Foundation and European Trade The
Cap-Vert peninsula was settled no later than the 15th century by the
Lebu people, an aquacultural subgroup of the Wolof ethnic group. The original villages—
Ouakam,
Ngor,
Yoff and
Hann—still constitute distinctively
Lebou neighborhoods of the city today. In 1444, the
Portuguese reached the Bay of Dakar. Peaceful contact was finally opened in 1456 by
Diogo Gomes, and the bay was subsequently referred to as the "
Angra de Bezeguiche" (after the name of the local ruler). The bay of "Bezeguiche" would go on to serve as a critical stop for the
Portuguese India Armadas of the early 16th century, where large fleets would routinely stop, both on their outward and return journeys from India, to repair, collect fresh water from the rivulets and wells along the Cap-Vert shore and trade for provisions with the local people for their remaining voyage.) A town grew on the bay that was one of the major ports of
Cayor, a constituent kingdom of the
Jolof Empire that
broke away in 1549. The Portuguese founded a settlement on the island of
Gorée (then known as the island of Bezeguiche or Palma), which by 1536 they began to use as a base for slave exportation. A new Lebou village, called Ndakaaru, was established directly across from Gorée in the 17th century to service the European
trading factory with food and drinking water. Gorée was captured by the
United Netherlands in 1588, which gave it its present name (spelled
Goeree, after
Goeree-Overflakkee in the Netherlands). The island switched hands between the Portuguese and Dutch several more times before falling to the English under
Admiral Robert Holmes on January 23, 1664, and finally to the French in 1677. Though under continuous French administration since, multiracial people, descended from Dutch and French traders and African wives, dominated the slave trade. The infamous "
House of Slaves" was built at Gorée in 1776.
Lebou Republic By the 1780s, Dakar was one of the largest towns in Cayor. In 1795, the
marabouts of Cayor revolted against the
Damel, inspired by the
Futanke revolution in
Futa Toro. The Lebou community joined the uprising under the leadership of the Diop, a Muslim clerical family originally from
Coki. After some initial victories, the Muslim armies were defeated at Loofe, and the Lebou fell back on the Cap Vert. They built a series of defensive walls out of
laterite blocks, the longest of which stretched across the entire peninsula from Yoff to Hann, and successfully repulsed the Damel's army. With this victory,
Jaal Joop declared a new, independent, theocratic state, subsequently called the "Lebou Republic" by the French, with the capital at Ndakaaru. The
Serigne of Ndakaaru is still recognized as the traditional political authority of the Lebou by the Senegalese State today. The slave trade was abolished by France in February 1794. However,
Napoleon Bonaparte reinstated the slave trade in May 1802. The slave trade continued at Gorée until 1848, when it was finally abolished throughout all French territories. To replace trade in slaves, the French promoted peanut cultivation on the mainland. As the peanut trade boomed, tiny Gorée Island, whose population had grown to 6,000 residents, proved ineffectual as a port. Traders from Gorée decided to move to the mainland, and a "factory" with warehouses was established in
Rufisque in 1840. In 1857, the French established a military post at Ndakaaru (which they called "Dakar") and annexed the Lebou Republic, though its institutions continued to function nominally.
