Paul Soleillet (29 April 1842 – 10 September 1886) was a French explorer in West Africa and Ethiopia. He was a strong believer in opening up Africa to trade through peaceful means, and thus bringing the benefits of French civilization to the natives while gaining commercial profits for France.
Although Soleillet had no scientific training and did not speak the local languages, he was willing to travel on foot with little baggage and few companions, and thus generally avoided being robbed. After a short private expedition into the interior of Algeria he managed to raise support for a more ambitious expedition to In-Salah in 1874 to open a commercial center in the central Sahara. The expedition was a flop, since the coastal merchants had little to offer the interior tribes, who had little to offer in return. Despite this, Soleillet found himself the spokesman for groups interested in a Trans-Saharan railway, and was subsidized to make an expedition from Senegal into the Western Sudan in 1878. This achieved little, but he was treated as a hero on his return. He made an unsuccessful attempt to travel from Senegal to Algeria in 1880. Two French expeditions into the Sahara in 1881 were disastrous, and Soleillet's reputation collapsed. He spent his last years in East Africa tying to develop trade between the French enclave of Djibouti and Ethiopia. Just before he died he was in partnership with Arthur Rimbaud in an attempt to ship arms to the future Emperor of Ethiopia.
Early years (1842–71)
Jean-Joseph-Marie-Michel-Paul Soleillet was born in Nîmes on 29 April 1842. His family originated in Marseille but was long settled in Nîmes. His father retired as Director of Direct Contributions in Montpellier. His mother, a Boyer, came from a family with a mid-sized shop that sold furniture and jewelry. His cousin, Ferdinand Boyer, was a barrister in Nîmes who became a deputy in 1871. He was also related to the Chabaud-Latours, a prominent local family with national connections. Soleillet attended secondary school at Avignon. He was a day student at the college of Saint-Joseph.
His father gave him a job in his office, and was grooming him to succeed him. He had been pushed into marrying a girl from a good family. When she died in childbirth he fell into a depressed state and wanted to escape to a new environment. He became partner of a small manufacturer of gold and silver lamé fabrics designed for the North African market, travelled to Algeria and fell in love with the country. He first visited Algeria in 1865 and returned to Algiers in 1866, when he visited much of French Algeria. In 1867 he was in the regency of Tunisia, where a cholera epidemic broke out. He helped care for the sick. His company went bankrupt, and then in 1870 the Franco-Prussian War began. He returned to France and enrolled as a private soldier. He served in the Battle of Coulmiers and throughout the Loire campaign.
In October 1871 Soleillet wrote to the Minister of Public Works about bringing trade from the Central Sahara and West Sudan to the Algerian markets. The government in Paris saw no reason to interfere in a purely Algerian matter. Roger de Larcy, the Minister of Commerce, ignored Soleillet's letters. However, in Marseille Soleillet was introduced to Félix de Surville, a financier and economist who put Soleillet in touch with the Société Générale Algérienne. After several meetings he was advised to return to Algeria where the director of the Comptoir d'Alger would be able to help him. His father died around this time.
African explorations Algeria (1872–74)
Soleillet returned to Algeria in 1872 and visited South Algeria as far as the Amour Range and M'zab. This first expedition took from September 1872 to April 1873. He wore Arab dress and travelled light with a small escort of four men. However, he had no scientific training and did not understand any Arabic, so was poorly qualified to be an explorer. He had borrowed 1,500 francs to finance the Algerian trip and was slow to return it. He returned to Algiers after completing this first expedition. There he gained the friendship of Auguste Warnier, the Deputy for Algeria, who introduced him to General Hippolyte Mircher (1820–78), another specialist in the Sahara. He met generals Loverdo and Wimpffen, the geographer MacCarthy(fr) and the professor Masqueray.
He returned to France to try to raise money from official and private sources to fund an expedition to the oasis of In-Salah in the Tuat, which he thought was a central point where all the routes converged that linked the Mediterranean basin with the Niger basin, but which was at that time more impenetrable than Timbuktu. Soleillet proposed to create a great commercial center in the South of Algeria, with roads uniting Algeria to Niger. He suggested starting an annual fair in El Goléah, and proposed to open a commercial agency in In-Salah. Although there was nothing new in his proposal, it caught the imagination of the Algerian press, who enthusiastically supported the plan. The colonists in Algiers had long seen great promise in the trans-Saharan trade.
Soleillet said later the goal of his trip from September 1872 to April 1873, and from 1873 to 1874, was to determine the needs and resources of the countries with which France would open commercial links and bring the benefits of French civilization. France would thus peacefully conquer the Sahara and Sudan. The president of the Algiers Chamber of Commerce, M. Henry, backed Soleillet's plan. In August 1874 General Antoine Chanzy, governor general of Algeria, gave his support to the Henry-Soleillet project. The goal was to open a commercial agency in In-Salah, not to make a new conquest. The Societé de Géographie de Lyon, an association of French companies trading in Africa, sponsored his expedition to In-Salah. However, Soleillet had difficulty raising money and did not get support from traders in Oran and Constantine.
