Gustave Borgnis-Desbordes - Senegal and French Soudan

Senegal and French Soudan

Borgnis-Desbordes is most remembered as a daring and restless commander of the French colonial expansion into the Middle Niger River Valley. He served as a Lieutenant-Colonel under the Governor of Senegal Louis Brière de l'Isle (1876–1881). Between 1880 and 1883 Borgnis-Desbordes was Commandant-Superieur du Haut-Fleuve, Commander of the Military Territory of Haut Senegal, which was later expanded to the east and rechristened French Soudan in 1890. He founded the French forts at Kita (1881) and Bamako (1883), which became two of the key towns of French Soudan. In the process he launched a series of military campaigns against the remnants of the regional power of the Tukulor Empire, which was finally overthrown by Colonel Louis Archinard in 1890.