Senegal - The island of Carabane

The island of Carabane is located in the extreme south of Senegal in the estuary of the river Casamance 60 km from Ziguinchor, the regional capital, and 30 minutes of canoe from the nearest continental village, Elinkine. It is a mound of about 57 km2 covered by a mangrove dense mangrove with lush vegetation populated by prestigious species such as cheese, baobabs, palm and coconut palms. Former slave trade, first French trading post in 1836, Carabane was also the first administrative capital of Casamance, until 1904, when it was replaced by Ziguinchor. Under the Administrator Emmanuel Bertrand BOCANDE, Carabane was endowed with a plan of urbanism in 1852 which allowed the construction of several buildings of a splendid architecture: The catholic mission in 1880 (become a big hotel), the church of style Breton in 1885, the penitentiary asylum of deportation of resistance to colonization, modestly called "the Special School", etc. The ruins of the warehouses of trading houses and the famous cemetery where Captain Protet, founder of Dakar, buried standing, his eyes fixed on the shore as he had wished, are vestiges of the historical role of Carabane which, by its position privileged strategic, was a bridgehead of French penetration in Casamance. But as much as the testimony value of these remains, it is their inscription in a beautiful natural site that results in the charm of the historic island and makes Carabane a site full of indefinable resonances.