253 •(SENEGAL)

Album with approximately 113 photographs titled Voyage du Sénégal.

The album follows what appears to be a French mission or government tour to Senegal and the greater West Africa region, beginning in Dakar, Senegal. The photographs also depict Bathurst (Banjul) in The Gambia and Sierra Leone. It ends in Casamance, Senegal. The album includes numerous street scenes, some colonial architecture, and what appears to be English and French interests in The Gambia; the second half of the album includes portraits and group images from missionary schools. The first several photographs relate to Bordeaux, ostensibly the beginning of the sea voyage. Albumen prints and cyanotypes (8), the images measuring 4½x6 inches (11.4x15.2 cm.), and slightly smaller, and the reverse, mounted recto/verso, some with captions in the negative (the images from Bordeaux), and each with a caption, in ink, on the page below the prints. Oblong 8vo, gilt-lettered ¾ leather over patterned paper, lightly worn; with the voyage start and end dates, in pencil, on the front free endpaper. 1891-92

[2,000/3,000]

During the late 17th century and throughout the 18th century, the British Empire and the French Empire struggled continually for political and commercial supremacy in the regions of the Senegal River and the Gambia River. The trip this album documents took place just after an agreement with France in 1889 established the present boundaries of The Gambia. The Gambia became a British Crown colony called British Gambia, divided for administrative purposes into the colony (city of Banjul and the surrounding area) and the protectorate (remainder of the territory).