Elizabeth A.

Foster

Rethinking "Republican Paternalism" : William Ponty in French

West Africa, 1890-1915
In: Outre-mers, tome 94, n356-357, 2e semestre 2007. La colonisation culturelle dans l'Empire franais. pp. 211233.

Abstract
Abstract: This article revises the dominant view of William Ponty, Governor General of French West Africa from 1908 until 1915.
Scholars have portrayed Ponty as a republican idealist who tried to implement a particularly republican vision of French
governance in West Africa. In doing so, they have reproduced an image that Ponty carefully cultivated in order to advance his
career. This piece demonstrates that Ponty was really a pragmatist, as well as a shrewd politician. His policies were not driven by
ideology, but by practical considerations and a desire to reconcile a variety of French and African groups to French rule. This
revision of Ponty's image suggests a broader re-evaluation ofthe role of republican ideology in French colonial endeavors.

Citer ce document / Cite this document :

Foster Elizabeth A. Rethinking "Republican Paternalism" : William Ponty in French West Africa, 1890-1915. In: Outre-mers,
tome 94, n356-357, 2e semestre 2007. La colonisation culturelle dans l'Empire franais. pp. 211-233.
doi : 10.3406/outre.2007.4294
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/outre_1631-0438_2007_num_94_356_4294

Rethinking "Republican Paternalism":

William Ponty in French West Africa, 1890-1915

ElizabethA. FOSTER

Introduction: A Republican Idologue?

William Ponty, though hardly a household naine, is one of the better
known colonial Governors General of French West Africa. Ponty, who
served from 1908 until his death in 1915, enjoys a rputation as a
"republican paternalist," a term employed by G. Wesley Johnson in a
1978 pice analyzing Ponty's governance of French West Africa. I
characterizes Ponty as a "dyed in the wool" French republican and
"the high apostle of republican paternalism, a blending of egalitarian
concepts based upon the 'rights of man' with a code of noblesse
oblige." 2 Alice Conklin, in her work on the French West Africa under
the Third Republic, also emphasizes Ponty's republican idealism. She
follows Johnson and argues that Ponty implemented a uniquely
"civilizing mission" in West Africa through his political, judicial,
and educational reforms. 3 Thus, both Johnson and Conklin posit that
Ponty directly applied republican principles to the governance of
French West Africa. They see vidence of his republican values in his
stance against slavery, his anti-clericalism, and his attempts to undermine African "feudal aristocracies." Their scholarship has helped to
establish Ponty as the paragon of "republican" colonial governance in
West Africa.
Though there is vidence to support the portrayal of Ponty as a
republican idealist, much of it cornes out of his officiai statements,
correspondent, and directives, which should be carefully evaluated
in context. Reliance on such material may reproduce a rputation
that Ponty carefully cultivated for himself in order to advance his
Africa'
1. G. inWesley
African
Johnson,
Proconsuls:
'William
European
Ponty
Governors
and Republican
in Africa, Paternalism
eds. L. H. Gann
in French
and Peter
West
Duignan (New York, 1978)
2. Ibid., 141, 128.
3. Alice Conklin, A Mission to Civilize: The Republican Idea of Empire in France andWest
Africa, 1895-1930 (Stanford, 1997), 107-141.
4. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize, 110, 289 n. 20. Johnson, 'William Ponty', 132, 140.
William B. Cohen echoes this in Rulers of Empire: The French Colonial Service in Africa
(Stanford, 1971), 75.
Outre-Mers, T. 05, N 356-357 (2007)

212

E. A. FOSTER

career. 5 His day-to-day practice of governance and the testimony of

contemporaries outside of officiai settings may be a more reliable guide.
Historians Martin Klein and James F. Searing hve questioned Johnson's "republican paternalist" view, but their points about Ponty are
peripheral to their arguments, and lodged in footnotes. 6 With so little
scholarship available about Ponty, historians frequently return to Johnson's characterization. ?
This article will prsent new primary vidence and review secondary
literature in order to revise the dominant portrait of Ponty as a
idealist and prsent him as a pragmatist, as well as a capable
politician and a creator of his own legend. First, it will draw upon
secondary literature published after Johnson's work to revisit Ponty's
career in the Sudan. It will evaluate Ponty's rle in the ending of slavery
in the Sudan, which considerably boosted his "republican" rputation.
The bulk of the article will then prsent new research frorn the archives
of the Fathers of the Holy Spirit (henceforth referred to as the Spiritans), who served as Catholic missionaries in the Sudan and in Sngal
during Ponty's stints there, in order to examine Ponty's reputed anticlericalism. The material from the Spiritan archives and scholarship
about Ponty's policies towards Islam demonstrate that he did not
handle religious questions through the prism of republican ideology,
but instead negotiated complicated relationships with religious groups.
The article will also suggest a pragmatic valuation of some of Ponty's
most famous policy initiatives.
The object of this pice is not to malign Ponty, but rather to prsent a
balanced portrait of the man and his policies in light of new research.
The testimony of his contemporaries reveals that Ponty was first and
foremost a politician, rather than a republican idealist. Like many
politicians, he was a man of contradictions. He demonstrated prodigious political skill in his rise to Governor General and in his
of the religiously and ethnically diverse West African Fdration,
but he was also an indecisive and risk-averse leader at times. He was a
charming man who disarmed possible opponents, but some
found him insincere. Ponty was always concerned with maintaining his own personal power and strengthening the French grip on West
5. For two laudatory contemporary views of Ponty see Senator Charles Humbert,
L'Afrique occidentale franaise sous l'administration de M. W. Ponty , La Grande
Revue 67 (1911), 49-70; and Paul Marty's eulogy for Ponty in the Revue du Monde
Musulman 31, (1915), 1-22.
6. Martin A. Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule in French WestAfrica (Cambridge, 1998),
288 n. 2. Klein writes "Johnson labels Ponty a Republican paternalist. I do not share this
view.Within the context of the colonial administration, he was a libral in that he believed
in the market and preferred less restraint on the individual, but he was also an astute
bureaucratie politician, who was willing to take risks, but not too many." See also James
F. Searing, 'Accommodation and Rsistance: Chiefs, Muslim leaders, and Politicians in
Colonial Sngal, 1890-1934' (Ph.D. diss. Princeton University, 1985), 238, n. 266.
7. For example, Christopher Harrison, France and Islam in WestAfrica 1860-1960
1988) 211, n. 85.

WILLIAM PONTY IN FRENCH WEST AFRICA, 1890-1915

213

Africa. Republican idealism, though it inspired some of his language

and provided a way to talk about the French project in abstract and
politically palatable ternis, did not play a primary rle in many of the
practical challenges of his day-to-day decision-making. This reassessment of Ponty suggests further questions about the rle of republican
ideology in the French colonial endeavor. If the emblematic
colonialist was not as ideologically driven as previously thought,
the idea of a fundamentally republican French colonial project also
merits re-examination.
The Soudanais Legacy
Nearly ail historians who hve written about Ponty cite his
in the French conquest of the Western Sudan and the
of French government there as the formative exprience of his
African career. Ponty first arrived in West Africa in 1890, and served as a
Personal secretary to Commander Archinard during the Sudanese
campaigns. After a brief stint in Madagascar in 1896, he requested a
transfer back to the Sudan, where he became the administrator of the
Circle of Djenn. In 1899 he was promoted to the Governor General's
spcial delegate and then officially became Governor of UpperSenegal-Niger in 1904. He served in that capacity until his promotion
to Governor General in 1908. Johnson and Conklin point to Ponty's
service in the conquest as key to the development of what they describe
as his republican vision of colonial administration. Alice Conklin
writes, "Confronted with such powerful adversaries, most colonial
commanders began to see their fight as a republican crusade against
'feudal' oppressors and religious tyrants with whom no compromise
could be brooked-once again ignoring that their own incursions into
West Africa were keeping 'oppression' alive." 8 This argument holds
that the French battles against the African emperors Samori and
Amadu sowed a dislike of African oppressors in Ponty and precipitated
his dtermination to bring enlightened French republicanism to the
empire.
Yet there are no obvious links between service under Archinard, who
embodied military disdain of the Republic and civilian rule, and
Ponty's supposed embrace of "republican" ideology. A. S. KanyaForstner's classic history of the French conquest of the Sudan shows
that French military administrations in the Sudan were far removed
from, and contemptuous of, republican civilian control. Many of
Ponty's early mentors in the Sudan did not identify with republican
ideals: they were deeply suspicious of the Third Republic, and later
aligned themselves on the right with the army and the Church in the
8. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize, m.
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E- A- POSTER

