Item: i84059

Authentic Coin of:

Guinea – Almany Samory Toure
1969 Proof Silver 200 Francs 29mm (11.72 grams) 0.999 Silver (0.3758 oz. ASW)
Reference: KM# 11, Schön# 11
REPUBLIQUE DE GUINEE 1830 1900 – ALMAMY SAMORY TOURE -, Almany Samory Toure.
1958-1968 X. ANNIVERSAIRE 1970 200 FRANCS GUINEENS, Coat of arms.

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Samori Ture (c. 1830 – June 2, 1900), also known as Samori Toure, Samory Touré, or Almamy Samore Lafiya Toure, was a Muslim cleric, a slave raider, and the founder and leader of the Wassoulou Empire, an Islamic empire that was in present-day north and south-eastern Guinea and included part of north-eastern Sierra Leone, part of Mali, part of northern Côte d’Ivoire and part of southern Burkina Faso. Samori Ture was a deeply religious Muslim of the Maliki jurisprudence of Sunni Islam.

Ture resisted French colonial rule in West Africa from 1882 until his capture in 1898. Samori Ture was the great-grandfather of Guinea’s first president, Ahmed Sékou Touré.

Samori Ture was Koniaka-malinké, born in c. 1830 in Manyambaladugu (in the Konyan/ Beyla region of what is now south-eastern Guinea), the son of Dyula traders. He grew up as West Africa was being transformed through growing contacts and trade with the Europeans in commodities, artisan goods and products. European trade made some African trading states rich. The trade in firearms changed traditional West African patterns of warfare and heightened the severity of conflicts, increasing the number of fatalities. Early in his life, Ture converted to Islam.

In 1848, Samori’s mother was captured in the course of war by Séré-Burlay, of the Cissé clan. He then went to exchange himself for his mother as a result of his love for her. After arranging his mother’s freedom, Samori entered into service to the Cissé, and learned to handle firearms. According to tradition, he remained “seven years, seven months, seven days” before fleeing with his mother.

He joined the Bérété army, the enemies of the Cissé, for two years before rejoining his people, the Kamara. Named Kélétigui (war commander) at Dyala in 1861, Ture took an oath to protect his people against both the Bérété and the Cissé. He created a professional army and placed close relations, notably his brothers and his childhood friends, in positions of command.

Expansion

In 1864, El Hadj Umar Tall died; he had founded the Toucouleur Empire that dominated the Upper Niger River. As the Toucouleur state lost its grip on power, generals and local rulers vied to create states of their own.

By 1867, Ture was a full-fledged war commander, with an army based at Sanankoro in the Guinea Highlands, on the Upper Milo, a Niger River tributary. Ture had two major goals: to create an efficient, loyal fighting force equipped with modern firearms, and to build a stable state.

By 1876, Samori was importing breech-loading rifles through the British colony of Freetown in Sierra Leone. He conquered the Buré gold-mining district (now on the border between Mali and Guinea) to bolster his financial situation. By 1878 he was strong enough to proclaim himself faama (military leader) of his Wassoulou Empire. He made Bissandugu his capital and began political and commercial exchanges with the neighbouring Toucouleur.

In 1881, after numerous struggles, Ture secured control of the key Dyula trading centre of Kankan, on the upper Milo River. Kankan was a centre for the trade in kola nuts, and was well sited to dominate the trade routes in all directions. By 1881, the Wassoulou Empire extended through the territory of present-day Guinea and Mali, from what is now Sierra Leone to northern Côte d’Ivoire.

Ture conquered the numerous small tribal states around him and worked to secure his diplomatic position. He opened regular contacts with the British colonial administration in Sierra Leone. He also built a working relationship with the Fulbe (Fula) Imamate of Futa Jallon.

War and defeat

Samori’s army was well equipped with modern firearms and a complex structure of permanent units. His army was divided into an infantry wing of (Mandinka for infantry, usually slaves) and a cavalry wing sofa. By 1887, Samori could field 30,000 to 35,000 infantry and about 3,000 cavalry, in regular squadrons of 50 each. But, the French did not want to give him time to consolidate his position. Exploiting the rebellions of several of Ture’s subject tribes, who were animist and resisted Islam, the French continued to expand into his westernmost holdings. They forced Ture to sign several treaties ceding territory to them between 1886 and 1889.

