Trading for Empire: Commerce and French Colonial Rule in Senegal, c. 1817–1860

Abstract

In the early nineteenth century, French officials in Senegal viewed commerce, rather than conquest, as the best means to extend their empire’s “civilizing” influence. Colonial officials simultaneously argued that African trading practices, particularly tribute payments known as coutumes, promoted greed and were a barrier to “free trade.” By the 1840s, the perception that commerce alone had failed to “civilize” West Africans led the French to conclude that military force was necessary to impose order. Nevertheless, much of the basis for the “new imperialism” of the later nineteenth century, I argue, was rooted in the earlier commercial justifications for colonialism.