page_title: Louis Faidherbe
section_title: West Africa
hierarchical_section_title: Louis Faidherbe / West Africa
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Carte des peuplades du Sénégal de l'abbé Boilat (1853).
context_page_description: Louis Léon César Faidherbe was a French general and colonial administrator. He created the Senegalese Tirailleurs when he was governor of Senegal.
context_section_description: In 1852 he was transferred to Senegal as sub-director of engineers, and in 1854 was promoted chef de bataillon and appointed governor of the colony on December 16.  He held this post with one brief interval (1861–1863) until July 1865.
  The work he accomplished in French West Africa constitutes his most enduring legacy. At that time France possessed in Senegal little else than the town of Saint-Louis and a strip of coast. Explorers had, however, made known the riches and possibilities of the Niger regions, and Faidherbe formed the design of adding those countries to the French dominions. He even dreamed of creating a French African empire stretching from Senegal to the Red Sea.
caption: The Senegal River valley upon the arrival of Faidherbe (1853).
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