Senegal, Madagascar and Dr. Amadou Ba

Dr. Ba, who teaches history at Nipissing and Laurentian Universities, yesterday presented a paper entitled "African Soldiers in the French Colonial Army during the Conquest and  Colonization of Madagascar."

The several points of interest included:

•  the fact that there were a lot of colonial wars in  Madagascar, which pretty much no one  knows anything about. (Madagascar must count as  the most obscure country in the world.)  
• that the French waged these wars mainly with West African troops, who were all called Senegalese, whether they came from Senegal or not.
• that there are descendants of the Senegalese still in Madagascar, where they are a despised symbol of colonial oppression.
• that the  French are not blamed at all for the abuses of their regime. Indeed they are remembered as mitigating the brutalities of their Senegalese enforcers.
• that no one in Senegal  is at all aware  of this Madagascar connection.

Somehow it was that last point --- that lost history -- that  struck me the most. There is so much that falls through the cracks.

UPDATE 2023-02-04 

I don't know if Madagascar still counts as the most obscure in the world.  It showed up in newsfeeds several times in the last week or so in connection with the papal visit to Africa.  Madagascar is now a typical poor country with food security problems.  South Sudan also now gets attention as "South Sudan," as a country and not just as a part of Sudan afflicted by civil war.  Why?  Papal visit. And a papal visit brought the Democratic Republic of the Congo for something beyond internal warfare motivated by a desire for valuable rare earths.

Papal visits!   Some time around 1000 CE it was papal recogition (and recognition by the German emperor, representing Rome the empire) that made the King of Poland a real Christian monarch.

Another case of "the more things change..."