Emirate of Trarza - Trade and War: Early 19th Century

Trade and War: Early 19th Century

As the Atlantic Slave Trade weakened in the early 19th century, Trarza and its neighbors collected taxes on trade, especially acacia gum (Gum Arabic), which the French purchased in every increasing quantities for its use in industrial fabric production. West Africa had become the sole supplier of world Gum Arabic by the 18th century, and its export at Saint-Louis doubled in the decade of the 1830s alone.

Taxes, and a threat to bypass Saint-Louis by sending gum to the British traders at Portendick, eventually brought the Emirate of Trarza into direct conflict with the French. In the 1820s, the French launched the Franco-Trarzan War of 1825. The new emir, Muhammad al Habib, had signed an agreement with the Waalo Kingdom, directly to the south of the river. In return for an end to raids in Waalo territory, the Emir took the heiress of Waalo as a bride. The prospect that Trarza might inherit control of both banks of the Senegal struck at the security of French traders, and the French responded by sending a large expeditionary force that crushed Muhammad's army. The war incited the French to expand to the north of the Senegal River.