Dreyfus affair. 9 Ponty succeeded in this milieu and was an "old

Soudanais" in the true sens of the term, which referred specifically to those who had served under the military government of
the rgion. He served in seventeen battles against Samori, was
wounded and awarded the Lgion of Honor. lo Ponty impressed
Archinard, who enthusiastically recommended him for promotions. He
also gained the confidence of General de Trentinian, military governor
of the Sudan from 1895 to 1899. Ponty always reserved a spcial
affection for his military comrades from the Sudan, and later in life
pursued a mmorial project to honor Frenchmen who had died in the
conquest of Africa, which will be discussed below. It is clear that he
understood the point of view of the French military minds he served in
the Sudan.
In addition, early French rgimes in the Sudan did not provide the
young Ponty with shining examples of republican idealism put into
practice. Archinard's System of governance relied on compromise with
African "feudal" style rulers. " As Kanya-Forstner argues,
There was little room in it for the inculcation of French ideals of civilization
or progress, and Archinard never intended it to act as a vehicle of the mission
civilisatrice. He was unwilling to endanger security by tampering with established local customs, however uncivilized they might be. He therefore
ordered the Rsident of Bandiagara to turn a blind eye to the whole question
of the slave trade. I2
Archinard did very little to restrain the African chiefs upon whom he
depended, and they "plundered" and enslaved the local populations. *3
Archinard and his men even gave captured slaves to their African allies
and their own troops. I4 In fact, Archinard's only stab at "civilizing"
was his installation of Catholic Spiritan missionaries at Kita, Kayes, and
Dinguira-hardly a "republican" enterprise. I5
9. A. S. Kanya-Forstner, The Conquest of the Vfstern Sudan: a study in French military
imperialism. London, 1969), particularly 259-260 on the Voulet affair. Douglas Porch, The
March to the Marne:The French Army 1871-1914 (Cambridge, 1981), I4off.
10. Johnson, 'William Ponty,' 129-130.
11. Archinard did not see Africans as equal partners, however. Martin Klein writes,
"Archinard was no Lugard. He was too authoritarian to concde African rulers much
authority, too contemptuous to understand his African underlings and too insecure to
trust them." Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule, 89.
12. Kanya-Forstner, Conquest, 200.
13. Ibid., 201.
14. Richard Roberts and Martin A. Klein, 'The Banamba Slave Exodus of 1905 and
the Dcline of Slavery in the Western Sudan,' Journal of African History, 21 (1980), 383.
Albert Nebout also describes the distribution of African women purchased by French
officiais in his account of his colonial service. Albert Nebout, Passions africaines: rcit.
(Geneva, 1995), 74.
15. Elizabeth A. Foster, 'Church and State in the Republic's Empire: Catholic
and the Colonial Administration in French Sngal, 1880-1936" (Ph.D. diss.
Princeton University, 2006), 69-78. Roger de Benoist, Eglise et pouvoir colonial au Soudan
franais: Administrateurs et missionnaires dans la Boucle du Niger (1885-1945) (Paris, 1987),
80.

WILLIAM PONTY IN FRENCH WEST AFRICA, 1890-1915

215

Thus Ponty's first expriences on the colonial scne took place in a

particularly conservative, military context. This does not mean that
Ponty was a mre disciple of Archinard. He had other mentors, including Gallieni, under whom he briefly served in Madagascar. l6 However, Ponty always identified himself as a Soudanais and it is important to
note that the military welcomed his nomination as Governor General in
1908 as the installation of "one of their own." *? His later actions
suggest that the most valuable lesson he learned in the Sudan was not
the need to wipe out African "feudalism" but, rather, that the French
administration had to work with Africans and manage a variety of
French and African political interests to maintain power. Ponty proved
adept at this: he successfully transitioned into the civilian
in the Sudan, despite the deep antagonism between the military
and civilian colonial milieus in the rgion. His early colonial exprience
exposed him to the reality that French colonial rule was a balancing act,
and when it was his turn to lead he was not idealistic, but pragmatic and
opportunistic.
This practicality and opportunism were vident in Ponty's handling
of the end of slavery in the Sudan, which he used to burnish his
republican credentials. The French record on slavery in the Sudan had
been poor from the beginning. While French lgislation of 1848 prohibited slavery in the empire, in practice French administrators in the
Sudan had long ignored slavery and even engaged with it, because they
lacked the resources to stop it and because it did not make political
sens to oppose it. As noted above, Archinard distributed slaves to his
allies and soldiers, and took ample advantage of forced labor himself.
The French set up so-called villages de libert for freed slaves in Sudan,
but they simply became a source of forced labor for the French rgime.
Among Africans, the inhabitants of thse villages were known as the
"white's slaves," because they were frequently conscripted for public
works. l8 As an executive in the Sudan, Ponty "ruthlessly" exploited
slave laborers sent by their masters to complte the railroad to Bamako
in the midst of a famine. I9 Until 1905, concerns about the labor supply
16. Gallieni was known for his anti-clericalism and first coined the term politique des
races, which Ponty used in West Africa. Yet it is important to note that Archinard and
Gallieni were enemies, and Ponty requested a transfer back to West Africa after a year in
Gallieni's service, though Gallieni gave him positive reviews. On antagonism between
Gallieni and Archinard see Kanya-Forstner, Conquest, 199-200; on Gallieni and Ponty see
Johnson, 'William Ponty,' 130. For more on Gallieni see Virgil L. Matthew, Jr. 'Joseph
Simon Gallieni (1849-1916)' in African Proconsuls, 80-108 and Barnett Singer and John
Langdon, Cultured Force: Makers and Defenders of the French Colonial Empire (Madison,
2004), 117-169.
17. Searing, 'Accommodation and Rsistance,' 238, n. 266.
18. Richard Roberts, 'The End of Slavery in the French Sudan, 1905-1914' in The End
of Slavery in Africa, eds. Suzanne Miers and Richard Roberts (Madison, 1988), 285;
Roberts and Klein, 'Banamba Slave Exodus,' 382-383. For dtails on the heavy workloads
the French administration imposed on the inhabitants of the villages de libert see Denise
Bouche, Les villages de libert en Afrique noire franaise 1887-1910 (Paris, 1968), 146-155.
19. Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule, 126.
Outre-Mers, T. 95, N 356-357 (2007)

2l6

E. A. FOSTER

and political upheaval trumped idealism for Ponty and French officiais
in the Sudan. As Martin Klein has put it, there were "limits to Ponty's
commitment" to mancipation. 2O
Though Ponty presided over the end of slavery in the Sudan as
Governor between 1904 and 1908, his administration did not initially
play a proactive rle in the process. It was only after mancipation
began that he carefully and successfully cultivated his rputation as a
liberator. 2I Richard Roberts and Martin Klein hve shown that Ponty
and other French officiais in the Sudan initially viewed mancipation
with trpidation and were concerned about social and conomie
upheaval that might resuit from it. 22When slaves in Banamba began to
leave their masters in 1905, the French administration reacted conservatively and tried to protect slaveowners' property rights as well as
agricultural production. It was only when slave departures became
impossible to manage that Ponty got in front of the gathering wave. He
saw that free labor could actually benefit conomie development, and
probably also calculated that the publicity would burnish his rputation
in the ardently republican French government of 1905, which oversaw
the sparation of Church and State. 23 Martin Klein points out that in
his first year as Governor General, Ponty vaunted his record on
in his speech opening the Conseil du Gouvernement. 2* As Klein
notes elsewhere, Ponty "knew when to appeal to Republican principle." 25 Overall then, as Roberts writes, "it was not ideas of individual
liberty so central to the French bourgeois political economy which
transformed social and conomie organization" in the Sudan. 26
Rather, Ponty reacted to African initiative, and then he used it to create
his rputation as a republican governor of Africa.
An Anticlrical?
Ponty's rputation as a liberator of slaves helped to propel him to the
top job in French West Africa in 1908. Yet he did not use his position at
20. Ibid., 179.
21. James Searing has pointed out that Johnson's "republican paternalist" valuation
of Ponty relies heavily on Ponty's own assessment of the end of slavery in the Sudan, as
few comprehensive studies of the subject existed when Johnson wrote his pice. Roberts
and Klein published their findings later. Searing, 'Accommodation and Rsistance,' 215,
n. 236.
22. Roberts and Klein, 'Banamba Slave Exodus,' 374-394; Roberts, 'End of Slavery in
the French Sudan,' 282-307; Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule.
Sudan,'
23. Roberts
301. Note
describes
that Ponty
this shift
wasininPonty's
Paris inthinking
1905 and,
in 'End
whileofheSlavery
was there,
in thewrote
French
an
assessment of his work for the Minister of Colonies. He would hve thus observed the
French political landscape firsthand. Johnson, 'William Ponty,' 131.
24. Martin A. Klein, 'Slave Rsistance and Slave Emancipation in Coastal Guinea,' in
Roberts and Miers, End of Slavery in Africa, 211, n. 4.
25. Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule, 126.
26. Roberts, 'The End of Slavery in French Sudan,' 302.

