By Sainey Faye
May 8th, 1943- On this date Aline Sittoe Diatta (Jatta) was arrested by the French colonial forces. Aline Sittoe Diatta was born in 1910, whilst others say 1920; but was not born inside or out of royalty in the African society of Kabrousse; which was once a a kingdom of the Jolas.The society of Kabrousse is strategically located on the Atlantic coast south of Cape Skirring in Casamance. The history of Casamance is very similar to its present day cousins of Gambia, Senegal, Guinea Bissau.As a matter of fact the same colonial forces that divided these territories were the same ones that later colonized them as micro states.
CASAMANCE — A brief overview :- It’s resistance to colonial penetration and rule started as early 1857 and 1860 according some historians of Senegambia; but resistance to foreign rule started as early as the 15th and 16th centuries.The territory changed hands during these times between the Portuguese, French and the British; depending who had the upper hand.However, the 1800’s onwards the French began to build settlements along its river ports, and started building forts, and business centers around Diembering, Sedhiou, Ziguinchor etc.
These incursions into their territory climaxed in 1857 and 1860 as we know of the famous rebellion of the Jolas, in the attack on Carabane which was a historic incident where the French military fortified, and was attacked and burnt to ashes. The French military commander. Emile Pinet Laprade, a contempory of General Loius Faidherbe who fought the Senegalese for control of their territory, and later became French administrator of French West Africa; was the one sent to do the dirty job of annexing the territory.
Any student of the recent colonial history in French West Africa should know these two famous French colonialist adventurers.Briefly, in 18th February, 1859 Emile Pinet Lapradore was given orders by France to enforce a decree making Casamance a French colony.This went on until 1888, three years after the Berlin Conference which officially partitioned Africa in colonies and micro states.The French then signed a deal with Britain and Portugal, for the division and also annexation of Casamance, Guinea Bissau, and Gambia with clear boundaries marked.
A year later in 1889 as the colonial records indicate, France and Britain signed a treaty which created a boundary between Gambia and Casamance.France immediately set up post at Ziguinchor as its commercial capital in 1892. Then eight years later in 1904, made it capital of Casamance.Here again, it had problems with administering the territory because of the ways the resistance movements which operated against her rule and arbitrary policies.
Let’s bear in mind that, this was also a time when the Marabout/Soninke wars were brewing in the Senegambia and Kabbu region. Casamance was not a territory or nation of one ethnicity, but of numerious ethnicities just like its cousins.Unable to enforce their wishes and policies on the widely dispersed population, they divided it up into 3 adminitrative regions. This tactic of “Divide and Rule’ had worked for colonialist before elsewhere in their other colonies, most notably Senegal and elsewhere in Africa, Asia and the West Indies.
In 1912, it divides the territory up into High, Medium, and Lower. Lower Casamance and Upper Casamance consisted of Fulladu or Fouladou, and the Kolda areas, which is mostly Fulas or Fulanis. The Middle Casamance consisted of Sedhiou or Segou, which are mostly Balantas, and Mandingos.Lower Casamance consisted of Jolas or Diolas and Bainunkas.
The problems would once again surface, because during latter half of the 19th century, Fuladu especially was a state extending from Gambia all the way to Casamance, and established its capital at Ndorna.In the 1870’s, fighting between Alfa Molo (King Of Fulladu) and Foday Kaba had intensified, and the French could not help but watch because of the nature in which both operated in and out of Casamance.
They would side with Musa Molo against Foday Kaba Dumbuya, who went on a rampage on several occasions inside Casamance against non-muslims and the colinialist forces trying to establish christiandom and colonialism.Until 1901, Musa Molo ruled from Casamance which he regarded as one territory until 1903, when the French charged him of a crime that he had to answer to in St. Louis; then he refused to go and went back to base in Gambia.The French later became mad at him for destroying structures and telegragh lines they had installed, in his anger.In 1876 and 1877, and 1882 Foday Kaba attacked villages and Sedhiou a safe haven for the French administration, before turning back and attacking Foni, Kabada, and Kiang.These activities in and out Casamance, showed how little and late French colonialism had total control of Casamance.The history of Casamance is too large for this short overview.
Back to Aline Sittoe Diatta.She was one of the leaders of a tax resistance movement during the second world war.While Jola resistance had never really ended since the region was annexed to French West Africa in 1914, in 1942 the French government began seizing as much as half the areas’s rice harvest for their war effort.Along with that they seized cattle, sheep, goats, and livestock too.She advocated the total boycott of paying any form of taxes levied, and stoppage of groundnuts production, except for home consumption, and only rice production and cultivation.Casamance had always been a haven for rice cultivation and introducing a cash crop like groundnuts was not economical to its people, she died championing the rights of her people to produce what they wanted.
After her arrest on May 8, 1943 her husband was also arrested and jailed for several years before being released.She was however not released, but put in prison in Gambia, then Senegal, and finally sent to Timbucktu, Mali, where she died.Her name was a household name through out Casamance and the region.She was said to possess some good qualities as a healer amongst many things, and a resistant revolutionary fighter for independence.Today, in few towns her statue is on display, and a new ferry that replaced the ‘Joola’ which sank off the Gambian sea coast, has been named after her.The Senegalese government along with the Casamance nationalist movements and civic organizations have also recognized some of her significant contributions to the African emancipation struggle against bondage and also oppression. She was truly a queen, priestess, and heroine of the African Liberation Struggle.
Mme. Fatou Sarr, a researcher at IFAN – Universite Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar Senegal has done an excellent research and documentation of the struggles this African heroine, along with some other great African women and heroines who sacrificed their lives for the liberation of Africa.
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