About Ziguinchor

The first European settlement in the area was founded by the Portuguese in 1645. According to tradition, Ziguinchor's name and meaning comes from the time when Portuguese traders and explorers came to the region to form a trading post, and derives from Portuguese Cheguei e choram, "I came and they cry". The local people, seeing the Europeans, began crying, thinking they were to be enslaved. Ziguinchor was in fact a Slave port for much of the Portuguese occupation. The spot had not been chosen at random. While a Jola village predated the town, it was situated to trade with the Jola kingdom of Kasso, which dated back to the Mali Empire, when Mandinke people moved into the area from the south and east. Following the end of the slave trade, Portuguese commerce stultified, and the town was eventually handed over to France on 22 April 1888, in a deal brokered amongst the colonial powers at the Berlin conference of 1886. Under the French, Ziguinchor became a major trade port, mostly due to the intensive Groundnut cultivation the colonial government encouraged in the interior. By 1900, the area around was largely converted to Christianity, although large Syncrenist and Muslim communities flourish. Rice growing, the traditional crop of the region, was hurt by the push to cultivate groundnuts, and extensive forest areas were cleared. The French government also imported rice across West Africa from the intensive farming they encouraged in French Indochina, shrinking the market for Casamances main produce. After independence, the city saw its economic growth slow, in part due to the War of Independence in neighboring Guinea-Bissau. Portuguese military crossed into the area at least once, persuing PAIG rebels, and cannon fire could be heard in the city for much of the war. During this period Ziguinchor became a main post for both the Senegalese Army and French forces, guarding the frontier; a frontier which cut in two Diola families and communities