WILLIAM PONTY IN FRENCH WEST AFRICA, 1890-1915

217

the pinnacle of the French West African hierarchy to launch a sweeping

ideological program. Instead, his policies tended to be practical in
nature, intended to strengthen French rule and maintain order. This is
particularly vident in his handling of religious questions. Though
Johnson writes that Ponty was a "staunch defender of anticlrical
principles," his policies towards Catholics and Muslims in the
do not support this view. 27 Rather, while he remained very wary of
the potential of religious questions to cause trouble, he approached
them with circumspection and deployed diffrent stratgies on a case
by case basis. Though he was a freemason, who carefully managed his
republican image and refused the sacraments on his deathbed, extensive research in the Spiritan missionary archive demonstrates that he
had a much better relationship with Catholic missionaries than historians hve realized. 2g When thse findings are placed alongside scholarship about his approach to Muslims, it enhances the portrait of him
as a pragmatic leader, and a politician with the ability to charm a variety
of audiences.
Prior to Ponty' s lvation to Governor General and his move to
Dakar, relations between Catholic missions and the French
in West Africa were strained, particularly in Sngal. 29 Though the
colonies had remained relatively sheltered from republican anticlrical
lgislation in the late nineteenth century, this changed in the wake of
the bitter polemics of the Dreyfus Affair. In January 1903 the Chamber
of Deputies asked the Minister of Colonies to "laicize ail of his departments and remove ail religious emblems from establishments
upon his Ministry." 3OThis had a particularly disruptive effect in
the Four Communes of Sngal, where the colonial ministry forced
Catholic orders out of government schools and hospitals they had run
for dcades. Relations between the colonial government and the
Church deteriorated so much that the Spiritan bishop of Senegambia
considered moving his episcopal seat from Dakar to the British Gambia. 3I In the five years that followed, tensions remained high as officiais
27. Johnson, 'William Ponty,' 132; Conklin, A Mission to Civlize, 289, n. 20.
28. Ponty had been raised in a Catholic household, but he refused to renounce his
freemasonry or regularize his marriage in the Church on his deathbed in Dakar. Parish
priest Father Le Hunsec had to refuse Ponty a religious burial despite numerous requests
by officers of the garrison, administrators, and the Governor General's relatives in France.
"I thought my heart was going to break when they showed me a telegram from his mother,
signed by ail the members of his family, asking for religious services," Le Hunsec wrote to
Mgr Jalabert. P. Le Hunsec to Mgr Jalabert, Dakar, 17 June 1915, CSSP 31 1.15 bi.
29. Foster, 'Church and State,' 143-193.
30. Quoted in Draft Circular Gouverneur Gnral to Dlgu permanent de Kayes
no. 37, Saint-Louis, 28 Mardi 1903, National Archives of France (henceforth ANF),
Paris, France microfilm 2oomi 1072: AOF fonds ancien 17G 36. Thse microforms are
copies of documents located in the National Archives of Sngal. Thse citations thus
include both the film numbers (2oomi) and the rfrences for the originals (AOF).
31. The Gambia was part of the vicariate of Senegambia and the Spiritans ran a large
school in the capital of Bathurst (now Banjul) and some stations along the river.
Mgr Kunemann to Pre (henceforth P.) Faugre, Ziguinchor, 28 May 1904, Archives of
Outre-Mers, T. 95, N 356-357 (2007)

2l8

E. A. FOSTER

considered applying a host of metropolitan anti-clerical lgislation,

including the 1905 sparation of Church and State, in the West African
colonies. Sparation was never officially promulgated in West Africa,
but in late 1907 an ambitious young Governor of Sngal named Joost
Van Vollenhoven suppressed the colony's religious budget, which paid
the salaries of the bishop and the Spiritan priests who served in
the Communes. 32 This is where things stood on the eve of Ponty's
nomination.
Ponty, the allegedly anticlrical republican, brought an end to five
years of Church and State strife in Sngal and calmed tensions
between missionaries and the French rgime throughout the West
African fdration. In Dakar he partnered with Bishop Hyacinthe
Jalabert, an experienced colonial hand who assumed the episcopacy in
the same month that Ponty took office, to end the crisis. 33 Despite
Ponty's Masonic affiliation, the two men were friends and respected
one another. By 1908, they had already known each other for twelve
years and had corresponded when Ponty served as Governor in Upper
Senegal-Niger. 34 Their friendship and mutual admiration even
in Robert Arnaud's roman clef about Ponty. 35 Ponty had become
familiar with the Spiritans from his service under Archinard in the
Sudan, and was friendly with Mgr Alexandre Le Roy, the Superior
General of the order in Paris. The Spiritans developed a positive view of
Ponty in the Sudan: upon his appointment to Governor General, the
Spiritan mission diarist in Saint-Louis expressed optimism about him,
the Fathers of the Holy Spirit (Pres du Saint-Esprit, henceforth CSSP), Chevilly-Larue,
France, 3I 1.15 aj.
32. Mgr Kunemann to Trs Rvrend Pre (henceforth T. R. P.) Le Roy, Dakar,
21 September 1907, CSSP 3I 1.15 a2. Gouverneur du Sngal to Gouverneur Gnral
no. 1095, Saint-Louis, 13 November 1907, ANF microfilm 2oomi 1071: AOF fonds
ancien 17G 35. The dcision not to apply the laws of 1901, 1904, and 1905 stemmed both
from concern about Muslim reaction, and an administrative dsire to remain free from
the
State,'
constraints
173-185. of
For
law.
similar
For adebates
detailedregarding
discussion
Algeria
of thisand
question
Indochina,
see Foster,
see Oissila
'Church
Saadia,
and
mondiale,' Vingtime
'L'anticlricalisme,
article
Sicle,d'exportation?
Revue d'histoire
Le Cas
87 (2005),
de l'Algrie
101-112
avantand
la premire
Charles guerre
Keith,
'Catholicisme, Bouddhisme et lois laques auTonkin (1899-1914),' Vingtime Sicle, Revue
d'histoire 87 (2005), 1 13-128.
33. Jalabert had served in the colonial clergy in French Guyana before coming to
Sngal in 1895 and had been Bishop Kunemann's vicar gnerai, or second-in-command,
for almost eight years. See the mission's internai documents on Jalabert's nomination for
bishop. 'Informations sur les Candidats proposs pour la charge de Prfet apostolique du
Sngal et de Vicaire apostolique de la Sngambie,'T. R. P. Le Roy to Cardinal Prfet de
la Propagande, Paris, September 1908, CSSP 31 1.15 a6.
34. P. Jalabert toT. R. P. Le Roy, Dakar, 30 March 1908, CSSP 3I 1.15 a2. Regarding
Jalabert's correspondence with Ponty see Mgr Jalabert's Journal, 24 January 1904,
27 September 1904, CSSP 2D 34.1.
35. In the novel, the Governor General's name is Ledolmer and the bishop's name is
Maindret. Maindret wears the cross of the Lgion of Honor, which he earned for his
service in a yellow fever pidmie, just as Jalabert did. Maindret makes a veiled rfrence
to the Governor General's freemasonry, but asserts that he thinks Ledolmer will be saved
in spite of it, while Ledolmer characterizes Maindret as a saint and a hero. Robert Arnaud
(under the pseudonym Robert Randau), Le Chef des Porte-Plume, (Paris, 1922), 18-21.

