William Ponty

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William Ponty

Amédée William Merlaud-Ponty (born February 4, 1866 in Rochefort-sur-Mer , † June 13, 1915 in Dakar ) was a French colonial official. He was Governor General of French West Africa from 1908 until his death .

Life

Origin and campaigns in West Africa

Amédée William Merlaud-Ponty's parents were Marguerite Marie Louise Merlaud-Ponty and Joseph William Merlaud-Ponty. His father worked as a postal director. The Admiral Joseph-Henri Merleaux-Ponty was his uncle. William Ponty made at the age of 22 years with a license a degree in jurisprudence . He entered the French colonial service as an assistant in 1888.

In 1890 he was assigned to the later General Louis Archinard as secretary and took part in his campaigns in West Africa , which should end the rule of Samory Touré . The military expeditions led Ponty from 1890 to 1891 to Kaarta , Nioro , Diena and Kankan , from 1891 to 1892 to Bissandougou and Sanankoroba and from 1892 to 1893 to Djenné and Bandiagara . He was wounded in a battle near Ouassaka in 1892. In total, he witnessed 17 battles against the forces of Samory Touré.

Rise in the civil administration of the colonies

Through his position, which brought him into personal contact with many of Archinard's subordinates, Ponty built a professional network. In 1894 he became head of the secretariat of the Senegal colony and soon after became vice- resident in Madagascar . There he was sponsored by Governor General Joseph Gallieni . At his own request, Ponty was transferred back to French Sudan in West Africa in 1897 and acted as commander of the Djenné district . Edgard de Trentinian , the governor of French Sudan, was his superior. When de Trentinian was called back to France, William Ponty was entrusted with the administration of the area as agent of the Governor General of French West Africa. In 1900 he fell ill with yellow fever .

Ponty made special efforts to combat slavery . He is considered the most important slave liberator in the history of French West Africa. His ordinance of October 10, 1900 created the villages de liberté ("Villages of Freedom") in which the former slaves settled. The population of these villages was, however, heavily used by the French for forced labor . During a period of drought, Ponty himself had forced laborers used to build the Dakar – Niger railway to Bamako . In 1903 he insisted on ending colonial administration's cooperation with slave owners. Slave owners should be deprived of the opportunity to punish escaped slaves. This approach was first used in India in 1843 .

In 1904, Ponty became governor of the newly established colony of Upper Senegal and Niger . When Ernest Roume , the Governor General of French West Africa, fell seriously ill in October 1907, he built Ponty as his desired successor.

As Governor General of French West Africa

William Ponty (center) on a visit to Liberia (around 1910)

William Ponty succeeded Roume on February 18, 1908 as Governor General of French West Africa, which he would remain until his death on June 13, 1915. The main focus of his work was the development of educational institutions and the further development of the self-government of the local population. The traditional rulers, subordinates of the colonial administration, were to be determined by the communities that led them. His circular of September 22, 1909, in which he presented his politique des races as a new form of political administration in French West Africa that was beneficial for France, is important in this context . His judicial reform of 1912 was borne by similar considerations, with which the local population was prescribed a judicial system in accordance with their customs, especially in matters of private law .

Ponty was a Freemason and had a pragmatic relationship with the Islamic authorities and Roman Catholic missionaries . He made the construction of the Dakar Cathedral possible by conceiving it as a monument to the French who died in Africa in the course of the expansion of the French colonial empire, thus opening up access to state funds for the construction.

On the eve of the First World War , even before the mobilization in France, Ponty reported to the surprise of the government in Paris that he could provide several thousand native African soldiers . During the first six months of the war, 11,000 soldiers were shipped from French West Africa; in 1915 there were already over 34,000.

William Ponty died of kidney failure on 1915 at the age of 49 .

Honors and aftermath

William Ponty was a knight (1893), officer (1904) and commander (1912) of the Legion of Honor . He was also awarded as a Knight of the Ordre du Mérite Agricole (1902) and Officer of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques (1902/1909).

