If a coastal trading post is successful as was Saint Louis in modern day Senegal, there will be a push from the trading houses to push inland. This potentially cuts out the middleman. General Faidherbe imagined a French African Empire stretching from the west coast of Africa to the Red Sea in the east. Therefore he did his best for the French trading house Maurel & Prom. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
Todays stamp is from one of the periods where wildly spread out colonies were jointly administered. Hence a French General whose activities were in Senegal on a stamp meant for the Ivory Coast. Around the time of independence there was a pan African hope that many of the nations could come together in large groupings as the French had done. It had not worked for France and the Africans themselves could not pull it off.
Todays stamp is issue A2, a 2 Centimes stamp issued for the French colony of Ivory Coast when it was part of French Occidental Africa in 1906. It was part of a 15 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $2 whether used or unused. There are versions of this stamp issue where the Cote de Ivorie printing is doubled or omitted due to printing mistakes. This pushes the value up to $400.
The Saint Louis trading post in Senegal was quite successful. We covered a Senegal stamp telling the story of the bridge to Saint Louis herehttps://the-philatelist.com/2018/12/20/senegal-1935-a-bridge-connecting-a-trading-post-becomes-a-symbol-of-a-city/ . By this period, the slave trade was over but there was still lucrative trading in cattle and peanuts raised by Africans and then sold in Saint Louis to the trading house Maurel & Prom. The trading was going on with both the Serer people of the African Empire of Sine and with nomadic Arabs from further north.
The trading house had the idea to push French inland. General Fadeherbe lead the expedition of about 300 French. He had taken a 15 year old native girl named Sidibe who bore him a son and taught General Fadeherbe the local dialects. Moving inland brought conflict with the Empire of Sine. The Sine Army was defeated at the Battle of Logandeme in a few minutes. General Fadeherbe burned nearby villages as a warning and took over major areas. The King of Sine pleaded and threatened in an attempt to not lose the contested area. To loose the area would cut off access to British arms markets in Gambia, their only source of weapons. The King threatened to kill all white people in Senegal and all cattle headed to market in Saint Louis. The French kept the land.
The Sine Empire did manage to make the French pay a heavy price. No they did not kill all the white people but they destroyed many of the peanut fields, killed much cattle, and harassed French outposts. This of course ate enough of the profits that the expedition failed in it’s profit motive. France eventually began paying tribute to the Sine King in order to be left alone. This arrangement was in affect till 1969 when independent Senegal pulled recognition of the title.
The French defeat in the Franco-Prussian war saw many French Generals killed, captured or dismissed. A call went out for colonial officers to return to France. He took with him his son but left behind Sidibe. Once home the 40 year old General was promoted and married his 18 year old niece by his deceased older brother. She helped raise his son and bore him 4 more children. The General did not have as much luck with Prussia as with Sine and his army was destroyed at the Battle of St. Quentin. He retired from the Army and became a politician and author. Maurel & Prom still exist but now mainly do oil exploration.
Well my drink is empty and I have nobody to toast, the trading house was greedy, the General’s expedition foolhardy, and the Sine wanted to kill all the white people, of which I am one. Perhaps just this once I will toast myself for finishing another article. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.