The Monuments of Empire Global Material Culture, “Colonial” Spaces and Emotional Styles in French Senegambia (c.1630–c.1730)

Cap Gaspar (present-day Dakar, Senegal), 1635. It must have been a curious scene when two men – French Capuchins wearing large robes of brown woolen cloth – crawled through the small door of a house into a maze of narrow corridors and alleys finally entering a larger room. A man, who made the sign of the cross, raised his eyes to the sky and showed them two paintings of the king of France and the king of Spain, greeted them affectionately. He explained that these portraits represented ‘prototypes’ of Christians, who already dwelled in paradise. The monks, impressed by the simplicity of his explanation, offered to bring him more devotional objects when they returned.1