This article examines the Portuguese settlement in the Zambezi Valley in Southeast Africa. The Zambezi Valley is an especially interesting region in which to study the porosity between ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ empires: the Portuguese settlers enjoyed greater freedom of movement than in many other places. The article focuses on Diogo Simões Madeira, a Portuguese settler in the region. Although the dates of his arrival and departure are unknown, his relationship with the Estado da Índia administration is well documented. An intriguing correspondence between Diogo Simões Madeira and administrators sheds light on the degree of autonomy enjoyed by the settler and the influence of the Estado da Índia in the region.
In 1669, the Frenchman Nicolas Villault de Bellefond published a travel account entitled Relation des costes d’Afrique appelées Guinée. In this document, the author reports in great detail that the Normans passed Cape Bojador as early as 1364, i.e. almost seventy years before the Portuguese; then, they made numerous voyages to West Africa until the beginning of the 15th century. It was only in the first half of the 20th century, thanks to the works of Charles de La Roncière and Raymond Mauny, that this story was definitively considered as a legend. The two historians consider that Villault de Bellefond wrote in order to support Colbert's colonial project in Africa. Without ruling out this conclusion, my research has led me to develop another hypothesis: this legend would have been elaborated by Africans living on the Gold Coast in the early 17th century to attract the French to the region and put an end to the Portuguese monopoly. It then evolved over the course of the seventeenth century to become a tool in the fight against the Dutch monopoly that had been established, particularly in the kingdom of Eguafo. Nicolas Villault de Bellefond would have simply taken up and enriched this legend – of which he became aware during his visit to the region – in his travel report.
La série « Réunion » des Archives nationales d’outre-mer conserve plusieurs lettres en arabe issues des correspondances entre les Français et les souverains musulmans d’Afrique de l’Est. L’une d’elles, écrite en 1819, est traduite en français et éditée pour la première fois. Son étude apporte un éclairage crucial sur la nature des relations entre Swahili, Omanais et Français au début du xixe siècle. Elle fait apparaître l’importance des réseaux négriers pour la diplomatie française et leur persistance après l’abolition officielle de la traite. Elle permet également de comprendre comment le sultanat de Kilwa tente de se défaire de la mainmise omanaise. De plus, elle montre l’importance de l’emploi de la langue arabe pour les correspondances diplomatiques dans l’océan Indien. La lettre de mfalme Sulaymān b. Ḥasan à Louis XVIII vise en effet à sceller une alliance entre la France et le sultanat de Kilwa contre les Omanais installés à Zanzibar, grâce aux bons offices d’un arabisant et d’un négrier. L’étude de ce document comprend une reproduction et une analyse de la lettre et de son enveloppe, une retranscription, une traduction et une analyse permettant de comprendre le contexte (acteurs, situation politique) et de dégager ses apports quant à la connaissance des stratégies de résistance des souverains swahili face à l’expansionnisme omanais en Afrique de l’Est.
The DGB (diy-geɗ-biy) sites, perched on the northern heights of the Mandara Mountains, have revealed two pottery traditions that we will seek to compare with those that make up the chrono-cultural sequences of the surrounding foothills and plains. This comparison, which reveals a time offset between the traditions of the summits and their analogues in the foothills, sheds new light on the settlement process in the interior of the mountain chain. In particular, we propose a hypothesis concerning the geographical origin of the builders of the DGB monuments. In line with many migration and origin accounts, the Mowo-Gudur region may have played a special role in the settlement process of highlands.
Between the official end of the first English occupation of Senegal in 1783 (Treaty of Versailles) and the second English occupation of St. Louis in 1809, France concluded only three treaties with the Fuuta-Tooro, aiming to revive trade, ensure the security of its merchants, and resolve issues related to customs and taxes. In 1776, Fuuta-Tooro underwent a Theocratic Revolution, rejecting the authority of Saint-Louis in order to uphold one of the revolution's core principles: combating the slave trade while continuing to collect taxes. The sovereignty of Fuuta-Tooro clashed with the pressures of French authority in Saint-Louis, which sought to conduct its commercial activities in the region freely. The three treaties signed in 1785, 1802, and 1806 between France and Fuuta-Tooro were all similar in nature, and each ultimately failed as both parties sought to protect their own interests.
