Thiaroye massacre

Thiaroye massacre
Part of French West Africa in World War II
Mural in Dakar; it reads "Thiaroye '44, an unforgettable event"
Thiaroye massacre (Senegal)
Location	Thiaroye, Dakar, French West Africa
Coordinates	14.756°N 17.377°W / 14.756; -17.377
Date	1 December 1944 9 a.m. (GMT)
Attack type	Massacre of Tirailleurs Sénégalais mutinying against poor conditions and defaulted pay
Deaths	up to 300 (claimed by veterans) 35 (French government claim)
Injured	hundreds
Perpetrator	French Army (1st Regiment of Senegalese Tirailleurs, 7th Regiment of Senegalese Tirailleurs, National Gendarmerie, 6th Regiment of Colonial Artillery)

The Thiaroye massacre^[a] was a massacre of French West African soldiers, committed by the French Army on the morning of 1 December 1944 near Dakar, French Senegal. Those killed were members of the Tirailleurs Sénégalais, and were veterans of the 1940 Battle of France who had been recently liberated from prison camps in Europe. After being repatriated to West Africa, they mutinied against poor conditions and unpaid wages at the Thiaroye military camp. Between 35 and 300 people were killed.

Background

African tirailleurs captured by German troops during the Battle of France

During the Battle of France, around 120,000 soldiers from the French colonies were captured by the German forces.^[1] Most of these troops came from the French North African possessions, while around 20 percent were from French West Africa. German troops summarily killed between 1,000 and 1,500 black prisoners in May and June 1940.^[2]

Unlike their white compatriots, the colonial prisoners of war were imprisoned in Frontstalags [fr] in France instead of being brought to Germany.^[3] Although they kept colonial troops in France on the pretext of preventing the spread of tropical diseases, the Germans also wanted to prevent the "racial defilement" (Rassenschande) of German women outlawed by the Nuremberg Laws of 1935.^[2]

Following the Allied landings in Normandy in June 1944, the African troops interned in Frontstalags all over France were liberated by advancing Allied troops and subsequently repatriated to French West Africa.^[4][5]

On 5 November, a group of 1,635 of these former prisoners of war embarked in Morlaix on the British ship Circassia.^[6] They landed in Dakar on 21 November and were temporarily assigned to the military camp of Thiaroye.^[7]

African prisoners of war in the Frontstalag of Dijon

Ever since their liberation, discontent had been growing among the former prisoners. The utter disorganization of French authorities had led to several delays concerning their repatriation. More importantly, they had not yet received their demobilization benefits and only a 1,500 francs advance had been awarded to them before they had embarked.^[8] Other matters of contention included the exchange rates between the Metropolitan French franc and the local colonial franc, as well as issues regarding savings made during their internment and their right to demobilization clothes. ^[6]

On 25 November, a group that was supposed to depart for Bamako on that same day refused to leave Thiaroye until the matter was settled. This act of disobedience prompted brigadier general Marcel Dagnan to visit the camp on 28 November.^[7] During his visit, Dagnan was shocked by the hostility he encountered. His car was damaged, and he claimed he had been close to being taken hostage by the men. He declared the camp in open mutiny and decided to make a show of force to bring it back under his authority.^[9][7]

Massacre

On the morning of 1 December at 6:30 AM,^[10] three companies of the 1st Regiment of Senegalese Tirailleurs and the 7th Regiment of Senegalese Tirailleurs, backed by elements from local National Gendarmerie units, elements from the 6th Regiment of Colonial Artillery and one M3 Stuart light tank, entered the military camp in an attempt to end the rebellion.^[11][9]

A National Gendarmerie section in Senegal in the mid 20th century

According to official reports, at around 7:30 one of the mutineers pulled a knife, but was soon disarmed. At around 8:45, a gunshot was heard, but claimed no victim.^[12]

The deadly confrontation occurred around 9:30 AM.^[13][14] Accounts vary regarding what ignited the gunfight. According to some versions, it began when one of the mutineers opened fire from one of the barracks, while other versions put the blame on a warning shot fired by a soldier of the repression force to intimidate the mutineers.^[13]

