Samory Touré

West African resistance leader

• Born: c. 1830
• Birthplace: Manyambaladugu, Sise Kingdom, West Africa (now in Guinea)
• Died: June 2, 1900
• Place of death: Ndjole, Gabon

Samory Touré established a Muslim empire in western Africa, stretching from Sierra Leone to the Ivory Coast region. He conquered and enslaved African enemies to finance his military resistance to French colonial expansion and defend the territory he acquired. As a champion of African protonationalism, he helped inspire later African independence movements.

Early Life

Samory Touré (sahm-oh-REE too-RAY) was born in the Sise Kingdom in a region of West Africa that is now part of the modern nation of Guinea. Little is now known about his parents, who were apparently traders (Dyula), beyond the fact that they were Mandingo, or Mandinka, and his father’s lineage was part of the Touré clan. According to a Mande epic, his father was Kemo Lanfia, and his mother was Sona Kamara. Oral histories indicate that many members of the Touré clan were Muslim merchants. Little is also known about Samory’s childhood; however, Mande epics depict him as a naughty child who was a natural leader who liked to persuade friends to play pranks on neighbors.

When Samory was seventeen, he pursued trading such goods as cloth and cows to please his family and allow him to describe himself as a Dyula. As a young man, Samory became aware of growing European efforts to exploit African resources and seize lands to form colonies. The growing foreign intrusions in West Africa altered relationships among African communities, which competed to acquire wealth and privilege from European trade. The acquisition of European weapons enabled some communities to defeat others and seize property and power.

Samory found that he disliked trading and took to developing soldierly skills, aspiring to become a military leader. In 1848, when he was about eighteen years old, he rescued his mother after she was captured during a Sise clan raid. Realizing he could benefit from Sise weapons and knowledge, he worked for them for about seven years, according to epics, while mastering their weapons. After Samory and his mother left the Sises, he applied his new skills, fighting with the Berete army against the Sises. After two years, Samory returned home.

Life’s Work

In 1861, Mande leaders designated Samory a war chief (keletigi). Swearing that he would defend his people from their Sise and Berete enemies, he built up an army and appointed his sons, brothers, and selected friends as representatives and commanders, while gathering his forces near Sanankoro. Access to area rivers provided Samory and his army convenient transportation to the nearby areas he sought to control.

When the ruler of the powerful Tukolor (Toucouleur) Empire, al-Hājj ՙUmar Tal, died in 1864, his territory around the upper Niger River became vulnerable to enemy acquisition. Like other military leaders and chiefs, Samory realized he could seize land because of the unstable conditions and persuaded allies to support his ambitions. He wanted to establish a kingdom defended by devoted, capable soldiers armed with weapons equivalent or superior to those used by his European and African foes. Samory secured breech-loading rifles from Sierra Leone sources and took control of gold mines at Buré to finance his military campaigns. He also sold ivory to pay for guns and employed blacksmiths to repair and make new weapons.

In 1878, Samory declared he was the military ruler of the Wassulu (Wassoulou) Empire that he created. Establishing a capital at Bissandugu, in which is now Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Samory initiated trade with Tokolor and emphasized his political rights to represent his empire in transactions with other states. During the following year, he seized Kankan, a trading community located near significant roads Samory needed to control. He continued to subdue tribes and their states and secured vast holdings. He demanded that tribes pay him large tributes, which he used to strengthen his military forces. He rewarded his troops on merit and loyalty and expected them to perform both agricultural and military duties.

In addition to military action, Samory pursued diplomacy with selected African rulers and Europeans in West Africa, especially British colonists in Sierra Leone. He traded with Futa Jallon representatives, exchanging slaves for weapons and livestock. Assuming the Islamic title almani, designating a prayer leader, Samory demanded that all people living within his empire become Muslims. He arranged his territory into ten sections with a centralized Islamic administration and ordered the construction of mosques and religious educational facilities.

Samory vowed to remove French colonists from West Africa. After attempting diplomatic methods of persuading the French to leave, he resorted to military actions when the French refused. He challenged French forces that entered his empire to reach French territory in the Ivory Coast. In February, 1882, French soldiers fought Samory’s troops at Kenyeran, which Samory’s followers were attempting to capture. Distracted from their target, Samory’s army focused on countering the French assault. This first major confrontation with a French force taught Samory that the French were formidable opponents, so he began planning new defensive strategies.

Samory next acquired territory closer to Liberia for future weapons support and purchased additional British rifles. The French colonel A. V. A. Combes targeted Samory’s goldfields in 1885 but retreated when Samory’s men effectively cut off French communications. The next year, Samory agreed to terms of the Treaty of Bissandougou. He accepted a western border at the Niger River and briefly submitted to French supervision in a protectorate to secure temporary peace while he regrouped his forces.

