With the development of seagoing marine vessels the european countries started to extend their worldwide influence by exploring intercontinental shipping routes, first along the coasts of Africa and then crossing the Atlantic towards America and the Indian Ocean towards East Asia. To organize their advance, all along these new discovered sailing-routes resting places to refresh drinking water and trade posts where established. Due to the within Europe competitions these harbours and market places became more and more fortified during the following centuries.
Portuguese sailors discovered respectively described in 1444 for first time on their way to South the existence of Cap Vert Peninsula and the upstream Island Barsaguiche. From this geographical site the passage towards the Cap Vert Islands, Brazil and The Guayanas enabled the most short Trans-Atlantic crossing route to reach South America over a distance of 3000 kilometers by sea. Also as first important resting site for further coastal shipping towards the West-African Gold Coast and towards Cape of Good Hope the small island started to play an important role as naval base, 300 years before the name of the town of Dakar appeared for first time on a map in 1750.
Airview over Goreé Island and Cap Vert with City of Dakar
Source : Google Earth
Before the harbour of Dakar was constructed and gave reason for an additional military importance of the Goreé Island as armed control over the access to the Dakar harbour entrance, the island changed several times it´s "owners". The Wikipedia Encyclopedy registers 15 changes in posessions of Goreé Island between 1580 and 1814, when Netherland, England and France "quarreled" the ownership. The City of Dakar itself was founded only in the year 1857 around a french fortress on Cape Manuel.
Meanwhile the Wikipedia-registries of the portuguese presence on Goreé Island, that they called first ILHA DE PALMA, mention only a stone chapel and a cemetery that was founded since 1450, the military fortifications must have been started to erect at a later date and probably under Dutch governance or better said under the direction of the Netherlands West India Company WIC.
This period begun in 1588 by the "capturing" of the 900 meter long and 350 meter wide island by forces of the United Netherlands. Again the portuguese recaptured it before the Dutch regained control, this time in 1617, when an apparently purchase contract firmed with a local "king" named "BETAM" formed the internal support for the possession, as cited from the "Dictionnaire universel, géographique, statistique, historique et politique de la France; Paris, An XIII-(1805); Tome cinqième, p. 569."
Despite the sales contract the engagement of the House of Nassau and Orange Trade Companies and military forces lasted only 57 years until 1664, when during the second african "Guinea Campaign" of the Royal Navy Officer Robert Holms several ships of the Dutch West India Company got lost near Cap Vert and the island was taken at 22nd January 1664 by the British invaders that acted as pirates in the name of the "Royal African Company RAC" and provoked furtheron the "Second Anglo Dutch War from 22. February 1665".
As consecuence of the mutual weakening between English and Netherland forces and Trade Companies since
1677 the French "Senegal Company" and military troops overtook nearly the complete
control all along the Senegal Coast and expelled their competers from Great Britain and
the Netherlands. The country of Senegal (or Senegambia) became "officially" a colony
under administration of the central power of France in Paris. This
condition lasted until 1758, when the British Empire overtook control in
Senegal for a period of 21 years. The "London Interlude" in Senegal
finished again "completely" in 1804 with a new restitution of the french
administrative influence due to the politcs of the Napoleon Empire.
The
French Napoleonic Intermezzo lastet 10 years until in 1815/16 the
British Empire regained the colonial control over Senegal, as tell our
european history books. The British occupation ended again in 1844, when
French troops newly invaded the westafrican country and guided it
successively towards the indepencence in 1960 by strenghtening the
countries own political and administrative structures and giving equal
civil rights to all citizens.
The last sea-battle around Goreé Island and Dakar dated only 20 years before the independence of the country Senegal. The armistice of Compiegne from 22. June 1940 had divided the country France in 2 parts with the competing regimes Petáin (Vichy) and DeGaulle, the latter organizing a military resistance from his London exile. The ambiguity about the allocation of French naval units operating in international waters led to the memorable attack of British-French naval forces on the French units in Dakar (Operation Menace).
Furtheron important to mention and observe are certain themes that play a role in European and North American mass media related to the surroundings of Dakar and Goreé.
Approaching Dakar by ship from southwest, sailing along the eastern coast of Goreé Island towards the Dakar harbour entrance. On an elevation of the islands Cap Almadies and in the background on the islands extreme opposite are visible two Forts, Fort Orange and Fort Nassau. Coloured engraving from Holland, 17th Century, based on a drawing of Olfert Dapper.
Drawings and paintings attributed to the Dutch painter Olfert Dapper (16.1.1636-29.12.1689) and the editor of atlases Pieter van der Aa (1659-1733) are the most early available representations of the military fortifications on the island of Goreé. Both most probably never have seen this site personally. Dappert created his drawings about Africa, China, India, Persia, Arabia and Georgia based on travel reports of Jesuit missionaries and Dutch explorers. Van der Aa firms as editor of his atlases as author of the maps and landscape images from Africa, Morocco, Madagascar, Italy, Sicily and the West and West Indies.
