Lat Dior Ngoné Latyr Diop
Damel of Cayor (1842 – 1886)
Family : Place of birth : Keur Amadou Yalla (Cayor) ; Date of birth : 1842 ; Mother : Linguère Ngoné Latyr Fall ; Father : Sahewer Sokhna Diop
Education : Raised in a Muslim milieu, he attended Qur’anic school in childhood. From 1859, at seventeen, he was already involved in the political life of Cayor.
Action : Having become damel in 1862, he converted to Islam and allied with Maba Diakhou Bâ. He fought the French troops at Ngol-Ngol (29 December 1863) and Mékhé (3 July 1869). He united the crowns of Cayor and Baol.
Trials : In 1878 the French decided to build the Dakar–Saint-Louis railway across Cayor and to develop groundnut growing. Lat Dior categorically opposed it and called his people to revolt. In 1864 he was exiled to Sine, then Saloum. Defeated by General Dodds in 1883, he left Cayor.
Legacy : He fell at Dékhélé on 26 October 1886, facing a column of spahis commanded by Captain Valois, with two of his sons and seventy-eight companions. With him the kingdom of Cayor disappeared. An equestrian bronze statue (1982) in Dakar, a stadium in Thiès and the Palais de justice of Dakar bear his name.
Sources
- Persée — Vincent Monteil, « Lat Dior, Damel du Kayor, et l'islamisation des Wolofs » (1963)
- Persée — Oumar Ba, « La Pénétration française au Cayor » (Archives du Sénégal, rec. 1977)
- Persée — M. Diouf, Le Kajoor au XIXe siècle (compte rendu, 1991)
- Persée — « La chronique du Kajoor » (Journal des africanistes, 1980)
- Wikipédia — Lat Dior Ngoné Latyr Diop