Almost forty thousand men, representing infantry and cavalry, served in Samory Touré’s army in 1887. Desiring to rebuild his empire, Samory resumed offensive operations to acquire new territory by ordering his troops to occupy Sikasso (Mali). However, the French encouraged Samory’s new subjects to rebel and supplied them with material support, thereby cutting into Samory’s military strength. During the late 1880’s, Samory agreed to treaty conditions, conceding to the French some disputed land. In 1890, the signing of the Brussels Convention by European powers ended Samory’s access to his most effective weapons when British sources no longer supplied him with rifles.

Meanwhile, both the French and Samory’s forces continued to fight for territory in West Africa. The French colonel Louis Archinard assaulted Kankan in March, 1891. Outgunned by French artillery, Samory guided troops away from Kankan to battle the French elsewhere and defeated French forces at Dabadugu in September. Colonel Humbert and his troops secured Bissandugu in June, 1892. Despite his ambitions, Samory was unable to defeat the French. As French troops pursued him, Samory moved east into the Ivory Coast region, burning crops and villages as he passed through to prevent the French from using them and slowing their progress. He secured Dabakala in 1893 and directed guerrilla raiders against nearby French targets, harassing them for three years.

After defeating most of Samory’s allies, the French concentrated on finding Samory. French commandant Louis Goudraud finally captured Samory at Guelemou while he trying to make his way to Liberia, on September 29, 1898. Charging him with treason, the French imprisoned him on the Ogooeé River island of Ndjole, in the French Equatorial Africa colony of Gabon, far from his homeland. There, Samory contracted pneumonia and died in exile on June 2, 1900.

Significance

Samory Touré influenced West African history long after his death. His followers continued seeking independence from French rulers, praising how Samory had hindered colonial expansion and served as an inspiring example of resistance tactics. Samory’s critics, however, emphasized the brutality of his tactics and his trading in slaves.

Although the empire that Samory created soon ceased to exist, Samory shaped the formation of modern Guinea by serving as a national hero who had resisted colonialism. Declaring he was Samory’s great-grandson—a claim some scholars have questioned—Sekou Touré (1922-1984) became the first person elected modern Guinea’s president after that country gained independence from France in 1958. He stressed his anticolonial heritage to retain political prestige.

During Sekou Touré’s presidency, he approved issuing a Guinea postage stamp featuring Samory. Benin also issued a Samory postage stamp, celebrating his legacy of resistance to foreign control that ultimately helped achieve independence in West Africa. Modern African storytellers still perform epics that chronicle Samory’s life and military achievements. In 1988, playwright Massa Makan Diabate published A Hyena with an Empty Stomach, depicting Samory. In 2000, North Korean leaders dedicated a statue of Samory at Conakry, Guinea, to recognize the centennial of his death.

Bibliography

Ajayi, J. F. Ade, ed. Africa in the Nineteenth Century Until the 1880s. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. This sixth volume in the UNESCO General History of Africa incorporates information concerning Samory’s family, community, motivations for his decisions, and rise to power.

Boahen, A. Adu, ed. Africa Under Colonial Domination, 1880-1935. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. This seventh volume in the UNESCO General History of Africa stresses how Samory preferred fighting to diplomacy and explains the strategies he employed to acquire and maintain effective weapons.

Gann, Lewis H., and Peter Duigan, eds. The History and Politics of Colonialism 1870-1914. Vol. 1 in Colonialism in Africa, 1870-1960. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1969. Chapters by Henri Brunschwig and John D. Hargreaves discuss West African leaders’ reactions to European intrusions in African territory and their strategies to resist colonialism.

Johnson, John William, Thomas A. Hale, and Stephen Belcher, eds. Oral Epics from Africa: Vibrant Voices from a Vast Continent. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997. Includes a partial epic depicting Samory collected by scholar David Conrad in Kissidougou, Guinea, in 1994. Discusses the role of oral storytelling to transmit African history.

Niane, Djibril Tamsir. “The Origins of Samori’s State.” Mande Studies 3 (2001): 7-14. Part of a special journal volume commemorating the centenary of Samory’s death. This issue contains six articles about Samory that discuss such topics as Samory’s allies, his weapons technology, and imperialism in West Africa.

Oliver, Roland, and G. N. Sanderson, eds. From 1870 to 1905. Vol. 6 in The Cambridge History of Africa. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Two chapters focusing on West Africa provide details about how local Africans reacted to Samory’s demands for Islamic conformity, the harsh treatment that Samory inflicted on them, and their decisions to assist the French during military campaigns.