WILLIAM PONTY IN FRENCH WEST AFRICA, 1890-1915

219

if not about the French government: "I do not know if we will gain a lot
from the change, but we will certainly not lose anything. M. Ponty has
always been sympathetic to our priests in Sudan and in Sngal. But we
shall see if the sectarian government of the mtropole will let him freely
act upon his sympathies." 36 For his part Ponty greeted Jalabert's
nomination as bishop with enthusiasm and he told the priests in Dakar
to thank Mgr Le Roy for Jalabert's promotion. 37
Historians hve some vidence to charge Ponty with anti-clericalism
for the actions he took as Governor of Upper-Senegal-Niger in the
push to extend laicization to the colonies. In the wake of the Chamber's
laicization resolution of 1903, he preemptively decided to stop dealing
with the White Fathers, who had replaced the Spiritans in Sudan in
1902, as a religious collective and to pay each priest an individual
stipend until laie replacements arrived. 3 In 1904, he sent an urgent
telegram to the Governor General, arguing, in spite of the pitiful
number of schools in the rgion, that there was no reason to allow a
White Father to found a private school at the very moment when the
administration was trying to establish secular ducation. "I do not think
we should help them grow," he wrote. 39 After implementing laicization
in the colony, Ponty reported to the Governor General that the local
people had "favorably welcomed" the laie schools, and were sending
their children "in great numbers" to learn French. The results were
"very satisfying" and "superior" to those of the missionaries, who had
"inspired dfiance" among the Muslim population. 4 Ponty found
missionary efforts in predominantly Muslim areas both futile and a
source of discontent among the locals, who resented attempts to
convert them.
Yet Ponty's anti-clerical behavior in the Sudan was not simply a
manifestation of republican ideology. His support for laicization was
politically astute; he knew it would serve him well at the Ministry of
Colonies, and he was probably aware that Camille Guy, his counterpart
in Sngal, was the subject of anti-clerical tirades in metropolitan
papers for his cautious approach to laicization. 4I Moreover, Ponty
36. Spiritan Mission Journal, Saint-Louis, 18 February 1908, CSSP 3I 2.16.
37. P. Le Hunsec to P. Pascal, Dakar, 18 May 1909, CSSP 31 1.15 a2.
38. Dlgu permanent to Gouverneur Gnral no. 212, Kayes, 28 July 1903, ANF
microfilm 2oomi 1181: AOF fonds ancien J83. Ponty took this step because he believed
that, according to the 1901 law of association, the White Fathers were no longer an
authorized religious order. Ponty was mistaken-along with the Spiritans the White
Fathers were one of five religious orders exempted from the law.
39. Dlgu permanent to Gouverneur Gnral, Telegram, Kayes, 9 September 1904,
ANF microfilm 200 mi 1071: AOF fonds ancien 17G 33. The Governor General agreed
with Ponty's assessment and disallowed the new school in Gouverneur Gnral
to Dlgu permanent, Telegram no. 175, Gore, 13 September 1904, ANF microfilm
200 mi 107 1: AOF fonds ancien 17G 33.
40. Gouverneur du Haut Sngal Niger to Gouverneur Gnral, Telegram no. 68,
Kayes, 20 March 1905, ANF microfilm 2oomi 1181: AOF fonds ancien J83.
41. For example, Georges Clemenceau's Parisian daily L'Aurore attacked Guy for not
moving quickly enough towards laicization in a venomous article in May 1904. The pice
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harbored a particular dislike for the White Fathers, which he did not
extend to other Catholic missionaries. Cardinal Lavigerie had founded
the order expressly for converting Muslim populations, which Ponty
found to be a waste of time and potentially dangerous. 42 Ponty felt that
the prsence of the missionaries alongside administrators in rural circles led Muslims to think that the French wanted to restrict their liberty
of conscience, and gave anti-French Muslim leaders ammunition to stir
up trouble and threaten the maintenance of order. 43 Ponty was rnuch
more favorably inclined towards the Spiritan missionaries. 44 While
both orders were still active in the Sudan, he argued that the
should not privilge the White Fathers, who taught in indigenous languages, over the Spiritans, "who at least teach our language to
the students in their schools." 45 Ponty was upset by the Vatican's
dcision to give the Spiritan missions in the Sudan to the White Fathers
at the turn of the century, though Spiritan leaders approved. 46 Spiritan
Father Tranquilli reported in 1902 that Ponty had not concealed his
displeasure at the news that the White Fathers would take over the
Spiritan stations. 47
Thus, on his the way up the career ladder, Ponty displayed hostility
to the White Fathers and may hve employed anti-clericalism as a tool
for advancement, but he was never uniformly, ideologically
48 Once he reached the top in 1908, he displayed more warmth
towards Catholic missionaries, and particularly to the Spiritans in
Sngal, his new base of oprations. Upon taking office, he immediately
improved the poisoned relationship between the administration and the
mission in the colony. He resolved the crisis of the priests' salaries
initiated by Van Vollenhoven and ordered the Governor of Sngal to
accused Guy of "sympathizing" with religious orders and of "formally disobeying" the
order to remove religious emblems from public buildings. It also charged him with trying
to "prevent" laicization and favoring "clrical agents" to the "dtriment" of their republican colleagues. Jonquer, 'Au Sngal,' L'Aurore, 20 May 1904, 2.
42. For more on Lavigerie and the White Fathers see Franois Renault, Cardinal
Lavigerie: Churchman, Prophet and Missionary, trans. John O'Donohue (London, 1994.)
43. Dlgu permanent to Gouverneur General, Kayes, 26 April 1900, ANF microfilm
200 mi 1071: AOF fonds ancien 17G 33.
44. The Spiritans had been Archinard's original partners in the rgion and, as the
Commander's personal secretary, Ponty probably played a rle in arranging the foundation of their stations at Kayes, Kita, and Dinguira. He may hve drafted Archinard's
correspondence and executive orders on the subject, such as Commandant Suprieur
Archinard to Prfet Apostolique, Kayes, 10 December 1889, CSSP 3I 1.10 b7. Orders by
Archinard, Commandant suprieur du Soudan franais, no. 381, 7 March 1890; no. 396, 9
March 1890, CSSP 31 1.14 bi.
45. Dlgu permanent to Gouverneur General, Kayes, 26 April 1900, ANF microfilm
200 mi 1071: AOF fonds ancien 17G 33.
46. The Spiritan stations in the Sudlan were difficult to manage and hard to supply
with personnel since they were so far from the order' s administrative center in Dakar.
47. P. Tranquilli to Mgr Kunemann, Saint-Louis, 5 January 1902, CSSP 31 1.15 ai. The
Spiritans even feared that Ponty would try to block the change.
48. Freemasonry could also be a means of career advancement in the empire, or was at
least believed to be by contemporaries. Owen White, 'Networking: Freemasons and the
Colonial State in French West Africa, 1895-1914,' French History 19 (2005), 94, 108-109.

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pay the priests a reduced wage out of a spcial allotment in the