Colonial Dakar Large public expenditure for infrastructure was allocated by the colonial authorities to Dakar's development. The port facilities were improved with jetties, a telegraph line was established along the coast to
Saint-Louis, and the
Dakar-Saint-Louis railway was completed in 1885, at which point the city became an important base for the conquest of the
Western Sudan. Gorée, including Dakar, was recognised as a French
commune in 1872. Dakar itself was split off from Gorée as a separate
commune in 1887. The citizens of the city elected their own mayor and municipal council, and helped send an elected representative to the
National Assembly in Paris. Dakar replaced Saint-Louis as the capital of
French West Africa in 1902. A second major railroad, the
Dakar-Niger built from 1906 to 1923, linked Dakar to Bamako and consolidated the city's position at the head of France's West African empire. In 1929, the
commune of Gorée Island, now with only a few hundred inhabitants, was merged into Dakar. Urbanization during the colonial period was marked by forms of racial and social segregation—often expressed in terms of health and hygiene—which continue to structure the city today. Following a plague epidemic in 1914, the authorities forced most of the African population out of old neighborhoods, or "Plateau", and into a new quarter, called Médina, separated from it by a "sanitary cordon". As first occupants of the land, the Lebou inhabitants of the city successfully resisted this expropriation. They were supported by
Blaise Diagne, the first African to be elected Deputy to the National Assembly. Nonetheless, the Plateau thereafter became an administrative, commercial, and residential district increasingly reserved for Europeans and served as a model for similar exclusionary administrative enclaves in French Africa's other colonial capitals (Bamako, Conakry, Abidjan, Brazzaville). Meanwhile, the Layene Sufi order, established by
Seydina Mouhammadou Limamou Laye, was thriving among the Lebou in Yoff and in a new village called Cambérène. Since independence, urbanization has sprawled eastward past Pikine, a commuter suburb whose population (2001 est. 1,200,000) is greater than that of Dakar proper, to Rufisque, creating a
conurbation of almost 3 million (over a quarter of the national population). In its colonial heyday, Dakar was one of the major cities of the French Empire, comparable to
Hanoi or
Beirut. French trading firms established branch offices there, and industrial investments (mills, breweries, refineries, canneries) were attracted by its port and rail facilities. It was also strategically important to France, which maintained an important naval base and coaling station in its harbor, and which integrated it into its earliest air force and airmail circuits, most notably with the legendary Mermoz airfield (no longer extant). In 1940, Dakar became involved in the
Second World War when
General de Gaulle, leader of the
Free French Forces, sought to make the city the base of his resistance operations. The object was to raise the Free French flag in West Africa, to occupy Dakar and thus start to consolidate the French resistance of its colonies in Africa. The plan had British naval support when fighting alone against the Axis powers. However, due to delays and the plan becoming known, Dakar had already come under the influence of the German-controlled will of the
Vichy government. With the arrival of French naval forces under Vichy control and faced by stubborn defences onshore, de Gaulle's proposals were resisted, and the Battle of Dakar ensued off the coast, lasting three days 23–25 September 1940, between the Vichy defences and the attack of the Free French and British navy. The enterprise was abandoned after appreciable naval losses. Although the initiative on Dakar failed, General de Gaulle was able to establish himself at
Douala in the Cameroons, which became the rallying point for the resistance of the Free French cause. . It reads "Thiaroye '44, an unforgettable event". In November 1944, West African conscripts in the French army mutinied against poor conditions at the Thiaroye camp, on the outskirts of the city. The mutiny was seen as an indictment of the colonial system and constituted a watershed for the nationalist movement. On 1 December 1944, French soldiers guarding the camp
opened fire on the West African soldiers. Accounts of the death toll range from around 35 (the official French account) to over 300 (army veterans active at the time).
Independence Dakar was the capital of the short-lived
Mali Federation from 1959 to 1960, after which it became the capital of Senegal. The poet, philosopher and first President of
Senegal Léopold Sédar Senghor tried to transform Dakar into the "Sub-Saharan African Athens" (l'Athènes de l'Afrique subsaharienne), as his vision was for it. Dakar is a major financial centre, home to a dozen national and regional banks (including the
Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) which manages the unified
West African CFA franc currency), and to numerous international organizations, NGOs and international research centers. Dakar has a large
Lebanese community (concentrated in the import-export sector) that dates to the 1920s, a community of Moroccan businesspeople, as well as Mauritanian,
Cape Verdean, and Guinean communities. The city is home to as many as 20,000 French expatriates. France still maintains an air force base at Yoff, and the French fleet is serviced in Dakar's port. Beginning 1978 and until 2007, Dakar was frequently the ending point of the
Dakar Rally. == Geography ==