The Joola and Konyagi peoples lived far from the main axes of colonial conquest. They were therefore practically the last groups in Senegambia to face the French. On account of their egalitarian social structures, they were able to mobilize unsuspected energies in the defense of their independence right up until the early twentieth century. The first attempts at colonial penetration into Joola territory go back to around 1850, when Bocandé built a post at Karabane to keep the British and the Portuguese out of the Lower Casamance basin. But the French first consolidated their footholds in the Middle and Upper Casamance basins, where peanut farming was a major activity. Only in the 1880s, when rubber began to attract trading companies, did they begin clamoring for the conquest of the Lower Casamance basin. The colonial regime then ran into a popular, village-based resistance movement that effectively helped the area's inhabitants retain their independence until the outbreak of World War I.

The Lower Casamance Joola, relying on the inaccessibility of their villages, refused to submit to the French authorities. The latter organized expeditions to try and subdue the Karone or Bayot communities. But the people organized their resistance village by village, refusing to cooperate with the Wolof chiefs imposed by the colonial regime, while doing their best to avoid paying taxes on rice, their staple food.