[7] In 1852 he was transferred to Senegal as sub-director of engineers, and in 1854 was promoted chef de bataillon and appointed governor of the colony on December 16.

Explorers had, however, made known the riches and possibilities of the Niger regions, and Faidherbe formed the design of adding those countries to the French dominions.

Faidherbe's actions were not of his own creation, but were an implementation of "The Plan of 1854": a series of ministerial orders given to Governor Protet that originated in petitions from the powerful Bordeaux-based Maurel and Prom company, the largest shipping interest in Saint-Louis.

The plan specified in detail the creation of forts along the Sénégal River to end African control of the acacia gum trade from the interior.

French military forces had previously avoided conflicts with the most powerful states in the area, the Peul empire along the Niger River, and the Cayor in the south.

[9] To accomplish even the first part of his design, he had very inadequate resources, especially in view of the opposition from El Hadj Umar Tall, the Muslim ruler of the countries of the middle Niger.

[12] Scholars like Martin A. Klein note that Faidherbe was merely playing with words and was making political decisions in Senegal without any authority whatsoever.

[12] Saint-Louis was placed under formal military control, and a telegraph and road link was set up to the other French colonies in Gorée Island and Rufisque.

In 1857, the French seized the inland region between these two from the Lebu Republic, and rechristened their capital Ndakarou as the new colonial city of Dakar.

[13] But Saint-Louis's place as a door of French trade into an African interior began to wane with the expansion of direct colonial rule.

Large French firms, many from the city of Bordeaux, took over the new commercial networks of the interior, marginalizing the Métis traders who had always been the middle men of upstream commerce.

Faidherbe also placed under direct French control large-scale seasonal groundnut cultivation near the fort systems, and then along the rail lines.

This created the navétanes system of seasonal labor migration, first in Cayor, then spreading along the rail lines to Baol and Sine-Saloum, and eventually along the Thies-Kayes railway.

[14] When he resigned his post, French rule had been firmly established over a very considerable and fertile area and the foundation laid upon which his successors built up the position occupied after 1904 by France in West Africa.

Faidherbe was promoted to divisional general in November 1870, and in December appointed as commander-in-chief of the Army of the North by the Government of National Defence.

An enthusiastic geographer, historian, philologist and archaeologist, he wrote numerous works, including Collection des inscriptions numidiques (1870), La Campagne de l'armée du Nord (1871), Epigraphie phenicienne (1873), Essai sur la langue poul (1875), and Le Zénaga des tribus sénégalaises (1877), the last a study of the Berber language.