Kouroussa

Infobox Settlement
official_name = Kouroussa
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pushpin_map_caption =Location in Guinea
subdivision_type = Country
subdivision_name = flag|Guinea
subdivision_type1 = Region
subdivision_name1 = Kankan Region
subdivision_type2 = Prefecture
subdivision_name2 =Kouroussa Prefecture
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population_total = 10,165
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latd=10|latm=39|lats= |latNS=N
longd=9|longm=53|longs= |longEW=W
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Kouroussa (var. Kurussa) is a town located in northwestern Guinea, and is the capital of Kouroussa Prefecture. In 2008 it had an estimated population 10,165. [ [http://world-gazetteer.com/wg.php?x=&men=gcis&lng=en&des=wg&srt=npan&col=abcdefghinoq&msz=1500&geo=-89 World Gazetteer] , Retrieved on June 16 2008] A trade center and river port from at least the the time of the Mali Empire, Kouroussa has long relied upon its position near the upstream limit of navigation of the Niger River to make it an important crossroads for people and goods moving between the Guinea coast and the states of the western Soudan and Niger River valley. The town and surrounding area is a center of Malinke culture, and is known for its Djembe drumming tradition.

Population

With an estimated population of just over 10,000, Kouroussa functions more as a services and transport center for the surrounding agricultural region than as a metropolitan center in its own right.

Culture

The majority of the surrounding population comes from the Malinke and Djallonke ethnic groups, who speak related Mande languages and follow the Muslim religion. Kouroussa and the surrounding region is the centre of the Hamana-Malinke Mande sub-group -- "Hamana" being the name for the region, while the Malinke are the major Mande speaking ethnic group of the upper Niger valley. There are also sizable minority communities of Fula and Dyula, the latter traditionally forming trade communities in towns like Kouroussa.

The writer and intellectual Camara Laye (1928-80) grew up in Kouroussa, and his memoir, "The Black Child", is in part about his youth in the town. [G. D. Killam, Ruth Rowe. The Companion to African Literatures. Dover (2000). p. 57 ]

Kouroussa and surrounding towns maintain the pre-colonial Mande ceremonial kingship of Hamana, with the most recent holder of the office King of Kouroussa King Sayon Keita I. [ [http://www.sanimuso.com/history.php The Sanimuso Foundation, "Artisanal Mining Association"] , 2006.]

Traditional music

Hamana-Malinke are especially known for their unique musical traditions, especially their polyphonic Djembé drumming traditions, with a number of well known drum masters -- including Famoudou Konate, Daouda Kourouma, and Sékou Konaté -- coming from the town. [ [http://users.skynet.be/sb288188/mamady/FrameMogobalu.html Mögöbalu: Les Sages, les Maîtres] , Website retrieved 2008-09-03] [ [http://worldmusiccentral.org/artists/artist_page.php?id=1036 World Music Central:Famoudou Konaté] , 2008.] Djembé groups in Kouroussa are known for the inclusion of the bass dununba drum and the long kenken bell. [Serge Blanc. [http://www.tambourdjembe.com/djembee2.htm The Djembe: The Dunun] , 1997, retrieve 2008-09-03.]

Economy

Transport

With its position near the upstream limit of navigation on the Niger River, Kouroussa is an important center of transport and trade. The Guinea Railway crosses the Niger River at this town, where there is also a river port. [ [http://webworld.unesco.org/water/ihp/db/shiklomanov/part'4/AFRICA/Guinea/1gn%60ni~1.htm UNESCO: readings of Niger at Kouroussa, 1945-1979] .] The town also lies at a junction in Guinea's N1 highway, which is a major transport route between Conakry, Kankan, and (via the N7 and N32) neighboring Mali. [ [http://www.geonames.org/2418437/kouroussa.html geonames.org: Kouroussa] .] The Niger - Conakry rail line runs 588 km to the capital of Guinea, with a branch of 74 kilometers running from Kouroussa to Kankan. It was built by the French, using African labor, in the first two decades of the 20th century. [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=gWMMAAAAYAAJ New International Yearbook: A Compendium of the World's Progress] , Dood, Mead, & co, New York (1915) p. 274]

Agriculture

The Savanna climate in the region around Kouroussa support a wide range of subsistence and cash crop farming, producing rice, [ [http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/005/Y4347E/y4347e0t.htm listing for FAO Rice Agriculture development centre, Kouroussa] . ] groundnuts, onions and millet for sale, as well as supporting larger scale cotton farming and cattle ranching by both locals and semi-nomadic Fula people whose largest local center is in the nearby Fouta Djallon highlands.

Mining

Major mining companies are engaged in ongoing exploration drilling in a series [ [http://www.afdevinfo.com/htmlreports/lor/lor_21205.html afdevinfo: Kouroussa Exploration Area] ] of government granted Gold mining concessions [ [http://www.cassidygold.com/s/KouroussaProject.asp?ReportID=105159 The Kouroussa Project] : Cassidy Gold corporation.] near the town. [ [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2005_Jan_18/ai_n8697455 Cassidy Gold Set to Resume Drilling at Kouroussa] Business Wire, Jan 18, 2005 ] The Kouroussa area also has a long history as a center of small scale gold mining, which continues in so called "Artisanal Mining" [ [http://www.sanimuso.com/history.php The Sanimuso Foundation, "Artisanal Mining Association"] , 2006.] Recent criticism has surfaced around the working conditions, pay, and the widespread use of child labour in these small gold mines, and the method which middlemen, many based in Kouroussa, purchase and transport gold. Gold collected in Kouroussa is sold on -- with almost no regulation or oversight -- to larger merchant houses in Bamako, Conakry, and eventually to smelters in Europe. [ [http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iiGYXu97hSZjgaq26AGOknlnIuegD92FK3180 Kids working in African gold mines] . AP/RUKMINI CALLIMACHI AND BRADLEY S. KLAPPER – Aug 10, 2008. ] Large scale Titanium mining has also been proposed in the Kouroussa area, with both Dredging of Heavy Mineral Sands from rivers and streams and dry pit mines proposed as of 2007. [ [http://www.guineetitanium.com/Divisions/divisions.htm Guinee Titanium] , date 2007, retrieved 2008-08-03.]