In-Salah (1874)
Soleillet adopted Arab costume for his 1874 trip to In-Salah so he would be seen not as a conqueror but as a brother. He thought that taking astronomical observations might make the natives suspicious, so just used a chronometer to estimate the duration of each stage of the journey and took the general direction of the route several times a day. Soleillet was accompanied on his trip to In-Salah by four merchants who brought goods from Algiers such as sugar, matches, candles and shot pellets. The interior merchants had nothing of great interest to sell, apart from second-rate ostrich plumes and ivory, and poorly salted hides. Soleillet only spent a few hours at In-Salah, where the notables refused to meet him or read his messages, and made it clear their loyalty was to the Sultan of Morocco. There is no evidence that Soleillet was greatly interested in personal gain. He was always a Romantic, eager for adventure. He wrote of his arrival in In-Salah in 1874, accompanied by four Muslims,
Of In-Salah he reported that "the trade in Negro slaves is undertaken on a large scale throughout the Sahara. In-Salah, like the other oases, receives and buys a large quantity of slaves." Soleillet considered that the abolition of slavery would solve nothing, since the African tribes would continue to make war, and if they could not sell their captives would simply massacre them. He proposed that the solution was for France to buy the slaves and use them to repopulate the Sahara, where they would be introduced to agriculture and the arts and the civilization of Europe. They would be helped to build towns and villages and after a commitment of ten years, for example, would be granted their liberty, their homes, the lands they had cultivated and their work tools. Based on his report on the In-Salah expedition the Avignon Chamber of Commerce argued that the French government should help the French trading monopolies by increasing their official presence in the Sahara and the Western Sudan.
France and Senegal (1874–78)
On returning to France Soleillet became a key advocate of the proposed trans-Saharan railway. Although he was shy and a poor public speaker, he managed to stir his audiences to enthusiasm to the project. In 1874 and 1875 he spoke in Avignon, Lyon, Montpellier and Paris. He was invited to Spain, Holland and Belgium, and spoke at the International Congress of Geography in 1875. He talked of "peaceful civilization" and of the great commercial opportunities for France. It was thought by the French trading companies that the trade in Senegal and that in Algeria must be linked by a route through the Tukulor country of the Western Sudan. Soleillet's next exploration was to travel from Algiers to Saint-Louis, Senegal, by way of In-Salah and Timbuktu. In December 1875 the proposed expedition was downsized to one to the interior from Senegal.
Soleillet faced opposition from specialists in exploration projects. Henri Duveyrier constantly denounced the lack of science in Soleillet's reports. In 1876 Soleillet asked for financial support for an expedition to Timbuktu, but was turned down. The tide changed in 1877 when the Republicans took power, and an influential group gave their support to Soleillet's plans. In February 1877 General Chanzy encouraged the Missions Commission to give Soleillet the subsidy he had requested to go to Timbuktu in one of the annual native caravans. In 1877 Ferdinand de Lesseps began defending the railway project. In December 1877 a new cabinet included several supporters of Saharan penetration including Jules Armand Dufaure, Léon Teisserenc de Bort, Charles de Freycinet and Georges Perin. In April 1878 Soleillet was granted a subsidy of 1,000 francs.
Saint-Louis to Ségou (1878–79)
In 1878 Governor Louis Brière de l'Isle of Senegal charged Soleillet with an official mission to Ségou in the Western Sudan funded by his administration, with the support of the merchants of Saint-Louis. The purpose was to collect information about the economic potential of the Western Sudan and about how France could expand its influence in the region.
Ahmadou Sekou Tall, son of Umar Tall, had inherited his father's Toucouleur Empire in the Western Sudan on the upper Niger River and upper Senegal River. Umar's armies were mainly Futanke, Pulaar speakers from Futa Tooro on the middle Senegal River. The French conceded Umar's authority over the upper Senegal and lands further east. Ahmadou tried to consolidate an imperial state with its capital at Ségou on the Niger, and tried without success to get the Futanke to move to Ségou. He had defeated a rebellion by two of his half brothers in Kaarta in 1871. By the late 1870s Ahmadou's half brother Muntaga was again showing signs of independence. The French wanted to arrange treaties with Ahmadou Sekou through which they could extend their influence into the interior. On his side, Ahmadou wanted the French to supply weapons and let him raise fighters in Futa Toro.
Soleillet left Saint-Louis for Ségou on 28 April 1878 and travelled eastward through Kaarta and Bélédougou. He took two African servants and less than a dozen donkeys with him. One of the servants, Yaguelli, was both his domestic servant and his interpreter. Soleillet felt that his lack of pomp and peaceful disposition would almost always win him friendly treatment. He visited the area when Muntaga's rebellion was starting to develop, and when the French were starting to push eastward. Soleillet passed through the western Umarian garrisons of Kooniakary and Dialla. At Kooniakary Soleillet found several Futanke who could speak some French, and these were used to watch him and make sure he was told only the official line. However, Soleillet heard of the rebellion from one of the dissident brothers, whom he met at Dialla, and from then on constantly tried to get information about any challenges to Amadu.
Soleillet reached Ségou in October 1878.