Between 1889 and 1894, Ture’s army ravaged Wassoulou and expelled or enslaved most of the population.

In March 1891, a French force under Colonel Louis Archinard launched a direct attack on Kankan. Knowing his fortifications could not stop French artillery, Ture began a war of manoeuvre. Despite victories against isolated French columns (for example at Dabadugu in September 1891), Ture failed to push the French from the core of his kingdom. In June 1892, Archinard’s replacement, Colonel Humbert, leading a small, well-supplied force of picked men, captured Ture’s capital of Bissandugu. In another blow, the British had stopped selling breech loaders to Ture in accordance with the Brussels Convention of 1890.

Ture shifted his base of operations eastward, toward the Bandama and Comoe River in Dabakala. He instituted a scorched earth policy, devastating each area before he evacuated it. Though this manoeuvre cut Ture off from Sierra Leone and Liberia, his last sources of modern weapons, it also delayed French pursuit. After the spring of 1893, the French partially succeeded in cutting off Ture’s sources of weapons which was supplied by the British traders since the late 1880s. Ture tried to negotiate with the British in their colonial domains in Ghana to work against the French interest, but the British would not intervene directly against France.^[6]

He tried to build an anti-colonial alliance with Ashanti Empire but failed when Ashante was defeated by the British and fighting between Ture and British soldiers in 1897. The fall of other anti-colonial armies, particularly Babemba Traoré at Sikasso, permitted the French colonial army to launch a concentrated assault against Ture. By 1898, he lost almost all of his territory and fled into the mountains of western Ivory Coast. He was captured on 29 September 1898 by the French captain Henri Gouraud and was exiled to Gabon despite his request to return to southern Guinea.

Ture died in captivity on an island in the Ogooué River, near Ndjolé on June 2, 1900, following a bout of pneumonia. His tomb is at the Camayanne Mausoleum, within the gardens of Conakry Grand Mosque.

Guinea (/ˈɡɪni/), officially the Republic of Guinea (French: République de Guinée), is a country on the western coast of Africa. Formerly known as French Guinea (French: Guinée française), the modern country is sometimes referred to as Guinea-Conakry in order to distinguish it from other countries with “Guinea” in the name and the eponymous region, such as Guinea-Bissau and Equatorial Guinea. Guinea has a population of 12.4 million and an area of 245,860 square kilometres (94,927 sq mi).

The sovereign state of Guinea is a republic with a president that is directly elected by the people and is head of state and head of government. The unicameral Guinean National Assembly is the legislative body of the country, and its members are also directly elected by the people. The judicial branch is led by the Guinea Supreme Court, the highest and final court of appeal in the country. The country is named after the Guinea region. Guinea is a traditional name for the region of Africa that lies along the Gulf of Guinea. It stretches north through the forested tropical regions and ends at the Sahel. The English term Guinea comes directly from the Portuguese word Guiné, which emerged in the mid-15th century to refer to the lands inhabited by the Guineus, a generic term for the black African peoples below the Senegal River, as opposed to the ‘tawny’ Zenaga Berbers, above it, whom they called Azenegues or Moors.

Guinea is a predominantly Islamic country, with Muslims representing 85 percent of the population. Guinea’s people belong to twenty-four ethnic groups. French, the official language of Guinea, is the main language of communication in schools, in government administration, and the media, but more than twenty-four indigenous languages are also spoken.

Guinea’s economy is largely dependent on agriculture and mineral production. It is the world’s second largest producer of bauxite, and has rich deposits of diamonds and gold. The country was at the core of the 2014 Ebola outbreak. Human rights in Guinea remain a controversial issue. In 2011 the United States government claimed that torture by security forces, and abuse of women and children (e.g. female genital mutilation) were ongoing abuses of human rights.