Wikipedia

Jelen (bumi)

Jeleen Yatta Ntanye, more commonly known as Jelen, Jeléen, or Bemoim,[1] was a buumi of the Jolof Empire who attempted to take control of the state with help from the Portuguese in the late 15th century.

Buumi Jeleen
"Death of the Joloff Prince", from 1892 book The Story of Africa and its Explorers
Buumi
MonarchBirayma Kuran Kan
Personal details
Born
Jeleen Yatta Ntanye Ndiaye
Died1489

Background

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Jeleen was a member of the Ndiaye dynasty, the ruling family of the Jolof Empire. Oral sources do not all agree, but he was likely the son of the Buurba Tase Daagulen.[2][3] Succession disputes were common at the time.[4] The title of Buumi had been created in part to share power and attempt to reduce these conflicts.[2]

Rule as Buumi

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Jeleen ruled over Waalo, near the mouth of the Senegal River.[5][6] He played an important role in governing the empire, with the Buurba occupied with personal pleasures, and is credited in oral history as the first to establish a system of 'alkaldes' who served as customs agents.[7][6] He moved his seat, or perhaps that of the whole empire, closer to the coast in order to better take advantage of the opportunities arising from the Portuguese trade that had begun a few decades earlier.[8]

Alliance with the Portuguese

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Portuguese accounts of Jelen begin when merchants said he did not pay for items he had bought from them. Bemoim, a term coming from his title 'Bumi' in Wolof,[9][10] received an envoy from Portugal sent to address the dispute. No money changed hands, but Jelen gave the Portuguese monarch 100 slaves.[1]

In 1487, Jelen asked the Portuguese for help in a military campaign against his rivals, but this was denied.[11] Jelen eventually had to withdraw to Arguin, a Portuguese colonial garrison. From there, he went to Portugal and had an audience with John II of Portugal,[12] likely in September or October 1488.[13] He was treated as a visiting European monarch would have been.[14]

Jelen was baptized during the visit, on 3 November 1488,[15] and given the baptismal name João.[3] Peter Russell argues that John II had in fact been trying to get Jelen to convert for a while,[16] perhaps because John was interested in spreading Christianity in the area known to the Portuguese as Guinea.[13] They agreed that the Portuguese would send a force to Jolof to set up a fort and trading post at the mouth of the Senegal river and restore Jelen to power.[8]

Jelen was murdered on the way back to West Africa by the Portuguese commander Pero Vaz da Cunha, who alleged Jelen had betrayed them.[3][17]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ a b Elbl 1992, p. 175n49.
  2. ^ a b Fall 2013, p. 27.
  3. ^ a b c Lowe 2007, p. 113.
  4. ^ Russell 2017, p. 508.
  5. ^ Bethencourt 2011, p. 62.
  6. ^ a b Boulegue, Jean (2013). Les royaumes wolof dans l'espace sénégambien (XIIIe-XVIIIe siècle) (in French). Paris: Karthala Editions. p. 150.
  7. ^ Fall 2013, p. 26.
  8. ^ a b Levtzion, Nehemiah (1977). "5 - The western Maghrib and Sudan". In Oliver, Ronald (ed.). The Cambridge History of Africa Volume 3: From c.1050 to c.1600. Cambridge University Press. p. 457. ISBN 9781139054577. Retrieved 12 March 2024.
  9. ^ Ralph 2015, p. 150n5.
  10. ^ Russell 2017, p. 505.
  11. ^ Ralph 2015, p. 11.
  12. ^ Elbl 1992, p. 198.
  13. ^ a b Russell 2017, p. 507.
  14. ^ Elbl 1992, pp. 199–200.
  15. ^ Russell 2017, p. 510.
  16. ^ Russell 2017, pp. 508–509.
  17. ^ Ralph 2015, p. 12.

Sources

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Further reading

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