History

) became powerful to the south and east. The Mandé state around Kouroussa, called in some periods "Hamana" and in others "Koumara", continued as an important trade center and small regional power, squeezed between these forces. [ [https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/dspace/handle/1887/2775 Jan Jansen. THE REPRESENTATION OF STATUS IN MANDE: DID THE MALIEMPIRE STILL EXIST IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY?] History in Africa 23 (1996), 87-109
Note: Jansen argues for a reappraisal of Mandé dating which pushes remnants of the Mali Empire into the 19th century. The more traditional dates are accepted in Charlotte A Quinn. Mandingo kingdoms of the Senegambia: Traditionalism, Islam, and European expansion. Longman (1972). ISBN 0582645476 ]

Colonialism

The first known European visitor to the town was the Frenchman René-Auguste Caillié, who passed through the area in the 1820s. By the arrival of Europeans, Kouroussa was a major trade stop between the Niger River valley and the coast, with the so called "Leprince" overland route running from the coast via Kinda, Timbo, and Kouroussa. [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=gWMMAAAAYAAJ New International Yearbook: A Compendium of the World's Progress] , Dood, Mead, & co, New York (1915) p. 274]

In the late 19th century French forces appeared in the region just to the north, establishing bases at Kayes, Kita, Mali, Bafoulabé and eventually at Bamako. Countering the French expansion was the Fula Jihad state of which exploded out of neighboring Dinguiray to conquer both the Mandé states surrounding Kouroussa to the northwest and the Bambara to the northeast. To the south, the Wassoulou conquest state of Samori Ture appeared, sending his well armed forces against Kouroussa, its neighbors, and the French alike, while the Fouta Djallon state raided the area periodically. The French officer Aimé Olivier, attempting to convince the Timbo Almamate to sign a protectorate, passed through Kouroussa in the 1880s, and at the beginning of the 1890s, French military under Louis Archinard established garrison posts at Kankan and Kouroussa, commanded from a larger post just downstream at Siguiri. [Auguste-Louis-Charles Gatelet. [http://books.google.com/books?id=wnwLAAAAIAAJ Histoire de la conquête du Soudan français (1878-1899)] . Berger-Levrault, Paris (1901). pp. 146, 184-87] In 1893-1894, Commandant Briquelot set up a post at Kouroussa, as it lay along the main line for French fighting with the forces of Samori to the south. From here French forces raided areas controlled by Samori, even launching raids from here into the British territory of Sierra Leone. [Gatelet, op cit., 189-191] By 1895, even while fighting with Samori continued, the French had set up a school to train local workers to identify, collect, and prepare wild rubber for French industrial purposes. Kouroussa became a regional center of rubber requisitions (often instituted as a tax in labour), which peaked in the second decade of the 20th century. [Gatelet op. cit., p. 494. For the colonial era wild rubber collections, see: Emily Lynn Osborn. ‘Rubber Fever’, Commerce And French Colonial Rule In Upper Guinée, 1890–1913. The Journal of African History (2004), 45: 445-465] Kouroussa was administered as part of the "Siguiri Cercle", which also included Kankan. [Gatelet, op cit., 506, 509]

The French, after annexing the Fouta Djallon in the 1890s, added the region to the colony of French Upper Guinea, later a part of French West Africa, until Guinea's independence in 1959. During the colonial period the town was made a main trans-shipment point for commodities coming from French Soudan (today's Mali) due to the construction of the Guinea-Niger railway, which met the river at Kouroussa in 1910, and from which rainy season ship transport could reach Bamako. [William Basil Morgan, John Charles Pugh. West Africa. Methuen, 1969. pp. 271, 587, 593.] As well as a collection center for wild rubber, the French encouraged the collection gold sifted from streams and dug by local small scale mines. The French also attempted to promote local farming of groundnuts and cotton. There remains a monument to René-Auguste Caillié in Kouroussa, erected by the French.

Contemporary history

In 2001, Kouroussa was one of several places which was particularly hard hit by flooding, and became a center for thousands of internally displaced people from the surrounding area. [http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=27144 GUINEA: Up to 70,000 affected by floods] , 21 September 2001 (IRIN)] In 2005, Kouroussa was rocked by major protests against the government, particularly aimed at Kouroussa Prefect Charles Andre Haba who was accused of embezzling local mining revenue. The town was reported at the time to be a center of the opposition Rally of the Guinean People (RPG) [ [http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=56246 GUINEA: Two hurt in anti-corruption protest] 9 September 2005 (IRIN)] [ [http://hilaryheuler.blogspot.com/2006/04/west-african-seasons_11.html West African Seasons] , Tuesday, April 11, 2006. Personal account of the 2006 tensions from Peace Corps volunteer Hilary Heuler, based in Kouroussa]

See also

* Transport in Guinea
* Railway stations in Guinea

References

* [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/322985/Kouroussa Britannica Online: Kouroussa] .
* [http://maps.fallingrain.com/world/GV/19/Kouroussa.html FallingRain Map - elevation = 362]