page_title: Gum arabic
section_title: West Africa
hierarchical_section_title: Gum arabic / Production / Political aspects / West Africa
caption_attribution_description: Maures traitant de la gomme à l'escale de Bakel (illustration de Côte occidentale d'Afrique du Colonel Frey, pl. en reg. p. 100)
context_page_description: Gum arabic, also known as gum sudani, acacia gum, Arabic gum, gum acacia, acacia, Senegal gum, Indian gum, and by other names, is a natural gum consisting of the hardened sap of two species of the acacia tree, Acacia senegal and Vachellia seyal. The term "gum arabic" does not indicate a particular botanical source. In a few cases, the so-called "gum arabic" may not even have been collected from acacia species, but may originate from Combretum, Albizia, or some other genus. The gum is harvested commercially from wild trees, mostly in Sudan and throughout the Sahel, from Senegal to Somalia. The name "gum Arabic" was used in the Middle East at least as early as the 9th century. Gum arabic first found its way to Europe via Arabic ports, so retained its name. Gum arabic is a complex mixture of glycoproteins and polysaccharides predominantly consisting of arabinose and galactose. It is soluble in water, edible, and used primarily in the food industry and soft-drink industry as a stabilizer, with E number E414.
context_section_description: In 1445, Prince Henry the Navigator set up a trading post on Arguin Island (off the coast of modern Mauritania), which acquired acacia gum and slaves for Portugal. With the merger of the Portuguese and Spanish crowns in 1580, the Spaniards became the dominant influence along the coast. In 1638, however, they were replaced by the Dutch, who were the first to begin exploiting the acacia gum trade. Produced by the acacia trees of Trarza and Brakna, this acacia gum was considered superior to that previously obtained in Arabia. By 1678, the French had driven out the Dutch and established a permanent settlement at Saint Louis at the mouth of the Senegal River. Gum Arabic came to play an essential role in textile printing and therefore in pre-industrial economies of France, Great-Britain and other European countries. Throughout the 18th century, their competition over the commodity was so fierce, that some have spoken of gum wars. 
  For much of the 18th and 19th centuries, gum arabic was the major export from French and British trading colonies in modern Senegal and Mauritania. West Africa had become the sole supplier of world acacia gum by the 18th century, and its export at the French colony of Saint-Louis doubled in the decade of 1830 alone.  Taxes, and a threat to bypass Saint-Louis by sending gum to the British traders at Portendick, eventually brought the Emirate of Trarza into direct conflict with the French.  In the 1820s, the French launched the Franco-Trarzan War of 1825.  The new emir, Muhammad al Habib, had signed an agreement with the Waalo Kingdom, directly to the south of the river.  In return for an end to raids in Waalo territory, the Emir took the heiress of Waalo as a bride.  The prospect that Trarza might inherit control of both banks of the Senegal struck at the security of French traders, and the French responded by sending a large expeditionary force that crushed Muhammad's army.  The war incited the French to expand to the north of the Senegal River for the first time, heralding French direct involvement in the interior of West Africa.  Africa continued to export gum arabic in large quantities—from the Sahel areas of French West Africa (modern Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger) and French Equatorial Africa (modern Chad) until these nations gained their independence in 1959–61.
caption: West African tribes meet to trade gum arabic at Bakel on the Senegal River, 1890 (illustration from "Côte occidentale d'Afrique du Colonel Frey", pl. en reg. p. 100)
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