In any case, a fusillade ensued, which, though it lasted for less than a minute, killed and wounded at least several dozens among the mutineers, and wounded three men among the forces sent to repress the mutiny.^[9][15] The official report of December 2 states that 24 of the mutineers were killed outright and 45 were wounded, 11 of whom subsequently died of their wounds.^[13] A report by Dagnan on December 5 however speaks of 24 killed outright and 46 who later died of their wounds at the hospital, thus totaling 70 deaths.^[16] According to an article published in Al Jazeera on 22 November 2013, some veterans later claimed that the death toll actually reached as high as 300 dead.^[17]

Aftermath

The following year, 34 of the mutineers, who were thought to be the instigators of the insurrection, were tried and given sentences ranging from one to ten years of prison. They were later pardoned as French President Vincent Auriol visited Senegal in March 1947, but they were not exonerated, and the widows of the fallen mutineers of 1944 were never awarded the veteran pensions usually granted to widows of fallen soldiers.^[18] After the war ended, the French argued that the tirailleurs were particularly prone to revolt. The French have based this claim on the notion that German soldiers, in an attempt to undermine the loyalty of France's colonial subjects in Africa, had given the tirailleurs favored treatment as prisoners of war. This ostensibly superior treatment of tirailleurs in prisoner of war camps was not, however, based in fact.^[19]

The Thiaroye massacre is not taught in schools in France, and a Senegalese film about the massacre released in 1988, Camp de Thiaroye, was both banned in France and censored in Senegal.^[17] A new generation of French leadership wants to confront the past and even planned to build an exhibition about the incident, which would travel to former French colonies in Western Africa in 2013. While the incident is merely mentioned, there is a military cemetery in Senegal that is unkept and receives no visitors. The cemetery holds the unmarked mass graves of the fallen Senegalese soldiers. The Senegalese army prevents any film or photography of the cemetery, and many locals consider the cemetery to be haunted due to the fallen Senegalese soldiers still awaiting the vengeance of their honor.^[17] On July 18, 2024, six of the victims were declared “dead for France” by the French National Office of Combatants and War Victims.^[20]

In 2014, French president François Hollande acknowledged the incident as a "bloody repression". In 2024, president Emmanuel Macron called the event a "massacre" in a letter to Senegalese president Bassirou Diomaye Faye.^[21]

In art and literature

Memorial in Bamako, Mali

Senegalese author and filmmaker Ousmane Sembène directed a film, Camp de Thiaroye (1988), documenting the events leading up to the Thiaroye massacre, as well as the massacre itself. The film is considered historical fiction, as the characters are not necessarily based on actual tirailleurs who were killed. The film received positive reviews at the time it was released and continues to be heralded by scholars as important historical documentation of the Thiaroye massacre.^[22][23] The movie was banned in France for over a decade.^[17]

Guinean writer Fodéba Keïta wrote and staged the narrative poem Aube africaine ("African Dawn", 1957)^[24] as a theatre-ballet based on the massacre.^[25] In African Dawn, a young man called Naman complies with the French colonial rulers by fighting in the French Army only to be killed in Thiaroye.^[26][27] His works were banned in French Africa as he was considered radical and anticolonial.^[28]

Senegalese poet Léopold Sédar Senghor wrote the poem Thiaroye as a tribute to the victims of the Thiaroye massacre.

