Working for the Colonial State and Promoting Himself: Mademba Sèye and the Bargains of Collaboration in French West Africa, 1896–91

When he turned 17 in 1869, Mademba Sèye left the École des Otages in Saint-Louis du Sénégal to join the fledgling Post and Telegraph service as a civilian employee of the nascent French colonial state. Almost immediately, Mademba demonstrated his loyalty to the French when he fought on the French side during a skirmish with Lat Joor’s forces while laying telegraph wires. The French rewarded Mademba by posting him to a head the small post and telegraph office in Betet, where he moved ever so gradually up the administrative ladder based upon his record of diligent and competent service. Mademba’s career took off when he was seconded to the Upper Senegal telegraph division in 1879 at the same time as the French began their more aggressive conquest of the region. Telegraphy was making rapid technological advances and provided a major strategic boost to French colonial forces precisely because it facilitated the flow of information. Riding the wave of both technological and military advances into the Western Soudan, Mademba demonstrated repeatedly his competence and loyalty to the French. The French military command kept promoting Mademba, who kept demonstrating his loyalty and expanding his competences. In 1883, the French colonial administration rewarded Mademba by sending him to advanced telegraph training at the French fort of Mount Valérin just outside of Paris. Mademba’s three months in France proved pivotal in exposing him further to the arts of collaboration, which he continued to deploy as he moved ever deeper into promoting simultaneously the French colonial effort and himself. In 1891, the French rewarded Mademba by making him king of Sinsani in the newly conquered region of the Middle Niger Valley. This was a grand reward indeed for a loyal African colonial employee.