Senegal Emigration and Immigration


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Finding the Town of Origin in Senegal

If you are using emigration/immigration records to find the name of your ancestors' town in Senegal, see Senegal Finding Town of Origin for additional research strategies.

Senegal Emigration and Immigration

"Emigration" means moving out of a country. "Immigration" means moving into a country.
Emigration and immigration sources list the names of people leaving (emigrating) or arriving (immigrating) in the country. These sources may be passenger lists, permissions to emigrate, or records of passports issued. The information in these records may include the emigrants’ names, ages, occupations, destinations, and places of origin or birthplaces. Sometimes they also show family groups.

Immigration into Senegal

  • In the mid-15th century, the Portuguese landed on the Senegal coastline. Various European powers — Portugal, the Netherlands, and Great Britain — competed for trade in the area from the 15th century onward.
  • In 1677, France gained control of what had become a minor departure point in the Atlantic slave trade: the island of Gorée next to modern Dakar, used as a base to purchase slaves from the warring chiefdoms on the mainland.
  • European missionaries introduced Christianity to Senegal and the Casamance in the 19th century.
  • It was only in the 1850s that the French began to expand onto the Senegalese mainland, after they abolished slavery and began promoting an abolitionist doctrine, adding native kingdoms like the Waalo, Cayor, Baol, and Jolof Empire.
  • French colonists progressively invaded and took over all the kingdoms, except Siné and Saloum.
  • The country experienced a wave of immigration from France in the decades between World War II and Senegalese independence; most of these French people purchased homes in Dakar or other major urban centers.
  • About 50,000 Europeans (mostly French) and Lebanese as well as smaller numbers of Mauritanians and Moroccans reside in Senegal, mainly in the cities and some retirees who reside in the resort towns around Mbour. There are tens of thousands of Mauritanian refugees in Senegal, primarily in the country's north.
  • The majority of Lebanese work in commerce. Most of the Lebanese originate from the Lebanese city of Tyre, which is known as "Little West Africa" and has a main promenade that is called "Avenue du Senegal".
  • Also located primarily in urban settings are small Vietnamese communities as well as a growing number of Chinese immigrant traders, each numbering perhaps a few hundred people.[1]

Emigration From Senegal

KNOMAD Statistics: Emigrants: 540,400. Top destination countries: France, The Gambia, Italy, Spain, Mauritania, Gabon, Côte d’Ivoire, the United States, Mali, the Republic of Congo [2]

  • Senegal was historically a destination country' for neighboring economic migrants, but in recent decades West African migrants more often use Senegal as a transit point to North Africa, or as a stop before continuing illegally onward to Europe.
  • The country also has been host to several thousand black Mauritanian refugees since they were expelled from Mauritania during the 1989 border conflict with Senegal.
  • The country's economic crisis in the 1970s stimulated emigration; departures accelerated from the 1990s. Destinations shifted from neighboring countries to Libya and Mauritania', because of their booming oil industries, and to France, Italy and Spain.[3]

Records of Senegalese Emigrants in Their Destination Nations

Dark thin font green pin Version 4.png One option is to look for records about the ancestor in the country of destination, the country they immigrated into. See links to Wiki articles about immigration records for major destination countries below. Additional Wiki articles for other destinations can be found at Category:Emigration and Immigration Records.


References

  1. "Senegal", in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senegal, accessed 29 July 2021.
  2. "Senegal," at KNOMAD, the Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development, https://www.knomad.org/data/migration/emigration?page=20, accessed 29 July 2021.
  3. "Demographics of Senegal: Emigration", in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Senegal#Emigration, accessed 29 July 2021.