After his death, the École normal William Ponty , a teacher training institution and cadre school for boys from French West Africa, was named after him. On the base of the Demba et Dupont monument in Dakar, erected in 1923, there was originally a portrait relief of Ponty, which was later removed.

Robert Randau authored with Le Chef of Porte-Plume a 1922 published roman à clef about William Ponty.

literature

  • Elizabeth A. Foster: Rethinking "Republican Paternalism": William Ponty in French West Africa, 1890-1915 . In: Outre-Mers. Revue d'histoire . No. 356–357 , 2007, pp. 211-233 (English, persee.fr ).
  • G. Wesley Johnson: William Ponty and Republican Paternalism in French West Africa . In: LH Gann, Peter Duignan (eds.): African Proconsuls. European governors in Africa . Free Press, New York 1978, ISBN 0-02-911190-0 , pp. 127-157 .
  • Paul Marty: La Politique indigène du Gouverneur Général Ponty en Afrique occidentale française . Leroux, Paris 1915.

Web links

Commons : William Ponty  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Amédée William Merlaud-Ponty. In: Léonore. Archives nationales, accessed on February 7, 2019 (French).
  2. ^ Jacques Frémeaux: L'Afrique à l'ombre des épées, 1830–1930 . 1. Des établissements côtiers aux confins sahariens. Service Historique de l'Armée de Terre, Paris 1993, ISBN 2-86323-080-8 , p. 93 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g Pascal James Imperato, Gavin H. Imperato: Historical Dictionary of Mali . 4th edition. Scarecrow, Lanham / Toronto / Plymouth 2008, ISBN 978-0-8108-5603-5 , pp. 249-250 .
  4. ↑ a b Martin A. Klein: Historical Dictionary of Slavery and Abolition . 2nd Edition. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham / Boulder / New York / London 2014, ISBN 978-0-8108-5966-1 , pp. 298 .
  5. ^ A b Elizabeth A. Foster: Rethinking "Republican Paternalism": William Ponty in French West Africa, 1890-1915 . In: Outre-Mers. Revue d'histoire . No. 356–357 , 2007, pp. 215 and 217 (English, persee.fr [accessed February 7, 2019]).
  6. ^ A b Pascal James Imperato, Gavin H. Imperato: Historical Dictionary of Mali . 4th edition. Scarecrow, Lanham / Toronto / Plymouth 2008, ISBN 978-0-8108-5603-5 , pp. 251 .
  7. ^ Elizabeth A. Foster: Rethinking "Republican Paternalism": William Ponty in French West Africa, 1890-1915 . In: Outre-Mers. Revue d'histoire . No. 356–357 , 2007, pp. 224–225 (English, persee.fr [accessed February 7, 2019]).
  8. ^ A b Elizabeth A. Foster: Rethinking "Republican Paternalism": William Ponty in French West Africa, 1890-1915 . In: Outre-Mers. Revue d'histoire . No. 356–357 , 2007, pp. 218 and 222 (English, persee.fr [accessed February 7, 2019]).
  9. ^ Marc Michel: Les Africains et la Grande Guerre. L'appel à l'Afrique (1914-1918) . 2nd, expanded edition. Karthala, Paris 2014, ISBN 978-2-8111-1146-5 , pp. 33 .
  10. ^ Pierre Montagnon: Dictionnaire de la colonization française . Pygmalion, Paris 2010, ISBN 978-2-7564-0265-9 , pp. 450 .
  11. ↑ Marc Michel: L'Afrique dans l'engrenage de la Grande Guerre (1914-1918) . Karthala, Paris 2013, p. 198-199 .
personal data
SURNAME Ponty, William
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Merlaud-Ponty, Amédée William (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French colonial administrator
DATE OF BIRTH February 4, 1866
PLACE OF BIRTH Rochefort-sur-Mer
DATE OF DEATH June 13, 1915
Place of death Dakar