Sarraounia Mangou was a chief/priestess of the animist Azna subgroup of the Hausa, who fought French colonial troops of the

Voulet–Chanoine Mission The Voulet–Chanoine Mission, also called Central African-Chad Mission (), was a French military expedition sent out from Senegal in 1898 to conquer the Chad Basin and unify all French territories in West Africa. This expedition operated jointly ...

at the

Battle of Lougou The French Voulet–Chanoine Mission, led by the captains Paul Voulet and Julien Chanoine, had been dispatched in 1898 to Africa by the French government with the mission to conquer the territories between the Niger River and Lake Chad and join ...

(in present-day

Niger Niger, officially the Republic of the Niger, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is a unitary state Geography of Niger#Political geography, bordered by Libya to the Libya–Niger border, north-east, Chad to the Chad–Niger border, east ...

) in 1899.

Biography

''Sarraounia'' means ''queen'' or ''female chief'' in the

Hausa Hausa may refer to: * Hausa people, an ethnic group of West Africa * Hausa language, spoken in West Africa * Hausa Kingdoms, a historical collection of Hausa city-states * Hausa (horse) or Dongola horse, an African breed of riding horse See also ...

language. To the predominantly animist Azna people of Lougou and surrounding Hausa towns and villages, the term refers to a lineage of female rulers who exercised both political and religious power. Sarraounia Mangou was the most famous of the Sarraounias, due to her resistance against French colonial troops at the

in 1899. While most chiefs in Niger pragmatically submitted to French power, Sarraounia Mangou mobilized her people and resources to confront the French forces of the

, which launched a fierce attack on her fortress capital of Lougou. Overwhelmed by the superior firepower of the French, she and her fighters retreated from the fortress, and engaged the attackers in a protracted guerrilla battle which eventually forced the French to abandon their project of subduing her. According to native oral history, she was a witch with pure yellow eyes who could hurl fire at the invaders and even summon fog to help them get away from the French army. It's said her magical charms erased her troops footsteps from the battlefield and any crops that were blazed to ash regrew overnight with more than enough food to keep the warriors going. Sarraounia held off the column for much of the early months of 1899, but Lougou was finally stormed in April 1899 and Sarraounia disappeared.

In fiction

She is the subject of the 1986 film '' Sarraounia'' based on the novel ''Sarraounia, le drame de la reine magicienne'', by Nigerien writer Abdoulaye Mamani.

References

{{Cite journal , last=Tidjani Alou , first=Antoinette , date=2022-09-18 , title=Sarraounia, love, and the postcolony , volume=59 , issue=3 , pages=27–34 , url=https://www.ajol.info/index.php/tvl/article/view/244684/231433 , journal=Tydskrif vir Letterkunde , doi=10.17159/tl.v59i3.14321, doi-access=free Year of death missing Female tribal chiefs in Africa 19th-century women monarchs African resistance to colonialism African women in war Rebellions in Africa Women in 19th-century warfare 19th-century monarchs in Africa History of Niger Nigerien military personnel African animists Year of birth unknown Priestesses