Ndatte Yalla

Ndatté Yalla was Queen of the Kingdom of Waalo, a Kingdom located where is now the Republic of Senegal, after the death of her sister, Djeumbeut Mobdj. She exhibited all the attributes of a Waalo leader : Father David Boilat took a photo of her smoking, surrounded by her female warriors in ceremonial clothes. She fought against the French colonisation and for example refused to ceade the island of Saint Louis to the French, despite the threats of the French governor. Unfortunately, war finally started and the Waalos were defeated by Faidherbe’s troops in February 1855. Her son Sidiya was taken away and raised as a European, but as soon as he returned to Senegal in 1865, he began to resist the French colonisation; he then rejected Western civilisation to adopt his native culture back and started a rebellion.