France (Senegal)
Blaise Diagne
1872–1934 Deputy for Senegal; recruiting commissioner for West Africa, 1918
Born in Gorée to a Senegalese family and educated in France, Diagne served in the colonial customs service before being elected in 1914 as the first black African deputy in the French National Assembly. He secured the 1916 law confirming the French citizenship of the people of the four oldest communes of Senegal, who were therefore liable for military service. In January 1918 Clemenceau appointed him commissioner for recruitment in French West Africa, and his tour raised more than 60,000 men. Diagne promised better treatment in return, but many promises were not kept. Critics at the time and since have accused him of helping France to exploit Africans. He also presided over the first Pan-African Congress in Paris in February 1919.