Senegal portuguese arrival and fall of wolof empire · Portuguese Arrival and Fall of Wolof Empire in Senegal
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Portuguese Arrival and Fall of Wolof Empire in Senegal
Portuguese Arrival and Fall of Wolof Empire in Senegal
The Portuguese were the first Europeans to arrive in Senegal at Goree Island in 1444. They were searching for a new spice route to India but soon established ports in Goree and on the Cap-Vert Peninsula (present-day Dakar). The Wolof and Portuguese established trade relations, providing wealth to the empire. Europeans payed good money for war captives (which they sent off as slaves), and the natives were able to bring the slaves to them so that they didn't have to go inland. Senegal was one of the most profitable ports early on in the slave trading business and the strong Wolof were able to sell many captives from weaker regions. Their tributary, the Sine Kingdom, was also quite actively involved in selling captives to the Portuguese. Members of the Waalo Kingdom (a Wolof vassal state) were commonly the victims of captive raids. Sometimes the Europeans incited wars in order to ensure more captives while in other cases, the money they payed was enough incentive for natives to start conflicts just to produce slaves.
While profits were great in the beginning, the Atlantic slave trade soon crippled the empire as the Cayor Kingdom separated from the Wolof in 1549 and the Sine Kingdom became independent in 1550, cutting the Wolof off from the coast and from trade and business with the Portuguese. Along with internal problems, the Wolof were also plagued by outside problems. As a former tributary state of the Mali Empire, the Wolof maintained strong ties with Mali through trade with the empire, but as the Songhai grew stronger, they seized much of Mali's territory, further isolating the Wolof. Furthermore, the Denianke Kingdom (Denanke) had taken over territories to the north, including Takrur, and had attacked the Wolof's northern territories, which they struggled to maintain. By 1600, the Wolof Empire had completely disbanded, although one of the territories remained a Wolof state.
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Senegal Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.