Source: Encyclopedia Senegal (History) Senegal (History)In the middle of the 1st millennium A.D. the region was settled by migrating Wolof and Serer peoples, followed (9th cent.) by the Tukolor, whose state of Tekrur dominated the Senegal R. valley until the 14th cent. The Portuguese arrived (1444-45) and established trading stations; they were displaced by the Dutch and French in the 17th cent. French influence was extended into the interior after 1697, but control of bases in Senegal alternated between France and Britain from the SEVEN YEARS WAR (1756-63) until 1815, when they were finally returned to France. Senegal became a French colony in 1895, remaining part of FRENCH WEST AFRICA until it was made an autonomous republic within the FRENCH COMMUNITY in 1958. Full independence was achieved in 1960, with Léopold SENGHOR as president. By the mid-1960s Senghor had consolidated his power by removing Prime Minister Mamadou Dia and creating a one-party state. A period of civil unrest followed, marked by demonstrations, strikes, and a worsening economic situation resulting from the drought in the Sahel region. In 1978 Senegal again held multiparty elections, which were won by Senghor's Senegalese Socialist party. After his retirement (1980), Senghor was succeeded (1981) as president by Prime Min. Abdou Diouf, who was reelected in 1988 and 1993 amid allegations of fraud. Since the early 1980s there has been sporadic fighting with separatists in the southern province of Casamance, which is largely separated from Senegal by Gambia. In 1981 Senegal joined GAMBIA in a confederation known as Senegambia, but Senegal ended (1989) the association when Gambia refused to move toward closer union. The nation's relations with neighboring Mauritania deteriorated during the late 1980s over the treatment the citizens of each received in the other country; tensions were aggravated by Senegalese opposition to Mauritania's oppression of its black minority.