FRANCOPHONE WEST AFRICA

The Holy Ghost Fathers arrived first on the coast and established their work along the Atlantic coastline, ever conscious of their concern for the inland to the river Niger bend. But they were not alone. The White Fathers coming from Algeria claimed their rights. They had a reputation for knowing the Sahara, and acquired the preferment of the Propaganda in Rome. They were placed at certain strategic points in the immense, sparsely populated inland.

They were French and were to find that at this particular point in time they had to meet with opposition from the French colonial administration. The mission had great difficulties from the side of the French colonial administration because of the influence in West Africa of the anti-clerical campaign in France 1900–05. These bitter political struggles in France were exported to Africa. Anti-clerical laicization attitudes were carried by the French colonial administration. De Benoist in his rich and valuable book, Église et Pouvoir Colonial au Soudan Français, one of the great Church and State volumes on the colonial period, has shown that while in general the attitudes of the administration were unsympathetic and even hostile – administration and mission were involved in a sort of small war, both parties involved in ‘a dialogue of the deaf’ – there were exceptions attempting human contacts and personal understanding, which on occasion took astonishing forms.