49 Mgr Jalabert reported to Mgr Le Roy in 1910,
I do not hve to tell you that our relationship with the authorities of the
colony is excellent: under M. Roume we were no longer summoned to officiai
rceptions, but since M. Ponty has been in power we receive every
circular. One could argue that the governors and bureaucrats show us
genuine good will. 5O
This was a far cry from his predecessor's plans to re-orient the
mission in the British Gambia.
Ponty never publicly promoted mission activity in Sngal, but he
earned the missionaries' trust by treating them fairly and by maintaining private friendships with individual priests. In 1908, Father Tranquilli, one of Ponty' s old acquaintances from conquest-era Sudan, was
involved in a dispute with the Ministry of Colonies over his right to a
paid vacation. Ponty sentTranquilli 150 francs out of his own pocket to
pay for a htel room in Marseille and a ticket to Paris. 5I The Spiritans
got in the habit of turning to Ponty for help when other members of the
administration antagonized them, as in 1909, when the administrator of
Sine Saloum refused to allow Father Greffier to hold a mass in Kaolack. 52 Moreover, according to a confidential letter of Mgr Jalabert,
Ponty was prepared to give the Spiritans 20,000 francs in public funds
in order to found a school in Dakar for the sons of officers and
bureaucrats who wished to go on to French universities. 53 This would
hve undone laicization and publicly demonstrated Ponty's sympathy
for the Spiritans, but it never happened. The proposai may hve been a
gubernatorial olive branch designed to flatter the mission. In any case,
Ponty succeeded in winning the sympathy and confidence of the Spiritan priests. And although he never fully reinstated their former salaries,
49. See Ponty's marginal note on a letter about the issue, before he traveled from Paris
to Dakar to take up his appointaient as Governor General: "Once I arrive in Dakar the
problem will be solved" in P. Alaux to Gouverneur Gnral, Gore, 10 September 1908,
ANF microfilm 200 mi 1072: AOF fonds ancien 17G 35. For his order regarding the
salaries see Gouverneur Gnral to Gouverneur du Sngal no. 1801, Dakar, 29 December 1908, ANF microfilm 200 mi 1072: AOF fonds ancien 17G 35.
50. Mgr Jalabert toT. R. P. Le Roy, Dakar, March 1910, CSSP 31 1.15 a6.
51. P. Tranquilli to P. Barbier, Dakar, 24 June 1908, CSSP 31 1.15 a8.
52. Amde Lefilliatre, the administrator of Sine Saloum, prevented Greffier from
celebrating a mass as he passed through Kaolack in 1907 and again in 1909. In 1909
Greffier telegrammed Dakar and asked that someone see Ponty immediately to find out
why. Father Le Hunsec reported that Ponty deplored the incident and that Ponty claimed
to hve received nothing from Kaolack, nor to hve sent any orders of the kind. Ponty told
Le Hunsec that the misunderstanding was most likely the resuit of a personality conflict
and guaranteed "complte liberty" for worship, as long as the missionaries announced
their intention to hold a meeting beforehand. P. Le Hunsec to P. Pascal, Dakar, 18 May
1909; P. Greffier to P.?, Dakar, 2 June 1909, CSSP 31 1.15 a2. Afterwards, Father Greffier
believed that Lefilliatre's antagonism towards the Spiritans led to Lefilliatre's subsquent
reappointment to Dahomey, tnough there is no confirmation for this. P. Greffier to Mgr,
Dakar, 4 July 1909, CSSP 3I 1.15 a2.
53. Mgr Jalabert to P. Pascal, confidential, Dakar, 24 December 1913, CSSP 31 1.15 bi.
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the Spiritans did not fault Ponty, but instead blamed anti-clerical forces
in the mtropole. 54
Ponty made an important and enduring contribution to the Catholic
mission in Sngal by playing a key part in the conception of the
Souvenir Africain, Dakar's monumental cathedral. 55 In his limited but
crucial rle in this project Ponty revealed his loyalty to his roots in
Archinard's Sudan, as well as his political sawy. He devised a way for
the mission to raise funds for the project without state support, but,
ever managing his republican image, he did not let the priests associate
him publicly with the Catholic cause. 56
According to Mgr Jalabert, Ponty conceived the idea of making the
cathedral a monument to those Frenchmen who had given their lives to
extend French influence on African soil.The Spiritans had long wanted
to replace the church on Dakar's main square, which had been closed
as a public danger in 1901 and demolished in 1907. 57 Mgr Jalabert was
particularly eager to erect a building befitting the dignity of the episcopal seat in the burgeoning capital of French West Africa, but the mission
lacked the necessary funds. Ponty's suggestion of making the Church a
mmorial enabled the Spiritans to draw financial support frorn a variety
of sources. Jalabert told Mgr Le Roy that,
Governor General Ponty would like the Cathedral to be both a religious and
a patriotic monument, dedicated to the memory of ail the officers, administrators, and merchants, who by dying on the field of honor, contributed to
the cration of the vast colonial empire of French West Africa. Marble
plaques bearing the names of thse valiant men who gave their lives to make
France known and loved, will be placed in the interior of the Church. He
developed this idea with much enthusiasm to myself and Father Lecoq, but
he asked that we not publish his name. s
This idea appealed to Jalabert because he shared Ponty's patriotism
and a deep sympathy for those who had died in the bush for the glory of
France, particularly soldiers. In their meetings, the two men rued how
no one tended isolated French graves in Africa. Jalabert had been
involved with the Souvenir franais, a group dedicated to memorializing
fallen French soldiers, since the 1890s. The Spiritans also traditionally
conducted funeral services for French soldiers who perished without
54. Mgr Jalabert toT. R. P. Le Roy, Dakar, 19 September 1910, CSSP 3I 1.15 a6.
55. For more on the cathedral itself, see Foster, 'Church and State,' 275-304.
56. The cathedral became associated in some important respects with the Soudanais of
the conquest era. The 1936 conscration prominently featured General Gouraud, a
military hero and friend of the Spiritan mission who, like Ponty, first made his name in
the Western Sudan in the 1890s.
57. This square was formerly known as Place Prott and is now the Place de
Spiritan Mission Journal, Dakar, 29 July 1901, CSSP 3I 2.7. Paule Brasseur, "A
propos de la cathdrale de Dakar" Mmoire spiritaine 10, (1999), 109-117. Mgr Le Hunsec
also wrote memoir on the history of the cathedral project prior to 1920. CSSP 3I 1.16 b4
dossiers 2-3.
58. Mgr Jalabert toT. R. P. Le Roy, Dakar, March 1910, CSSP 31 1.15 a6.

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the succor of the sacraments in the far reaches of the fdration. 59

Jalabert wore his Lgion d'honneur cross with great pride. In the context
of colonial war dead, patriotism and religion blended more readily than
elsewhere in republican France.
Ponty probably felt he could not risk his republican rputation in
France, or the antagonism of the federation's Muslim population, by
openly sponsoring the cathedral. His tried to keep his relationship to
the project private, and it appears that he never went to meet with
Jalabert at the mission. 6oYet the cathedral mmorial was clearly close
to his heart, and he helped it advance behind the scnes. In 1913
Jalabert showed Ponty the architect's design for the plans and reported
to Paris that the Governor General was very excited about them. "He
wants this design and no other. He was enthusiastic," Jalabert wrote to
Mgr Le Roy. Ponty then gave the plans to his wife for safe passage back
to France. 6l Ponty also enabled the mission to obtain the land necessary for the building. In order to extend their lot on the square to make
it big enough for a monumental cathedral, the Spiritans needed to take
possession of a small street. After protracted and frustrating negotiations with the city, Ponty intervened in their favor. 62 In 19 14 Ponty
encouraged Jalabert to take a cathedral fundraising trip to Argentina,
promised him personal introductions, and guaranteed him success. 63
One could argue that by suggesting the Souvenir Africain idea, Ponty
co-opted the meaning of the cathedral for the French state, turning
what would hve been a Catholic difice into a French monument. This
is certainly a possibility, but it is not clear that the French
stood to gain from such public association with the Spiritan
mission, particularly in a predominantly Muslim rgion. The mission
probably benefited more from being symbolically linked to political and
administrative power. 64 Furthermore, it is likely that the Spiritans
would not hve been able to build the cathedral at ail, or not for another
gnration, if Ponty had not intervened. His fundraising idea made
their dream of a cathedral possible, though construction would not
begin until after the First World War. Finally, Ponty could not hve been
ignorant of Jalabert' s Catholic view of the building as a retort to Islam.
59. Foster, 'Church and State,' 49-50.
60. Jalabert noted that Gabriel Angoulvant, who temporarily replaced Ponty in 1914,
was the first Governor General who had ever returned his visit in his many years in Dakar
as parish priest, vicar gnerai, and bishop. Mgr Jalabert to P. Pascal, This, 14 September
1914, CSSP3li.isbi.
61. Mgr Jalabert to T. R. P. Le Roy, Dakar, 18 June 1913, CSSP 31 1.15 bi.
62. Mgr Jalabert toT. R. P. Le Roy, Dakar, 11 December 1912, CSSP 31 1.15 bi. Due to
construction difficulties after the First World War, the mission ultimately did not build the
cathedral on this site, but on the plateau above it.
63. Mgr Jalabert toT. R. P. Le Roy, Dakar, 21 March 1914, CSSP 31 1.15 bi. Jalabert
never made this trip and the First World War delayed the dbut of the cathedral project.
64. Though the Spiritans in Sngal occasionally profited from antagonism between
African populations and the French administration to win converts, they always believed
that they
State,'
353-354would hve more success as partners of the administration. Foster, 'Church and
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Jalabert wrote to Le Roy, "I believe that this grandiose project will hve
great repercussions and do great good for our mission and the missions
in Africa. It is God's riposte to the incessant efforts of Islam, which is
growing ever faster and planting its proud mosques everywhere." 65
Ponty therefore actively favored the rection of a monumental
Catholic difice on the most important square in Dakar, just a few
hundred yards from his own palace. It is hard to discern the
republican in this stance, which demonstrates his loyalty to the
fallen Soudanais and the Spiritans. And despite his careful management
of his republican image, Ponty may hve paid a price for his
to the Spiritan mission. In his work on the development of African
politics in Sngal, Johnson refers to a satire of Ponty in the incendiary
paper La Dmocratie as "Rome's Ambassador in Africa, Guglielmo
Ponty Africano." Johnson does not give any context for this find, but it
may well reflect the paper's criticism of Ponty's relationship to the
bishop and his support of the cathedral concept. 66 Yet this sort of
criticism did not seem to stick and Ponty has been remembered by
most as an anti-clerical freemason. Ponty's management of his
with the mission testifies to his political skills. He reconciled
Catholics to his rgime, but maintained his republican image.
Pragmatic Policies
Ponty's policy initiatives also contributed to his rputation as a
republican idologue at work in French West Africa. In particular,
historians hve cited his politique des races of 1909 and his judicial
reforms of 1912 as vidence of his republican style of colonialism. Yet
Ponty's policies actually revealed his pragmatic approach to governance, and demonstrated his dsire to reconcile Africans and Frenchmen of a variety of faiths and persuasions to colonial rule. For example,
though not pro-Catholic by design, his supposedly "republican"
measures alleviated several sources of discontent among Catholic missionaries in the fdration.
Ponty's famous circular of September 22nd 1909 announcing the
politique des races set forth a new set of principles for governing the
diverse populations of the West African fdration. 67The basic premise
65. Mgr Jalabert toT. R. P. Le Roy, Dakar, 18 June 1913, CSSP 3I 1.15 bi.
66. G. Wesley Johnson, The Emergence of Black Politics in Sngal: The Strugglefor Power
in the Four Communes 1900-1920 (Stanford, 1971), 151. Johnson first made his argument
about Ponty's republicanism in this book: "Ponty was a confirmed Republican who
considered it his personal mission to bring France's ideals to the Africans." Johnson,
Emergence:, 152.
67. Circular Gouverneur Gnral Ponty, 22 September 1909. The circular is available
in printed form as an appendix to Jean-Baptiste Forgeron, 'Le Protectorat en Afrique
Occidentale Franaise et les Chefs Indignes' (Thse pour le doctorat, Bordeaux, 1920),
75-79-

