"Pacification":1900-1905
In 1901, French administrator Xavier Coppolani began a plan of "peaceful penetration" into the territories of Trarza and its fellow emirates. This consisted a divide-and-conquer strategy in which the French promised the Zawiya tribes greater independence and protection from Hassane warriors and by extension the Haratin tribes. In the space of four years (1901–1905) Coppolani traveled the area signing "protectorates" over much of what is now Mauritania, and beginning the expansion of French forces.
The Zawiya tribes, descendents of the earlier berber led tribes conquered in the 17th century, remained a religious caste within moorish society, producing leaders that the French called (perhaps erroneously) Marabouts. Forcibly disarmed centuries earlier, they relied upon their Hassane rulers for protection, and their leaders grievances with Trarza's rulers were skillfully expoited by the French.
During this period, there were three marabouts of great influence in Mauritania: Shaykh Sidiya Baba, whose authority was strongest in Trarza, Brakna, and Tagant; Shaykh Saad Bu, whose importance extended to Tagant and northeast Senegal; and Shaykh Ma al Aynin, who exerted leadership in Adrar and the north, as well as in Spanish Sahara and southern Morocco. By enlisting the support of Shaykh Sidiya and Shaykh Saad against the depredations of the warrior clans and in favor of a Pax Gallica, Coppolani was able to exploit the fundamental conflicts in Maure society. His task was made difficult by opposition from the administration in Senegal, which saw no value in the wastelands north of the Senegal River, and by the Saint Louis commercial companies, to whom pacification meant the end of the lucrative arms trade. Nevertheless, by 1904 Coppolani had peacefully subdued Trarza, Brakna, and Tagant and had established French military posts across the central region of southern Mauritania.
As Faidherbe had suggested fifty years earlier, the key to the pacification of Mauritania lay in the Adrar. There, Shaykh Ma al Aynin had begun a campaign to counteract the influence of his two rivals—the southern marabouts, Shaykh Sidiya and Shaykh Saad—and to stop the advance of the French. Because Shaykh Ma al Aynin enjoyed military as well as moral support from Morocco, the policy of peaceful pacification gave way to active conquest. In return for support, Shaykh Ma al Aynin recognized the Moroccan sultan's claims to sovereignty over Mauritania, which formed the basis for much of Morocco's claim to Mauritania in the late twentieth century. In May 1905, before the French column could set out for Adrar, Coppolani was killed in Tidjikdja.
Read more about this topic: Emirate Of Trarza