See also

• Sétif and Guelma massacre

• African-American veterans lynched after World War I

References

1. Scheck, Raffael (2010). "The Prisoner of War Question and the Beginnings of Collaboration: The Franco-German Agreement of 16 November 1940". Journal of Contemporary History. 45 (2): 364–388. doi:10.1177/0022009409356911. JSTOR 20753591. S2CID 162269165.
2. Scheck 2010, p. 425.
3. Scheck 2010, p. 420.
4. Mabon, Armelle (2002). "La tragédie de Thiaroye, symbole du déni d'égalité". Hommes et Migrations (in French). 1235 (1): 86–95. doi:10.3406/homig.2002.3780. ISSN 1142-852X.
5. Fargettas, Julien (2006). "La révolte des tirailleurs sénégalais de Tiaroye". Vingtième Siècle:Revue d'histoire (in French). 92 (4): 117–130. doi:10.3917/ving.092.0117.
6. Mabon 2002, p. 89.
7. Fargettas 2006, p. 118.
8. Mabon 2002, p. 87.
9. Mabon 2002, p. 90.
10. Mourre, Martin (2017). "La répression de Thiaroye : Décrire les différents degrés de la violence coloniale". Les Temps Modernes (in French). 693 (2): 87–110. doi:10.3917/ltm.693.0087.
11. Fargettas 2006, p. 124.
12. Mourre 2017, p. 99.
13. Fargettas 2006, p. 119.
14. Mourre 2017, p. 101.
15. Fargettas 2006, p. 117.
16. Mourre 2017, p. 102.
17. Moshiri, Nazanine (22 November 2013). "A little-known massacre in Senegal". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
18. Mabon 2002, p. 95.
19. Scheck, Raffael (January 2012). "Les prémices de Thiaroye: L'influence de la captivité allemande sur les soldats noirs français à la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale". French Colonial History. 13 (1): 73–90. doi:10.1353/fch.2012.0007. S2CID 145216683.
20. Kane, Coumba (27 July 2024). "Sénégal : quatre-vingts ans plus tard, la France fait un pas vers la reconnaissance du massacre de Thiaroye". Le Monde (in French). Retrieved 28 July 2024.
21. "France admits colonial 'massacre', says Senegal's leader". BBC. Retrieved 29 November 2024.
22. Ngugi, Njeri (June 2003). "Presenting and (Mis)representing History in Fiction Film: Sembène's Camp de Thiaroye and Attenborough's Cry Freedom". Journal of African Cultural Studies. 16 (1): 57–68. doi:10.1080/1369681032000169267. JSTOR 3181385. S2CID 191490169.
23. Kempley, Rita (1 March 1991). "From Africa, A 'Camp' of Tragic Heroes". The Washington Post.
24. Otero, Solimar; Ter Haar, Hetty (2010). Narrating War and Peace in Africa. University Rochester Press. p. 232. ISBN 978-1-58046-330-0.
25. Banham, Martin; Hill, Errol; Woodyard, George William (1994). The Cambridge guide to African and Caribbean theatre. Cambridge University Press. p. 43. ISBN 0-521-41139-4.
26. Esonwanne, Uzo (1993). "The Nation as Contested Referent". Research in African Literatures. 24 (4): 49–62.
27. Miller, Christopher L. (1990). Theories of Africans: Francophone Literature and Anthropology in Africa. University of Chicago Press. pp. 57, 166–67. ISBN 9780226528021.
28. O'Toole, Thomas; Baker, Janice E. (2005). Historical dictionary of Guinea. Scarecrow Press. pp. 123–124. ISBN 0-8108-4634-9.

Bibliography

• (in English) Myron Echenberg, "Tragedy at Thiaroye: The Senegalese Soldiers' Uprising of 1944 ", in Peter Gutkind, Robin Cohen and Jean Copans (eds), African Labor History, Beverly Hills, 1978, p. 109-128
• (in French) Boubacar Boris Diop, Thiaroye terre rouge, in Le Temps de Tamango, L'Harmattan, 1981
• (in French) Ousmane Sembène, Camp de Thiaroye, Feature Film, Color, 1988, 147min.

External links

• (in French) « 1er décembre 1944 : le massacre du camp de Thiaroye » (article de Hervé Mbouguen, 23 octobre 2003)
• (in French) Camp de Thiaroye (extrait vidéo sur le site de la Médiathèque des Trois Mondes)

Notes

1. French: Massacre de Thiaroye; pronounced [masakʁ də tja.ʁwa]