Ernest Noirot

He became involved in scandal and was suspended in 1905 when two of his protégés were accused of extortion and other abuses of power, but later he was reinstated.

Jean-Baptiste Ernest Noirot was born at Bourbonne-les-Bains in Haute Marne on 18 August 1851, son of a timber merchant.

[1] Noirot was the artist and photographer on Dr. Jean-Marie Bayol's 1881–1882 expedition to explore the southern rivers of Senegal and Guinea.

[2] The expedition aimed to promote trade with the French as an alternative to existing arrangements with British traders in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

[2] The Almamis of Futa Jallon, Ibrahima and Amadou, sent an embassy of five notables that accompanied Noirot and Bayol on their return journey to France in January 1882.

[7] It may be due to this work that he was offered a position in the commission for the Exposition Coloniale Française held at Anvers in 1885–86.

[8] In June 1897 Ernest Noirot was appointed administrator of the newly acquired region of Fouta Djallon in what is now Guinea, where he dedicated himself to eliminating the institution of slavery.

[12] By the late 1890s Boubou had amassed wealth in gold, livestock and slaves that far exceeded what could be explained by his salary.

This involvement of a French official in a "native" squabble caused a stir, and an investigation was launched.

[15] Another player in the Futa Jallon story was a clerk named Hubert, a nephew of the explorer Louis Gustave Binger, who became a protégé of Noirot.

Hubert adopted an extravagant lifestyle, travelling in great pomp and style with an elaborate entourage, riding a white horse, preceded by praise singers and followed by several of his many mistresses carried in hammocks.

[12] Despite continued and growing abuses by Boubou and Hubert, Noirot provided protection to both men.

1882 Futa Jallon embassy to France, drawn by Noirot