Malamine Camara was a Senegal

Senegal

Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...

ese sergeant in the French colonial army

French Colonial Forces

The French Colonial Forces , commonly called La Coloniale, was a general designation for the military forces that garrisoned in the French colonial empire from the late 17th century until 1960. They were recruited from mainland France or from the French settler and indigenous populations of the...

, and a key figure in the extension of French colonial rule in the Congo Basin.

Camara was born in the Senegalese interior, though his exact date and place of birth are not known. His ethnicity has been described as Soninke, but a French contemporary described Camara as having "a mix of Moor and Berber blood" and notes that he spoke the Toucouleur

Toucouleur

The Toucouleurs are a Fula agricultural people who live primarily in West Africa: the north of Senegal in the Senegal River valley, Mauritania, and Mali.-History:...

 language. Camara was recruited as a laptot

Laptot

Laptots were African colonial troops in the service of France between 1750 and the early 1900s. The term laptot probably derives from the word for sailor in the Wolof language. Most laptots were recruited in Senegal, especially at French outposts in Saint-Louis and Dakar, during the late 18th and...

or colonial soldier, probably in the early 1870s. In Dakar

Dakar

Dakar is the capital city and largest city of Senegal. It is located on the Cap-Vert Peninsula on the Atlantic coast and is the westernmost city on the African mainland...

, January 1880, he volunteered to join an expedition led by Franco-Italian explorer Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza

Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza

Pietro Paolo Savorgnan di Brazzà, best known as Pierre Paul François Camille Savorgnan de Brazza , was a Franco-Italian explorer, born in Italy and later naturalized Frenchman...

 from the coast of Gabon

Gabon

Gabon , officially the Gabonese Republic is a state in west central Africa sharing borders with Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, and with the Republic of the Congo curving around the east and south. The Gulf of Guinea, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean is to the west...

 to the Congo River

Congo River

The Congo River is a river in Africa, and is the deepest river in the world, with measured depths in excess of . It is the second largest river in the world by volume of water discharged, though it has only one-fifth the volume of the world's largest river, the Amazon...

. The mission included 11 other West Africa

West Africa

West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...

n soldiers, 4 Gabon

Gabon

Gabon , officially the Gabonese Republic is a state in west central Africa sharing borders with Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, and with the Republic of the Congo curving around the east and south. The Gulf of Guinea, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean is to the west...

ese interpreters, and 4 Frenchmen

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 including Brazza. Camara quickly proved his worth on the expedition, learning local languages and winning the support of local populations, as well as the respect of his French commanders.

In October 1880, Brazza assigned Camara to lead a 3-man detachment tasked with founding an outpost in Mfoa, which is the site of present-day Brazzaville

Brazzaville

-Transport:The city is home to Maya-Maya Airport and a railway station on the Congo-Ocean Railway. It is also an important river port, with ferries sailing to Kinshasa and to Bangui via Impfondo...

 on the right bank of the Congo River. Camara and his men stayed there for more than 18 months until they received orders to return to Gabon. During this period at Mfoa, in which Camara received neither reinforcements nor significant supplies from the French, he established excellent relations with local communities. Through his hunting skills, he not only kept his men fed but even made regular contributions of meat (hippopotamus

Hippopotamus

The hippopotamus , or hippo, from the ancient Greek for "river horse" , is a large, mostly herbivorous mammal in sub-Saharan Africa, and one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae After the elephant and rhinoceros, the hippopotamus is the third largest land mammal and the heaviest...

 and buffalo

African Buffalo

The African buffalo, affalo, nyati, Mbogo or Cape buffalo is a large African bovine. It is not closely related to the slightly larger wild Asian water buffalo, but its ancestry remains unclear...

) to chiefs in the area, who nicknamed him mayele (meaning a resourceful person) and tata nyama, meaning "meat father." Camara carried out his mission to show the French flag and defend France's newly acquired territory from rival claims by Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

.

Camara twice encountered Henry Morton Stanley

Henry Morton Stanley

Sir Henry Morton Stanley, GCB, born John Rowlands , was a Welsh journalist and explorer famous for his exploration of Africa and his search for David Livingstone. Upon finding Livingstone, Stanley allegedly uttered the now-famous greeting, "Dr...

