Dakar, a French town in May 1857

At the mid point in the 19th century, French occupation in Senegal was reduced to a few trading posts, for which fees had to be paid to local chiefs. There were two strategically important points controlling the coastline of Senega, Saint-Louis and the island of Gorea, discovered by the Portuguese in the 15th century, taken by the Dutch at the beginning of the 17th and then occupied by the French in 1677. The island was a key link in chain of the transatlantic slave trade. The abolition in France of the slave trade in 1848 led to the decline of the French trading posts and pressing need to redevelop them. When Gorea became over populated, colonists  began moving to the nearby fishing village of Dakar with its natural deep port.
 
In 1857, ship's captain Protêt took possession of Dakar. He began (in January) by buying a house from one of the rare French traders set up in Dakar. He transformed this house into a fortress and then on 25 May declared the place a French possession. 1857 was also the year in which the governor of the French colony in Senegal, Louis Léon César Faidherbe (1818-1889), established a corps of senegalese fusiliers.
 
In 1859, the control of the nearby Cayor and the defeat of the chief Toucouleur El Hadji Omar enshrined many decades of French occupation of Senegal. Louis Faidherbe had a railway built between Dakar and Saint-Louis.
 
The French transport company was to benefit significantly from the development of the port in the years 1862 to 1866 by Colonel de Génie Émile Pinet Laprade (1822-1869), who was to become governor of Senegal on 12 July, 1865. In the period 1862 to 1885, the town of Dakar grew and developed, with the building of French administration offices, garrisons and stores, etc.). Colonists arrived gradually, numbers finally swelling after 1880. The building of the railway between Dakar and Saint-Louis in 1885 assured the success of the town. In 1878, Dakar had 1,600 inhabitants, but in 1904 the population was 18,5000.
 
In 1902, Dakar became the capital of French West Africa.