Alioune Sarr (September 1, 1908 – July 12, 2001 ) was a Senegalese historian, author and politician whose family gained prominence in the Serer precolonial

Kingdom of Sine The Kingdom of Sine (or Siin in Serer, variations: ''Sin'' or ''Siine'') was a post-classical Serer kingdom along the north bank of the Saloum River delta in modern Senegal. Toponymy and Demonym During the Guelowar Era the region was named a ...

and

Saloum The Kingdom of Saloum ( Serer: ''Saluum'' or ''Saalum'') was a Serer kingdom in present-day Senegal and parts of Gambia. The precolonial capital was the city of Kahone. Re-established in 2017, Saloum is now a non-sovereign traditional monarch ...

around the 14th century. They also made up the ''"sulbalƃe"'' class of

Futa Toro Futa Toro (Wolof language, Wolof and , , ; ), often simply the Futa, is a semidesert region around the middle run of the Senegal River. This region, along the border of Senegal and Mauritania, is historically significant as the center of several F ...

(all in present-day Senegal). Sarr was born at Foundiougne. His father (Koly Samba Sarr) was a former Chief of Foundiougne, Gandoune, former head of the

constituency An electoral (congressional, legislative, etc.) district, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a geographical portion of a political unit, such as a country, state or province, city, or administrative region, created to provi ...

of Ndiaye-Ndiaye and former prime minister of Diognick in Senegal. Although Sarr was a prominent politician like his father during the colonial era, he is best known as a historian and author especially after his famous work ''Histoire du Sine-Saloum'' which was officially published in 1949 and

peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (:wiktionary:peer#Etymology 2, peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the ...

ed by historians.Klein, 277

Politics

In 1963, Sarr was President of the Regional Assembly of

Sine-Saloum Sine-Saloum is a region in Senegal located north of the Gambia and south of the Petite Côte. It encompasses an area of 24,000 square kilometers, about 12% of Senegal, with a population in the 1990s of 1,060,000. The western portion contains the ...

, ( Kaolack, Senegal) (French: Président de l’Assemblée Régionale du Sine-Saloum), a position he occupied when the historian Martin A. Klein was carrying out a

primary research Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to ...

in 1964 for his book ''"Islam and Imperialism Senegal, Sine-Saloum, 1847–1914"'' During his presidency, Sarr received prominent African leaders such as président Sékou Touré when he visited Kaolack.Sarr (introduction: Becker), p 4

Academia

Sarr authored and contributed to several books and manuscripts about the history of the

Serer people The Serer people (''Serer language, Serer proper'': Seereer or Sereer) are a West African ethnoreligious groupGastellu, Jean-Marc, ''Petit traité de matrilinarité. L'accumulation dans deux sociétés rurales d'Afrique de l'Ouest'', Cahiers ORST ...

and the Serer Kingdoms of

Sine In mathematics, sine and cosine are trigonometric functions of an angle. The sine and cosine of an acute angle are defined in the context of a right triangle: for the specified angle, its sine is the ratio of the length of the side opposite th ...

and

. Some of Sarr's work include: *Alioune Sarr. "Histoire du Sine-Saloum", Présence Africaine, No. 5, 1949 *Alioune Sarr. "Histoire du Sine-Saloum (Senegal), 1985 * Les Guélvars. Origines. Legendaires. Essai sur l'histoire du Sine-Saloum. Paris-Dakar. (June 23, 1937, September 15, 1937, May 19, 1938)

Histoire du Sine-Saloum

Alioune Sarr's ''"Histoire du Sine-Saloum"'' was originally a manuscript which was developed around 1930. A document which took him several years of research. It detailed the ancient history of the Serer kingdoms of Sine and Saloum, their constituent villages, provinces and founders (including lower Saloum – modern day

Gambia The Gambia, officially the Republic of The Gambia, is a country in West Africa. Geographically, The Gambia is the List of African countries by area, smallest country in continental Africa; it is surrounded by Senegal on all sides except for ...

, a former colony of the

Kingdom of Saloum The Kingdom of Saloum (Serer language, Serer: ''Saluum'' or ''Saalum'') was a Serer people, Serer monarchy, kingdom in present-day Senegal and parts of Gambia. The precolonial capital was the city of Kahone. Re-established in 2017, Saloum is now ...

