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Louis Faidherbe, (born June 3, 1818, Lille, France—died Sept. 29, 1889, Paris), governor of French Senegal in 1854–61 and 1863–65 and a major founder of France’s colonial empire in Africa. He founded Dakar. As governor, Faidherbe was alarmed by the growing power of the militant Islāmic leader ʿUmar Tal on the frontiers of Senegal. Abandoning the cautious policies of his predecessors, Faidherbe took the offensive against all those who threatened French primacy. In a series of well-executed campaigns, some undertaken against the wishes of the French government, he subjugated the Moorish tribes in the north, drove the forces of ʿUmar Tal off the lower Sénégal River, and extended French control southward toward the Gambia. By 1861 he had transformed his colony from a collection of scattered trading posts into the dominant political and military power in this region of West Africa.Faidherbe was no mere conquistador; he possessed a real sympathy for his African subjects and a genuine concern for their welfare. He also was an uncompromising enemy of slavery in all its forms. He sought to improve indigenous society without destroying it, and to this end he maintained the traditional authority of the chiefs while training their sons to become more efficient agents of French rule.
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