The upside illustration from Dapper "from 17th century" suggests the evidence of the existence of two Forts named Orange and Nassau on the island of Goreé and strengthens the argument, that during the period from 1617 until 1664 under Dutch influence and guidance first military defense structures on the island have been created that doubtlessly during the later occupations by British and French forces became extended, modernized and renamed.
A drawing attributed to Pieter van der Aa´s name and the year 1670 shows more exact details of the two fortifications viewed from the islands surface, so that an identification of both is possible. Accordingly the fortress on the hilltop of Cape Almadies, the southern end of the island, is Fort Orange, meanwhile the military constructions in the foreground of the painting that correspond to "The inside of y Fort Nassou" are situated on the more shallow, northern part of Goreé.
Fort Nassau on Goereé Island (van der Aa 1670)
But in fact, if the fortified and cannon-equipped constructions really have been established under the guidance of dutch military, then the existence of detailed architectonic construction plans in the archives of the Netherlands Westindia Company is obvious. But these data are not available with simple Internet data researches.
When Dutch influence over the island began in 1617 the former portuguese name "Palm Island" was changed into GOEREÈ by the new users. Goere is the low german word for "naughty, nasty, self-confident girl" and at same time the name of the island Goerre-Overflakke of the Zealand province in Holland. The reason of the titeling "Bad Girls Island" could be an indication for the fact, that woman have been brought to there by the sailors and became retained there, a fact that would be coincident also with the later fame of Goreé as slave trade island.
If a phantasy generated by that name "Girls Island" or another by the editor van der Aa, who indicates on his painting the feeding of dogs with meat from barrels, justified the expeditions of Admiral Robert Holmes on HMS Henrietta in search of "Dog´s Island" that finally let to the expulsion of the "Nassovians" from Goreé, or if real human right violations on Goreé gave that reason for an naval punitive expedition is not directly to derive from the analized internet-literature that is fundament for this publication.
The British and French maintained the islands name, when in 1664 and 1677 they overtook the control over it. Furtheron it was called "Ile de Goreé", "Goree" in English or "Gorea" in Spanish and Italian. But the new power didn´t maintain the fortresses names and established new descriptions as detailled on the following plans: Fort Orange conversed into Fort St. Michael / Michel, Fort Nassau into Fort St. Francis / Francoise.
Plan of the Island of Gorée in English
Plan de le Isle de Goré avec ses fortificacions
according to Jacob van der Schley 1779
180 years later after having passed the possession exchange of Goreé from Dutch/English to France in 1677, the new colonial power started the consolidation of its military constructions around the new founded town and harbour of Dakar. On the islands northern extremity a circular fortress for land-sea battle artillery was constructed, but not precisely in the same site where the former Fort Nassau / Fort Saint Francoise is detailled on the upside map from 1779. The new building was named Fort de Estrées and remembered to the name of the french navy admiral JEAN II de ESTRÈES who gathered the island Goreé in 1677 from it´s before "owners". The new FORT DE ESTRÈES houses actually the Senegal Historic Museum on Goreé.
Historical
calendar data are fundaments for historical updatings. For that
reason it is considered here as necessary to mention, that the
building up of the new insular defense constructions in 1856 follow
about 100 years after a described attack of Royal Navy ships on Goreé
Island the day of 29th December 1758. The second of two
attacks on the island in the same year was led by Commodore August Keppel and is visually described by a sea-battle-painting of Dominic
Serres in the National Maritime Museum in London. The island remained
for 5 years under british flag until it was „returned“ to France
in 1763. Also worth mentioning is the oddity, that during the attack
the 70-gun third rate ship of the line HMS NASSAU constructed in
Portsmouth 1706 bombed with it´s ship artillery the former FORT
NASSAU (then Fort Francoise) on Goreé Island until the French
rendered.
HMS
Nassau attacks the former Fort Nassau on Goreé Island at 29th
December 1758
During the french colony-epoque, the southern "Arrondissement" of the country Senegal was named Goreé, same as the island. This island is described in 1907 as "36 hectares measuring, naked, waterless basalt rock, where in an old military Fort, that is connected by telegraph to St. Louis, are stationed 200 french soldiers." In addition, the island "that provides a big warehouse and a freeport is inhabited by 2000 civilians including 750 mulatto and 50 white." The climate is described as "rather insane" and the harbour , due to it´s "blocking caused by huge blocks of basalt" as less attractive, so that "the traffic more turns towards Dakar" (Meyers Großes Konversationslexikon, 8. Band, 6. Auflage, Leipzig & Wien 1907).
Not so focussed in photographies as the more inhabited part of the island is the southern rock elevation with still more evident traces of modern military use. The islands part, where initially Fort Orange or Fort St. Michel where housed, now is called simply "The Castel" on "Cap Almadies". Besides terrible rusted rests of fighting machinery artists established here an atelier and the amazing white Memorial de Goreé tries to capture the attention of the tourists and distracts from the former crude reality of this place.
Land-sea cannons to fight against marine targets from Cap Almadies