); the Serer kings; Serer culture; the coronation process of the kings; the Guelowar maternal dynasty; the Serer paternal dynasties and the royal house; the wars (religious and economic) that affected the Kingdoms of Sine and Saloum; etc. An extract was published in 1948 to assess the value of the document. The future president of Senegal Léopold Sédar Senghor persuaded Sarr in 1948 to get the document published. Senghor liaised with the assistant professor of history at the Sorbonne (Professor Michel Devèze) to review the manuscript. Professor Devèze was very interested in it but concluded that the paper was "a good start" and needed some work. Alioune Sarr reworked the document and in 1949 it was published by Présence Africaine. Although the document was previously unpublished, some were familiar with it and were using it illegally without giving credit to the author. The original document itself did not cover all the periods and some sections were somewhat brief. The Serer paternal Lamanic period was not covered in detail neither was the maternal Wagadou period (princesses from the

Ghana Empire The Ghana Empire (), also known as simply Ghana, Ghanata, or Wagadu, was an ancient western-Sahelian empire based in the modern-day southeast of Mauritania and western Mali. It is uncertain among historians when Ghana's ruling dynasty began. T ...

who married into the Serer paternal

aristocracy Aristocracy (; ) is a form of government that places power in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocracy (class), aristocrats. Across Europe, the aristocracy exercised immense Economy, economic, Politics, political, and soc ...

– predecessors of the Guelowar). Nonetheless, historians such as Becker, Martin, etc., agree that, the original data were very numerous, and their contribution to a global history of these ancient kingdoms are indisputable. During investigations in Kaolack about the history of its neighborhoods, the historian Charles Becker came upon the document with the assistance of Mamour Mbodj (who was then Chief of Tiofak). Becker contacted Sarr and an agreement was reached to type it up; add an introduction, bibliography and notes sections; publish it and attribute credit to the author. Numerous editions have been made to it including the 1963, 1986 and the 1983 edition by Becker. Alioune Sarr's "Histoire du Sine-Saloum" is one of the leading work on the history of

a copy of the work was filed with the National Archives of Senegal (Archives Nationales du Sénégal). The unpublished work of his relative, the Goréen – Jean-Pierre Sarr was lost and has never been found.Sarr (introduction: Becker), pp 1–11

Notes

Bibliography

*Diouf, Niokhobaye. "Chronique du royaume du Sine." Suivie de notes sur les traditions orales et les sources écrites concernant le royaume du Sine par Charles Becker et Victor Martin. (1972). Bulletin de l'Ifan, Tome 34, Série B, n° 4, (1972) *Oumar Kane. La première hégémonie peule: le Fuuta Tooro de Koli Ten̳ella à Almaami Abdul. KARTHALA Editions, 2004. . *Institut fondamental d'Afrique noire. Bulletin de l'Institut fondamental d'Afrique noire: Sciences humaines, Volume 46. IFAN, 1985 *Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink. Schrift, Buch und Lektüre in der französischsprachigen Literatur Afrikas. Niemeyer, 1990. . *Sarr, Alioune. Histoire du Sine-Saloum. Introduction, bibliographie et Notes par Charles Becker, BIFAN, Tome 46, Serie B, n° 3–4, 1986–1987 *DeCorse, Christopher R. West Africa during the Atlantic slave trade: archaeological perspectives. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2001. . *Klein, Martin A. Islam and Imperialism in Senegal Sine-Saloum, 1847–1914, Edinburgh University Press (1968) *Senghor, Léopold Sédar; Lambert, Fernando; Université Paris-Nord. Centre d'études francophonesLéopold Sédar Senghor. P. Seghers, 1988. *Becker C. & Martin V. (1972) – Notes sur les traditions orales et les sources écrites concernant le royaume du Sine. Bull. IFAN, 34, B, 4 973 pp 732–777. *Martin V., Becker C. & Mbodj M. — Trois documents d’Ernest Noirot sur l’histoire des royaumes du Siin et du Saalum (Sénégal). Bull. IFAN, 42, B, 1. (1980) pp. 37–85. *Kalidou Diallo, Le syndicalisme dans l'enseignement public en Afrique occidentale française, 1903–1960, L'Harmattan, 2011 .

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