish sugar cultivation in the Antilles. The incumbent governor Jacques Neveu de Pouancey had to restore order.
In May 1681, in a petition addressed to Colbert, the inhabitants of the Antilles expressed their concern that the poorest inhabitants of the Antilles were being forced to join the Flibustier under the contract with Oudiette .
The Royal Senegal Company
- 1694: Founding of the royal Senegal company, the manager, André Brue , was captured by the Damel von Cayor and released in 1701 for a ransom.
- 1709: Foundation of the Third Senegal Company (1709–1718)
The end of the Senegal company
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- 1756: Beginning of the Seven Years War in which France and Great Britain faced each other.
- 1758: Saint-Louis surrendered to a British squadron. This second occupation of Saint-Louis lasted 21 years (1758–1779). The island was administered by a private company and directly by the British Crown during the occupation.
- 1763: Louis XV. signs the Peace of Paris , ending the Seven Years' War overseas. France has to cede large parts of its colonies to Great Britain.
- 1764: Charles Thevenot becomes the first mayor of Saint-Louis.
- 1778: The black population of Saint-Louis rebelled against the British garrison.
- 1779: Saint-Louis is regained to France by the Duke of Lauzun. The island is now run by officials appointed directly by the King of France. Dumontet is the first governor of the colony.
- 1783: In the Peace of Paris , France officially gets Senegal back. The Senegal Company receives the trade monopoly for gum arabic .
- 1785: Stanislas de Boufflers is appointed governor.
- 1789: François Blanchot de Verly is appointed governor of Senegal. April: Establishment of the Cahiers de Doléances for Senegalese residents in the Estates General . The major of Senegal's troops, Benoît de Rambaud , is killed. The French are expelled from Fort Saint-Joseph in Galam and the Kingdom of Galam .
- 1791: Formal abolition of slavery during the French Revolution.
- 1802: Napoleon reintroduces slavery.
- July 13, 1809: Saint Louis surrenders to Great Britain. Beginning of the third British occupation, which lasted until 1816.
- 1816: The Méduse , which was supposed to bring the future governor Julien-Desiré Schmaltz to Senegal, was shipwrecked off the West African coast.
- 1817: Saint-Louis retaken.
- 1820: Establishment of the first trading branches from Bordeaux.
- 1821: Baron Jacques-François Roger is appointed governor of Senegal.
- 1848: Abolition of slavery in the Second French Republic at the suggestion of Victor Schœlcher .
The directors
- Directors of the Senegal Company
- June 4, 1697 - May 1, 1702: André Brué (1654–1738)
- 1702–1706: Joseph Lemaitre
- 1706–1709: Michel Jajolet de La Courbé
- Directors of the "Compagnie de Rouen"
- 1710-15. August 1711: Guillaume Joseph Mustellier (died 1711)
- 1712-2. Mail 1713: Pierre de Richebourg
- April 1714–1719: André Brué
- India Company Directors
- 1718-Mail 1720: André Brué
- May 1720-April 1723: Nicolas Desprès de Saint-Robert
- 1723-1725: Julien du Bellay
- 1725: Nicolas Desprès de Saint-Robert
- 1725-1726: Arnaud Plumet
- 1726-1733: Jean Levens de la Rouquette
- 1733-7. March 1733 Lejuge (died 1733)
- 1733-1738: Sebastian Devaulx
- 1738–1746: Pierre Félix Barthélemy David (1711–1795)
- 1746–1758: Jean-Baptiste Estoupan de la Brüe
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jacques Adélaïde-Merlande: Histoire générale et des Antilles of Guyanes: the précolombiens à nos jours. Editions l'Harmattan. P. 94.
- ↑ Jacques Adélaïde-Merlande: Histoire générale et des Antilles of Guyanes: the précolombiens à nos jours. Editions l'Harmattan. P. 94ff.
- ^ Gerti Hesseling: Histoire politique du Sénégal. Karthala. 1985.
See also
More articles
literature
- Édit du Roy qui réunit l'ancienne Compagnie Royale du Sénégal à la nouvelle créée par le Roy au mois de Mars 1696 , Bordeaux, Simon Boé, 1696, 12 p.
- Lettres patentes du Roy, en forme de Déclaration, du mois de Juin, 1679, portant confirmation de la Compagnie du Sénégal & de ses privilèges , Paris, 1679, 76 p. .
- Pierre Félix Barthélemy David, Le Sénégal et les îles orientales d'Afrique sous le gouvernement de P. David. 1729-1752 , in P. Margry, Relations et mémoires inédits, etc. , 1867, p. 355-376
- André Delcourt, La France et les établissements français au Sénégal entre 1713 et 1763 , tome 1: La Compagnie des Indes et le Sénégal , tome 2: La Guerre de la gomme , Dakar-Cahors, Mémoires de l'Institut français d'Afrique noire , 1952, n ° 17, 432 p.
- Dominique Harcourt Lamiral, Les Métamorphoses aristocratiques, ou Généalogie de la Compagnie exclusive du Sénégal , Paris, Imprimerie nationale, 1791 ?, 4 p.
- Jean-Bernard Lacroix, Les Français au Sénégal au temps de la Compagnie des Indes, de 1719 à 1758 , Vincennes, Service historique de la Marine, 1986, 314 p.
- Abdoulaye Ly, La Compagnie du Sénégal , Karthala, May 2000, ISBN 2865374068 , 448 pages
- Eugène Saulnier, Une compagnie à privilège au XIX: La Compagnie de Galam au Sénégal , avec une introduction par Christian Schefer, Paris, E. Larose, 1921, 199 p.
- Jacques Adélaïde-Merlande Histoire générale des Antilles et des Guyanes
- Paul Butel, Les Caraïbes au temps des flibustiers, 16ème et XVII, page 233 .
- Voyage a la Côte de Guinée De Pierre Labarthe
- Histoire politique du Sénégal, by Gerti Hesseling
- Histoire générale des Antilles et des Guyanes, by Jacques Adélaïde-Merlande