Paul Soleillet (29 April 1842 – 10 September 1886) was a French explorer in West Africa and Ethiopia.
He was a strong believer in opening up Africa to trade through peaceful means, and thus bringing the benefits of French civilization to the natives while gaining commercial profits for France.
Although Soleillet had no scientific training and did not speak the local languages, he was willing to travel on foot with little baggage and few companions, and thus generally avoided being robbed. After a short private expedition into the interior of Algeria he managed to raise support for a more ambitious expedition to In-Salah in 1874 to open a commercial center in the central Sahara. The expedition was a flop, since the coastal merchants had little to offer the interior tribes, who had little to offer in return. Despite this, Soleillet found himself the spokesman for groups interested in a Trans-Saharan railway, and was subsidized to make an expedition from Senegal into the Western Sudan in 1878. This achieved little, but he was treated as a hero on his return. He made an unsuccessful attempt to travel from Senegal to Algeria in 1880. Two French expeditions into the Sahara in 1881 were disastrous, and Soleillet's reputation collapsed. He spent his last years in East Africa tying to develop trade between the French enclave of Djibouti and Ethiopia. Just before he died he was in partnership with Arthur Rimbaud[a] in an attempt to ship arms to the future Emperor of Ethiopia.
^Rimbaud 2013, p. xxix.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).
PaulSoleillet (29 April 1842 – 10 September 1886) was a French explorer in West Africa and Ethiopia. He was a strong believer in opening up Africa to...
that acts upon the Stokes 4-vector. Such matrices were first used by PaulSoleillet in 1929, although they have come to be known as Mueller matrices. While...
In 1884, the Sultan of Tadjoura, Mohammed Loitah, ceded Sagallo to PaulSoleillet of the Société Française d'Obock, forcing the Egyptians to retire. In...
infiltration of Christian influence before the invasion of the Oromo. When PaulSoleillet visited Bonga in the 1880s, he described its trade as primarily slaves...
until the installation of trader Pierre Arnoux in 1881, followed by PaulSoleillet. Obock became a true colony in 1884 with the arrival in August of Léonce...
at the initiative of French merchant Pierre Labatut. The explorer PaulSoleillet became involved early in 1886. The arms were landed at Tadjoura in February...
saved French explorers from local bands. He rescued PaulSoleillet, Blanchet and Fabert. Soleillet was rescued from a local band that pillaged his possessions...
Hippolyte Mircher to the future explorer of French Africa PaulSoleillet. Warnier also introduced Soleillet to Léon Cremieux, president of the Israelite Alliance...
4 July 1873. He gave advice to the future explorer of French Africa PaulSoleillet, who was introduced to him by Auguste Warnier, the Deputy for Algeria...
biological sciences) alongside Maurice Curie, Jean-Paul Mathieu [fr] and André Guinier, then PaulSoleillet and Jean Brossel. He obtained a senior lecturing...
1980). "Pénétration française au Sahara et exploration : le cas de PaulSoleillet". Revue française d'histoire d'outre-mer (in French). 67 (248–249):...
(1931). Histoire des colonies françaises et de l'expansion de la France dans le monde. Tome 4. Plon. Soleillet, Paul (1887). Voyage à Ségou. Challamel....
PMID 25781098. Bourguignat, J.-R. (1885). Mollusques recueillis par M. PaulSoleillet dans son voyage au Choa (Éthiopie méridionale), 1-48, 1 pl. Paris (Mme...
(1885). Les français au Niger: voyages et combats. Hachette. p. 90. Soleillet, Paul (1887). Voyage à Ségou. Challamel. p. 120. Vandervort, Bruce (1998)...
Global Information