page_title: Serer people
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Serer people / History
caption_attribution_description: Homme sérère (Sénégal). Planche n° II de Esquisses sénégalaises de l'abbé Boilat, 1853. «&#160;Cette planche représente un Sérère de Mbissel, au royaume de Sine&#160;; c’est un habile tisserand.&#160;»
context_page_description: The Serer people are a West African ethnoreligious group. They are the third-largest ethnic group in Senegal, making up 15% of the Senegalese population. They are also found in northern Gambia and southern Mauritania.
  The Serer people originated in the Senegal River valley at the border of Senegal and Mauritania, moved south in the 11th and 12th century, then again in the 15th and 16th centuries as their villages were invaded and they were subjected to religious pressures. They have had a sedentary settled culture and have been known for their farming expertise and transhumant stock-raising.
  The Serer people have been historically noted as a matrilineal ethnic group that long resisted the expansion of Islam, fought against jihads in the 19th century, then opposed the French colonial rule. In the 20th century, most of them converted to Islam, but some are Christians or follow their traditional religion. The Serer society, like other ethnic groups in Senegal, has had social stratification featuring endogamous castes and slaves.
  The Serer people are also referred to as Sérère, Sereer, Serrere, Serere, Sarer, Kegueme, Seereer and sometimes wrongly "Serre".
context_section_description: Professor Dennis Galvan writes that "The oral historical record, written accounts by early Arab and European explorers, and physical anthropological evidence suggest that the various Serer peoples migrated south from the Fuuta Tooro region (Senegal River valley) beginning around the eleventh century when Islam first came across the Sahara." Over generations these people, possibly Pulaar speaking herders originally, migrated through Wolof areas and entered the Siin and Saluum river valleys. This lengthy period of Wolof-Serer contact has left us unsure of the origins of shared "terminology, institutions, political structures, and practices."
  Professor Étienne Van de Walle gave a slightly later date, writing that "The formation of the Sereer ethnicity goes back to the thirteenth century, when a group came from the Senegal River valley in the north fleeing Islam, and near Niakhar met another group of Mandinka origin, called the Gelwar, who came from the southeast (Gravrand 1983). The actual Sereer ethnic group is a mixture of the two groups, and this may explain their complex bilinear kinship system".
  Their own oral traditions recite legends on they being part of, or related to the Toucouleur people in the Senegal River valley area. Serer people resisted Islamization and later Wolofization from possibly the 11th century during the Almoravid movement, and migrated south where they intermixed with the Diola people. They also violently resisted the 19th century jihads and Marabout movement to convert Senegambia to Islam.
  After the Ghana Empire  was sacked as certain kingdoms gained their independence, Abu-Bakr Ibn-Umar, leader of the Almoravids  launched a jihad into the region. According to Serer oral history, a Serer bowman named Amar Godomat shot and killed Abu-Bakr Ibn-Umar with an arrow.
caption: Kings of Sine : Maad a Sinig Ama Joof Gnilane Faye Joof. Reign : c. 1825 – 1853.
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