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of the politique des races was a diluted form of African ethnie selfdetermination under a French umbrella. Ponty believed that the
French policy of appointing African chiefs to rule over diverse
was fomenting social unrest, particularly in cases where Muslims
governed non-Muslim populations. Whenever possible, he believed
groups should be administered by a chief of their own under close
French supervision. His judicial reforms of 1912 took this idea further,
by requiring that French subjects be judged according to their own
customs, particularly in civil disputes. Tribunals deciding cases had to
contain at least one judge from the same background as each of the
parties involved, and reduced the number of cases where Muslims sat
in judgment of non-Muslims.
Historians who hve emphasized the "republican" aspects of the
politique des races hve reached for the vocabulary of the French
to describe it as libration of the common African man from
feudal oppression. Alice Conklin argues that the 1909 circular makes it
"abundantly clear" that "Ponty was convinced that ail African chiefs
were feudal potentates whose continued existence conflicted with the
prevailing ideals of theThird Republic." 68 In fact, this is somewhat of
an overstatement. The circular employs republican rhetoric when it
proclaims that "Abolishing the tyranny of one ethnie group over other
ethnie groups will also annihilate the hostility of the old aristocracy and
win us the support of the collectivities, who, thanks to us, will gain an
independent individuality." Yet this language simply embellishes the
practical goal of strengthening French rule dn West Africa.To the extent
that Ponty intended to "liberate" Africans, it was for the purpose of
winning their allegiance to France and thereby increasing French
control. The circular does not advocate doing away with African chiefs;
rather it describes the correct practice for appointing them. It spcifies
that African chiefs should be chosen from within their own race, and
that the French should avoid privileging one race over another. Moreover, it instructs administrators to cultivate close relationships with thse
chiefs, which would lead to concrte administrative and conomie
benefits. 69 The primary goals of this policy were a more loyal
the maintenance of order, and the intensification of French power
throughout the fdration.
The 1909 circular reserves particular criticism for the practice of
appointing Muslim chiefs over animist populations, which provoked
"social malaise" and favored the spread of Islam. In Ponty's words,
More flexible, more familiar with our conception of authority, and, it must be
said, more disciplined, the Muslims quickly gain political hegemony in
rgions where animists are often in the majority. Therefore, without realizing
68. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize, 110.
69. Circular Gouverneur Gnral Ponty, 22 September 1909 in Forgeron, 'Le
79.
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any benefit to the extension of our own influence, we favor the extension of
Muslim clericalism, and the action of Islam, if led by ambitious or fanatical
chiefs, dons the character of a protest more or less hidden, against ail
European innovations. 7O
Ponty counseled administrators to take both race and religion into
considration when appointing African authorities: a potential chief
might share the ethnicity of a population, but if he was Muslim and the
people were animist, or vice versa, it would not make sens to appoint
him as their leader and reprsentative to the administration.
Catholic missionaries in West Africa had been making this exact
argument to the administration for years, without any tangible results.
On the question of Muslim chiefs, Ponty's 1909 circular closely mirrors
missionary critiques of French administration originally formulated in
Faidherbe's time. Nineteenth century officiais had brushed aside
lobbying for Catholic chiefs to rule Catholic populations because
they viewed missionaries as competitors of, and impediments to, rural
administration. 7I The Spiritans and other missionaries were understandably thrilled that Ponty's policies departed from an earlier
tendency to rely on Muslim intermediaries for local governance. 72 Missionaries had long argued that Muslims would never be
trustworthy allies of the French cause. Ponty's 1909 circular indicates
that he shared this concern, and that he wanted to slow the growth of
Islam in West Africa. 73
The shift in administrative thinking on Islam is also vident in the
actions of Paul Marty, Ponty's influential advisor on Islamic affairs and a
practicing Catholic. 74 Marty's relationship with the Spiritans in Dakar
demonstrates the close links between Ponty's office and the mission. In
1915 Mgr Jalabert sent Marty a draft of a brochure outlining how
African Catholic catechists should be deployed in rural areas. Marty
approved the catechist plan and helped Jalabert edit the brochure.
Marty clearly wanted the project to succeed, and recommended that
the mission widely distribute the tract to raise money for catechists. 75
70. Circular Gouverneur Gnral Ponty, 22 September 1909 in Forgeron, 'Le
77.
71. See Foster, "Church and State," 81-136, for detailed discussion of thse tensions
and the developments in the Sereer lands of Sngal.
72. The administration often employed Muslims because they were more likely to be
literate and speak French. Donal Cruise-O'Brien, 'Towards an Islamic policy in French
West Africa, 1854-1914', Journal ofAfrican History 8 (1967), 303-305.
73. Gouverneur Gnral to Lieutenants Gouverneurs no. 117, Dakar, 26 December
191 1, National Archives of Sngal (henceforth ANS), Dakar, fonds Sngal 10D3/0025.
74. Marty was devoted to Ponty, as evidenced by his laudatory eulogy of the Governor
General in the Revue du Monde Musulman 31, (1915), 1-22. Christopher Harrison characterizes Marty as the first Frenchman "to really document an example of African Islam
with thoroughness." Harrison only hazards that Marty might hve been sympathetic to
missions, but the Spiritan archives emphatically confirm this. Harrison, France and Islam,
117,131.
75. Marty, Cabinet du Gouverneur Gnral, to Mgr Jalabert, Dakar, 12 March 1915,
CSSP3I i.i5bi.

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Marty shared the mission's view that the spread of Islam should be
halted for political reasons and he once wrote, in a work on Dahomey,
"hre, as elsewhere, our confessional neutrality is a great advantage to
Islande proselytization." ?6 Evidently, Marty believed that the French
administration should be more pro-Catholic, to counteract the
of Islam in its territory.
Ponty's judicial reform of 1912 also gratified the Catholic missionaries and achieved one of their long-coveted goals: French lgal
of their converts as Catholic. Ponty introduced lgal pluralism into
French West Africa by prescribing that every French subject should be
judged according to his or her "custom." ?7 Elments of this had
existed in Sngal and had led to the cration of Muslim tribunals. But
little effort had been made to account for the diversity of the
with the resuit that Christian and animist Africans often found
themselves judged according to Muslim law, particularly if the local
chief was Muslim. Under Ponty's reform, the panel that judged a
case had to include "African assessors" of the parties' own ethnie and
religious affiliation. For the missionaries, this meant that African
Catholics should be judged by their co-religionists, and not by
Muslims. This had particularly important implications for young
female converts, whose parents had betrothed them to Muslim men.
They now had a chance to escape arranged marriage if Catholics
adjudicated their case.
A printed Spiritan pamphlet notes that thse judicial reforms were
widely applied to lgal cases involving African Christians in French
West Africa. The governors of Sngal, Cte d'Ivoire, and Dahomey
immediately applied the spirit of the law to Christian communities. In
the Sudan, Bishop Lematre of theWhite Fathers raised the question in
1914, arguing that Catholic communities in the rgion were relatively
civilized islands in the great mass of African people, and as such, should
hve their own courts. He even went so far as to suggest that Christians
become naturalized Frenchmen. Ponty responded that although he did
not think the small number of Christians in the Sudan merited their
own courts, he had "no objection to the dsignation of Christian
assessors for the examination of cases involving people who followed
Christian custom." ?8This affirmation by the Governor General was an
important acknowledgement of the results of missionary work. Interestingly, Ponty's libral view of Christian justice did not survive him and
in 1923 Governor General Carde informed the bishop of Dakar that he
76. Marty, Etudes sur l'Islam au Dahomey (Paris, 1926), cited in Harrison, France and
Islam, 131.
77. For an overview of lgal pluralism in the colonial context see M. B. Hooker, Lgal
Pluralism: An Introduction to Colonial and Neo-colonial Lazvs (Oxford, 1975).
78. Mgr Lematre to Gouverneur du Haut Sngal Niger, 5 June 1914; Gouverneur
Gnral to Gouverneur du Haut Sngal Niger, 27 August 1914. Cited in 'De la
des statuts chrtiens dans les tribunaux indignes' (Dakar, no date, but post
1920.), CSSP 31 1.21 ai.
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considered Ponty's approval of judging Christian converts by spcial

