"Wolof Woman Carrying Her Child" (caption translation). The woman is shown with her infant strapped to her back, in typical African style. The author gives a lengthy description of how the infant is carried (p. 16). The woman wears bead jewelry and the child has an amulet around his neck. David Boilat (1814-1901) was one of the first Catholic priests in the Senegambia region. His father was French and his mother a Signare, which was a term from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries used to describe a mixed-race, French-African woman. Boilat spoke Wolof and Serer; and made his drawings from life. The 24 plates based on these drawings are explained in an accompanying text. Boilat left Senegal around the age of 13, was educated in France and he returned to Senegal in 1842 where he lived for ten years working as a teacher. He returned to France where he completed his Esquisses sénégalaises in 1853. He also published a Wolof dictionary in 1858.

David Boilat, Esquisses sénégalaises: physionomie du pays, peuplades, commerce, religions, passé et avenir, récits et légendes (Paris: P. Bertrand, 1853), plate 9.

Boilat, David

French

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Boilat07

Africa--Western Savanna

"Femme Wolof portant son enfant", Slavery Images: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora, accessed January 26, 2022, http://slaveryimages.org/s/slaveryimages/item/2469