| Chapter 2: | Linguistic and Demographic Profile of Senegal |
|
|
began in 1444 and 1445, when the Portuguese landed on the western coast and established commercial links in the interior of Senegal and with other parts of the western African continent. The Portuguese were followed and displaced by the Dutch, then by the British, and finally by the French. In 1763, the British captured French outposts in Senegal, but following the Treaty of Paris (1783) and the Napoleonic wars, they returned the Senegalese territories they had captured from France in 1815 and retained only their outposts in Gambia (Gaucher, 1968, p. 17).
Between 1895 and 1958, Senegal was the capital of the Afrique Occidentale Française (AOF; French West Africa),1 a political federation of eight former French West African colonies administered by a governor-general, initially based in Saint Louis and subsequently moved to Dakar. After the dissolution of French West Africa in 1958—a split caused by the pressing demands for independence of its member countries—Senegal and Mali (formerly known as French Sudan) attempted to maintain a connection, founding the Fédération du Mali(Mali Federation)towards the end of the 1950s. However, that federation was short-lived due to dissensions and suspicions among the internal leadership of the countries. After the breakup, Mali became independent, naming Modibo Keita its first president. Senegal also achieved independence, with Léopold Sédar Senghor as its first president. Senghor remained the president of Senegal for 21 years before retiring voluntarily in 1981 and handing over power to his incumbent prime minister and protégé, Abdou Diouf. Diouf extended the democratic multiparty system he had inherited (which Senghor had restricted to four political parties). He retained the presidency until the landmark presidential election in 2000, when the Parti Socialiste (Socialist Party), which had dominated the political landscape for more than 4 decades, lost to the Parti Démocratique Sénégalais (PDS; Senegalese Democratic Party), led by veteran political leader Abdoulaye Wade. Wade, a populist and the iconic leader of the PDS, became the third president of Senegal after more than 30 years of turbulent political rivalry (Wade had been fighting against the Socialist Party. As a result, there was a bitter rivalry between the PDS and the Socialist Party).