rules "an abuse of power," and refused to allow African Catholics to be
judged according to their "customs." 79
Ponty also resolved the old and thorny question of Catholic marriage
between converts in the African interior. The missionaries had long
complained of the administrative hurdles which made it difficult for
African Catholics to marry legally. Since the circle administrators were
the only ones allowed to perform a civil ceremony, without which the
Catholic ceremony was illgal under French law, it was difficult for
Africans to marry. They had to travel to the administrator, at great
expense, or else wait until he came to their rgion. 8o This was not the
case for Muslim or animist couples; they were not required to conduct
a French civil ceremony.
Ponty reduced the hurdles facing African Catholics who wanted to
marry. In 19 10 Mgr Jalabert wrote to Governor of Sngal Peuvergne,
asking him if rsidents, who administered smaller divisions of circles,
could hve the power to celebrate Catholic marriages between individuals in their province, which would eut the travel time and distance for
the betrothed couples. Peuvergne forwarded the letter to Ponty, adding
that he did not think Jalabert's request could be granted without
changing the law, because the statute in efTect clearly referred only to
circle administrators, and not their subordinates. 8l Ponty felt, to the
contrary, that the existing measure could be read in a more expansive
sens, to include ail administrators who were actively administering a
territory, circle administrators, rsidents, or military personnel. He
ordered marriage registries put in every subdivision, and further ordered that administrators should try to time their trips to coincide with
marriage clbrations within their jurisdictions. 82 Furthermore, a
decree of 1910 specified that missionaries could proceed with a religious marriage ceremony even if a civil ceremony had not yet taken
place. 83 After a long meeting with Ponty on the subject, Father Le
Hunsec reported that that the Governor General knew that illgal
Catholic marriages took place in the bush, but that he preferred to
remain "ignorant" as long as he was not officially informed.Thus Ponty
79. Mgr Le Hunsec toT. R. P. Le Roy, Dakar, 4 September 1923, CSSP 3I 1.17 ai.
Carde's stance shocked the Spiritan mission.
80. For example, Christians at the mission of Carabane in the Casamance of Sngal
had to travel over 100 km to marry in the prsence of the administrator based in Sdhiou.
P. Le Hunsec to P. Pascal, Dakar, 18 May 1909, CSSP 31 1.15 a2.
81. Gouverneur du Sngal to Gouverneur Gnral no. 1340, 28 October 19 10, ANS
fonds Sngal 10D3/0025.
82. Gouverneur Gnral to Gouverneur du Sngal no. 2096, Dakar, 30 November
1910, ANS fonds Sngal 10D3/0025.
83. P. Le Hunsec toT. R. P. Le Roy, Ziguinchor, 15 September 1912, CSSP 31 1.15 bi.
This letter is a comprehensive report on the subject and reveals that much confusion
remained after the 19 10 decree. It is not clear, for example, why Christian African
subjects still needed to appear before the administrator and Muslim ones did not. The
decree seemed to say that an African couple could slect certain provisions of French law
to apply to their marriage, a freedom that French citizens did not enjoy.

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indulged the missionaries' violation of the marriage laws, though he

also made it easier for them to comply. 84
The vidence from the Spiritan archives demonstrates that Ponty' s
policies pleased Catholic missionaries and their converts, but his
reforms were not specifically designed for their benefit. His policies
were not strictly pro-Catholic and anti-Islam. In rfrence to both
religions and their reprsentatives, Ponty employed a nuanced strategy.
He established a warm relationship with Bishop Jalabert and brought
the Spiritans closer to the administration, but he was careful not to
make his personal links to them public. His approach to Islam was also
complex: he took aggressive steps to limit the spread of Islam in French
West Africa, but he was also careful to cultivate allies among influential
Muslim leaders. 8*
There is no doubt that Ponty saw Islam both as a potential threat to
French influence and, in the wrong hands, a means of exploitation of
his African subjects. 86 In a circular letter to his Lieutenant Governors
in 191 1 he wrote,
It is incontestable that, in spite of our surveillance, the so-called defenders of
the prophet's faith still gather important sums from faithful who do not
protest, or who do not dare to do so, even in our civilized towns and by ail
manner of means. I believe we must respond with merciless severity, because
almost ail of this money, which represents much fear and hardship and
efforts of the needy, is lost to the donor's families, to commerce and to the
conomie development of the colony. 87
In addition to slowing the expansion of Islam by discontinuing the
practice of appointing Muslim chiefs over non-Muslim populations,
Ponty outlawed administrative correspondence in Arabie, restricted
imports on Arabie texts and stepped up the French propaganda campaign against Islam. 88 He issued orders for personnel files to be created
on important Muslim figures. Christopher Harrison argues that
Ponty's attitude towards Islam represented a shift from the turn of the
century attitude that Islam was "a positive factor in West African
society" and Coppolani's view that Islam was "France's most powerful
ally in the conquest of Northwest Africa." 89
However, there was another side to Ponty's Islamic policy, which
sought to gain the allegiance of exceptionally powerful or French84. Le Hunsec to P. Pascal, Dakar, 18 May 1909, CSSP 31 1.15 a2.
85. The following analysis aligns with the view of Franco-Muslim relations prsente!
in David Robinson, Paths of Accommodation: Muslim Societies and French Colonial Authorities in Sngal and Mauritania, 1880-1920. (Athens, OH, 2000).
86. James F. Searing, "GodAlone is King": Islam and Emancipation in Sngal: theWolof
Kingdoms ofKajoor and Bawol, 1859-1914 (Portsmouth, NH, Heinemann, 2002), 231-233.
87. Gouverneur Gnral to Lieutenants Gouverneurs no. 117, Dakar, 26 December
191 1, ANS fonds Sngal 10D3/0025.
88. Harrison, France and Islam, 52.
89. Harrison, France and Islam, 56.
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E. A. FOSTER

disposed marabouts. Especially after 1912, when the French overreacted

to rumors of Islamic revolt in the Futa Jallon and massacred followers
of theWali of Goumba, Ponty showed himself to be more circumspect.
Declaring that the French must avoid another such mistake, he counseled against a hard line proposed by an administrator in Sngal named
Theveniaut towards Amadu Bamba and Shaykh Anta, two influential
leaders of the Murid brotherhood. Ponty was wary of seeing conspiracies where they did not exist and of alienating the Murids, whose
following was growing every day. Rejecting Theveniaut' s "severe" and
"energetic" recommendations against the two men, Ponty recommended a more subtle approach. "I hve always thought that our policy
towards our Muslim subjects should be more clever and tactful than
severe. This should especially be the case when it is exercised on a
group that has many followers." 9 Ponty felt it would be a mistake to
antagonize a man who could claim the loyal support of thousands of
Africans. Moreover, French perscution of such men only seemed to
augment their followings.
Ponty further asserted that the higher chelons of the colonial
had to be wary of the narrow views of the administrators on
the ground. They had to maintain a larger perspective in respect to
Islam, and follow French policy in other parts of the fdration and the
empire. Ponty pointed out that Bamba was a disciple of Shaykh Sidiyya,
the most influential chief in Mauritania, and a strong ally of the French
there. Ponty thought it would be a mistake to perscute Sidiyya's
students, thereby playing a "double game" that would most likely hurt
the French. Yet he admitted to wanting to play a "double game" of
sorts: to work on diminishing the authority of the marabouts slowly over
time, while remaining close to them and using them to further French
aims. 9I
Ponty' s approach to both Christians and Muslims in the fdration
illustrtes that he employed complex stratgies in his dealings with
Frenchmen and Africans, and that he did not simply adhre to a
republican ideology. Ponty was not willing to sacrifice practicality or
flexibility for principles. As he wrote in the 1909 circular, "in matters
of policy, one must always avoid rigidity in the application of even
the best formulas." 92 Ponty was a politician at heart, who cultivated
the support of the many disparate groups in his empire, including
African peasants, Muslim leaders, and Catholic missionaries. Indeed,
he could hardly hve been successful otherwise, given the fantastic
90. Gouverneur Gnral Ponty to Gouverneur du Sngal no. 1504, Dakar, 13 August
1912, ANF microfilm 2oomi 965: AOF fonds ancien 13G 294.
91. Ibid. It is interesting to note that when Ponty died, Bamba composed an elegiac
poem in his honor, which was published in the Revue du Monde Musulman 31 (19 15):
23-28, though it did not necessarily reflect Bamba's true feelings.
92. Circular Gouverneur Gnral Ponty, 22 September 1909 in Forgeron, 'Le
78.

