Alinesitoué Diatta: Rebel Leader or Colonial Scapegoat?

Abstract

Abstract When a young woman named Alinesitoué Diatta received her first vision from the Jola divine entity, Emitai, Senegal was in the midst of the Second World War. Its colonial government was under Vichy French rule, West African men were forcibly conscripted into the French military, and their crops filled the army's coffers. Amid these global and regional pressures, Alinesitoué’s prophetic teachings inspired rebellion among Senegalese Casamance communities, and in 1943 the French exiled her to Timbuktu. This study examines the response to Alinesitoué’s influence by the French, who used her as a scapegoat to quell rebellion in Senegal and, in so doing, showed how colonial anxiety had been amplified to new levels during the Second World War. By analyzing newly declassified documents, this study examines the tensions between the official and confidential narratives that circulated about Alinesitoué and confirms what scholars have long suspected: Alinesitoué was not the singular rebel that the French made her out to be, and in exiling her, they endowed her with discursive and symbolic power.