The drama which provides the subject of this study is the social crisis surrounding the French conquest of the Wolof states, in the broadest terms a confrontation of indigenous social and political organisation with an alien imperialism. The immediate outcome of this critical confrontation, dealt with below (‘Land, cash and charisma’), was a new form of indigenous organisation based on a surreptitiously revolutionary set of beliefs. The focus here is less on the broad social groups or categories involved, although these must certainly be outlined if the drama is to be intelligible, than on three individual personalities. These leading actors may each be regarded as exemplary of particular social groups and collective beliefs, and as representative of the aspirations of their followers. But each in his distinct style is also a leader of heroic stature, in a position to guide the particular direction in which social forces moved.

These three lives, studied separately and in relation to each other, may be taken to illustrate the argument that outstanding individuals may be in a position to direct social impulses in a manner which is not necessarily dictated to them – either, in this case, by the people whose aspirations they represented, or by the powerful external agency of the French conquerors.