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23 1

challenges of governing such a diverse population with very limited

personnel. 93
Conclusion: the Man and the Myth
The testimony of contemporaries and colleagues in French West
Africa supports the view that Ponty's reign was characterized more by
realpolitik than by republican idealism. Indeed, both the rcit of Albert
Nebout, who served as an administrator in Cte d'Ivoire and in various
other capacities in French West Africa between 1882 and 1921, and
Robert Arnaud's roman clef portray a man who was constantly scheming politically and who could be both callous and insincere. 94 Their
depictions of Ponty's personal style are entirery consistent with his
pragmatic and calculated approach to governance.While both accounts
are not entirely reliable-Nebout may hve resented Ponty for his own
lack of promotion, and Arnaud's account is fictionalized-they corroborate one other in meaningful ways. 95
Both Nebout and Arnaud both portray Ponty as a jovial and charming man who enjoyed revelry, but also as a nervous and paranoid
political operator. ?6 in December 19 10 Nebout describes how, in the
context of revolts in Cte d'Ivoire, Ponty came to the colony to evaluate
the situation. Cote d'Ivoire's governor, Gabriel Angoulvant, worried
that he would lose his job, but it turned out that he had little to fear
from Ponty. "Ponty was actually afraid of the Governor, whom he knew
had protectors in high places, and thus behaved alternately severe and
friendly," Nebout reported. 97 Ponty asked Nebout to write up an
analysis of the crisis in the colony. Nebout's assessment criticized
93. William Cohen's work provides insight into the difficults the executives of the
West African Fdration faced in respect to running their own governments. Cohen,
Rulers of Empire, 62.
94. Neboutj Passions africaines; Arnaud (alias Randau), Le Chef des Porte-Plume.
95. Nebout was a. protg of Clozel, whom he claimed (p. 266) should hve succeeded
Roume instead of Ponty. In 1913 Nebout remarked, "I hve realized that without
connections or protectors I do not hve a chance to be named a governor, Ponty does not
like me, I am too independent, and not enough of a courtesan for his taste." Nebout,
Passions africaines, 293.
96. Both accounts describe Ponty as a noceur, a term for someone who enjoys revelry
and lives the fast life. Nebout, Passions africaines, 264; Arnaud (alias Randau), Le Chef des
Porte-Plume, 50. In Randau's novel Ponty's character, Ledolmer, is at the center of a lively
group of dissolute French men and women who run wild in the colonial capital of
Keurdoul (Dakar.) At the beginning of the novel Ledolmer stays out ail night with his
entourage and still manages to deliver the opening oration at the meeting of the Conseil du
gouvernement the next day. Arnaud (alias Randau), Le Chef des Porte-Plume, 36-41.
97. Nebout, Passions africaines, 274. Elsewhere Nebout describes Ponty as a selfcentered and capricious leader. "He is jovial and familiar and surrounds himself with
young people who can put up with his abuse and insults without getting angry. How
many people in Sudan thought they had made it because Ponty had put his hand on their
shoulders and said to them, 'you know, mon petit, I like you very much': banal words he
immediately forgot." Nebout, Passions africaines, 264.
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Angoulvant and blamed his brutal administration for the unrest. To

Nebout's dismay, Ponty revealed Nebout's stance to Angoulvant, who
then threatened Nebout. Nebout went to Ponty and exposed Angouvant's threats, saying that he would dfend himself if necessary. "This
timid man [Ponty] gestured for me to speak more softly (the Governor's office was close by) and told me that if there was a conflict, I could
choose another colony." 98 Nebout was furious that Ponty would not
confront Angoulvant. Ponty's fear of Angoulvant is also dramatized in
Arnaud's novel: the Governor General's assistant reports that his boss
is weak and afraid of Governor Mouchet (a stand-in for Angoulvant),
and that Mouchet will get what he wants as a resuit. 99 The mistrustful
Governor General spies on Mouchet, as well as his own staff and his
mistresses with his secret police. Io Thse accounts reveal the same
calculated behavior that was vident in Ponty's careful management of
public perceptions of his republican credentials, as seen in his quiet
relationship with Mgr Jalabert and the missionaries.
The recasting of Ponty as a political operator, rather than a
idealist, serves as a reminder that French republican principles,
though often cited by ministers, politicians, and governors in officiai
contexts, did not necessarily drive events on the ground in the empire.
Thus, their rle in the implementation of French policy should not be
overestimated. Both Nebout and Marc Simon, administrators who
served in Cte d'Ivoire under Ponty's tenure, show that officiai
rhetoric had little to do with the day to day running of the empire.
Simon illustrtes this point with a humorous description of Minister of
Colonies Millis-Lacroix's visit to Cte d'Ivoire in 1908. The "poor
minister," as Simon calls him, was the first such officiai to journey as
far as Cte d'Ivoire, but his ignorance of colonial reality greatly amused
the administrators and made them wonder that he took the trouble to
corne. IO1 Simon reproduces an exchange between the Minister and
some Africans, mediated by an African interprter:
"Minister: Tell them blah, blah, blah... and finally, tell them that we hve
corne hre to apply the immortal principles of eighty-nine."
Interprter (who did not understand a word) said in the Agni language: "The
Great Chief asks you to give him a steer."
Minister: "How concise this language is!" IO2.
98. Nebout, Passions africaines, 275.
99. Arnaud (alias Randau), Le Chef des Porte-Plume, 8-9.
100. His trusty spy is named Balatte. See rfrences to his spying in Arnaud (alias
Randau), Le Chef des Porte-Plume, 11, 122, 179-181, 215.
101. Simon also reports that the minister observed of the Canary Islands, "The
Portuguese hve beautiful colonies!" The Canaries were a Spanish possession. Marc
Simon, Souvenirs de Brousse 1905-1918 (Paris, 1965) 71.
102. Simon, Souvenirs, 71. The problem of translating republican rhetoric, both literally and figuratively, is echoed in Nebout's account of his negotiations with Samory in
1897. When Nebout told Samory about his Lgion of Honor dcoration, he heard the
griot Mand interprter say the words "peace, progress, and civilization" in French in the

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233

Simon's condescending tone towards the minister reveals his

contempt for metropolitan officiais who spouted republican platitudes
about the colonies, but had little understanding of the practical
of governing in Africa.
Broussard administrators such as Simon and Nebout liked to emphasize their local knowledge and decried the ignorance of colonial bureaucrats in Paris. Ponty, a vtran administrator who had witnessed the
establishment of French power in the Sudan, surely comprehended
their point of view. Yet he also knew what kind of language republican
ministers wanted to hear. His circulars and speeches employed the
rhetoric of republican idealism, and cast him as bringing republican
values to the empire. This does not mean that Ponty did not value
republican ideals, but simply that his republican rhetoric masked a
much more complicated reality. As a governor he was a practical
executive, who balanced a variety of competing interests and concerns
and warily protected his image. Whatever the depth of his true ideological convictions, they took a back seat to the political necessities of
managing a complex and demanding colonial milieu. Since Ponty has a
rputation as the archetypal republican colonialist, this revised portrait
suggests a more critical approach to the rle of republican idealism in
French government in West Africa.
Abstract: This article revises the dominant view of William Ponty, Governor
General of French West Africa from 1908 until 1915. Scholars hve portrayed Ponty as
a republican idealist who tried to implement a particularly republican vision of French
governance in West Africa. In doing so, they hve reproduced an image that Ponty
carefully cultivated in order to advance his career. This pice demonstrates that Ponty
was really a pragmatist, as well as a shrewd politician. His policies were not driven by
ideology, but by practical considrations and a dsire to reconcile a variety of French
andAfrican groups to French rule. This revision of Ponty 's image suggests a broader
re-evaluation ofthe rle of republican ideology in French colonial endeavors.

midst of his translation. Nebout subsequently referred to him as the "griot of the three
French words" and discovered that the interprter had learned them when he accompanied an African chief to France. Nebout commented, "he retained thse words, which
were pronounced too often in ofBcial speeches by ministers who did not realize that the
terms civilization, progress, etc. could not be comprehended nor translated by the Mand
interprter."
Nebout, Passions africaines, 220.
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