Alfred Amédée Dodds (6 February 1842– 17 July 1922) was the commander of French forces in Senegal from 1890, commander of French forces in the second expeditionary force to suppress the Boxer Rebellion, and commander of French forces during the First and Second Franco-Dahomean War.
As both a quadroon and Métis, he was famed in the African diaspora at the beginning of the 20th century as an example of African leadership.
From 1892 to 1894, he led the conquest of Dahomey, one of West Africa's most powerful pre-colonial states, against King Béhanzin. Close to the French Radical Party, Alfred Dodds owed his nomination as expedition leader to the personal intervention of powerful French politician Georges Clemenceau.
Biography
Early life
Dodds was born on 6 February 1842 in Saint-Louis, Senegal. His father was Antoine Henri Dodds, a merchant, and director of the Saint-Louis post office, a quadroon and of Métis descent; his mother was Charlotte de la Chapelle, a signare of French and African descent. He was the eldest of 10children.
His paternal grandfather was John Dodds, a British Army officer and aide-de-camp to the last English governor of Saint-Louis. John Dodds was married to a Senegalese woman of French and African descent.
He served in Senegal from 1871 to 1878, in Cochinchina from 1878 to 1879. Made battalion leader in 1879, he then served again in Senegal and participated in the fighting in Casamance from 1879 to 1883. Then made a lieutenant colonel, he served in the war of conquest in Tonkin.
A colonel in 1887, he served in the counter-insurgency warfare in the Fouta Djalon in French Guinea. He was decorated Commander of the Legion of Honour in 1891 and was given command of the Eighth Colonial Army in Toulon. Then, in 1892, he was appointed superior commander of Dahomey and led the Second Franco-Dahomean War.
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