, the American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 explorer who was leading Belgian efforts to claim and colonize the Congo region. They first met in July 1881, when Camara and his two men went to visit Stanley's camp at Kinshasa

Kinshasa

Kinshasa is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The city is located on the Congo River....

 on the left bank of the river. To dissuade the American from trying to expand Belgian territorial claims across the river, Camara showed him a copy of the treaty a local king, Makoko

Makoko

Makoko is a slum neighborhood located in Lagos, Nigeria. At present its population is considered to be 85,840; however, the area was not officially counted as part of the 2007 census and the population today is considered to be much higher. Established in the 18th century primarily as a fishing...

, had signed with Brazza granting his territory to France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. The two men met again in January 1882, when Stanley sailed across the river in a newly arrived steamboat accompanied by a large number of Zanzibar

Zanzibar

Zanzibar ,Persian: زنگبار, from suffix bār: "coast" and Zangi: "bruin" ; is a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, in East Africa. It comprises the Zanzibar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of numerous small islands and two large ones: Unguja , and Pemba...

i mercenaries. French historians have speculated that Stanley hoped this show of force would cause Camara and his men to abandon their post at Mfoa, thus letting Belgium usurp France's claim to the territory. In any case, Camara's squad held its ground, and Stanley and his men promptly returned to their camp across the river. Stanley wrote in his memoirs that he was impressed by the Senegalese sergeant, who appeared very devoted to his mission and very much in charge of his men.

In May 1882, a messenger brought a written order from the French military command that Camara and his men were to leave Mfoa and return to the French post in Franceville

Franceville

Franceville or Masuku is one of the four largest cities in Gabon, with a population of around 22,000 people. It lies on the River Mpassa and at the end of the Trans-Gabon Railway and the N3 road. It grew from a village named Masuku when Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza chose it to resettle former...

, Gabon. Camara was dubious of this order, and suspected that Belgium had pressured the French to withdraw. Prior to leaving, Camara visited all the local chiefs and told them that his absence would be only temporary, and urged them to remain loyal to France while he was away.

Brazza, who had since returned to France, mounted another expedition to the Congo basin in 1883, and put Camara in charge of recruiting the mission's African personnel in Dakar. Once on the Gabonese coast, Camara was responsible for purchasing dugout canoes with which the expedition would travel into the interior. When they reached the Congo River, they found local populations overjoyed at Camara's return; his personal efforts may have prevented these populations from succumbing to Stanley's influence. Throughout this mission Camara was indispensable to his commanders, supplying ample meat from his hunts and maintaining the trust of the local people. His importance to the French mission was so great that, as Brazza's deputy Charles de Chavannes later claimed, the Belgians in Kinshasa put a bounty on his head. Before departing for the coast in 1884, Brazza left Chavannes in charge of the new permanent Brazzaville outpost; Malamine served as Chavannes' aide-de-camp and was instrumental in provisioning the post with food.

On February 1, 1885, during a ceremony in Brazzaville, Camara was awarded the Médaille militaire

Médaille militaire

The Médaille militaire is a decoration of the French Republic which was first instituted in 1852.-History:The creator of the médaille was the emperor Napoléon III, who may have taken his inspiration in a medal issued by his father, Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland...

, among France's highest honors given to non-citizens in its armed forces. But his health was ailing from what appears to have been a bladder infection. By early 1885 the camp physician believed that Camara was dying, and the sergeant went home to Senegal later that year. He died in January 1886 in the military hospital in Goree Island. The precise cause of his death is unknown.

While Camara's singular contributions to the establishment of France's Congo colony were generally unappreciated during his lifetime (indeed, he was never even able to collect the pay from his last mission), in the years following his death the French dedicated a bronze plaque in Brazzaville and christened a steamboat in his honor. A side street in the Poto-Poto

Poto-Poto

Poto-Poto is the name of one of the original residential neighborhoods of the city of Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo.-History:...

neighborhood of Brazzaville was also named after him.

External sources

• Bonneau, Bernard. (February 1952) "Malamine." Tropiques:22-27.
• Chavannes, Charles de. (1929) "Le Sergent Sénégalais Malamine." Annales de l’Académie des Sciences Coloniales, vol. 3:159-187.
• Chavannes, Charles de. (1935) Avec Brazza : Souvenirs de la Mission de l’Ouest Africaine (mars 1883 – janvier 1886). Paris: Plon.
• Petringa, Maria. (2006) Brazza, A Life for Africa. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse. ISBN: 978-1425911980
• Stanley, Henry Morton. (1885) The Congo and the Founding of Its Free State: A Story of Work and Exploration. London: Sampson Low.