UPPER SENEGAL-NIGER

The idea of establishing the administrative center of the Colony at Koulouba belongs to General de Trentinian General Louis-Alexandre de Trentinian (1851–1942) was a French colonial officer who served as the Lieutenant-Governor of French Sudan from 1895 to 1899.. This man, possessed of such a sharp and far-sighted mind, often had the misfortune during his time in the Government of Sudan of being right a few years too soon. Many of his projects, taken up by his successors, have succeeded or are currently in the process of succeeding; others still await a realization that they will undoubtedly find in the more or less near future.

It was obvious to General de Trentinian, and to anyone willing to take the trouble to study a map of French Sudan, that Kayes—while a necessary base of operations during the conquest, a transit town, and the Colony's port on the Senegal River—was far too eccentric In this historical and geographical context, "eccentric" means located far from the center; peripheral or off-center. to remain its political capital. Furthermore, the temperature there is particularly hot and difficult for nearly the entire year. Upper Senegal, of which Kayes and Médine are the principal towns, is moreover a rather poor country: chains of rocky and sterile hills and laterite A red, iron-rich soil common in tropical regions that often forms a hard, crusty surface, making it difficult for farming. plateaus leave truly fertile land only in the narrow valleys watered by the various streams forming the upper basin of the Senegal River. The population there is neither very dense nor very wealthy. Finally, the decree of October 17, 1899—which attached the circle original: cercle. The standard administrative district used in French colonial government. of Bakel to the Colony of Senegal and the circles of the Upper Niger closest to Kayes to Guinea—further emphasized the peripheral position of this town and more clearly shifted the axis of the Colony toward the Middle Niger.

The climate of the Niger Valley, much less grueling for Europeans than that of Upper Senegal, and the river itself—a natural access route toward Timbuktu and Niamey where all the land routes of the immense plateau encircled by the Niger Bend met—all argued in favor of a transfer of the administrative center. General de Trentinian began the movement by stationing the main portion of the troops on the hills of Kati, 12 kilometers from Bamako. Already, he pointed to the plateau of Koulouba (Point "F") as the site for the future capital, which towers 161 meters above the plain where the village and the post of Bamako are built. On a pla-