Ernest Noirot
| Jean-Baptiste Ernest Noirot | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
18 August 1851 Bourbonne-les-Bains |
| Died | 28 December 1913 (aged 62) Bourbonne-les-Bains |
| Nationality | French |
| Occupation | Comic actor, Photographer, Colonial administrator |
| Known for | Director of Indigenous Affairs of French Guinea |
Jean-Baptiste Ernest Noirot (18 August 1851 - 28 December 1913) was a French comic actor, photographer, explorer and colonial administrator in Senegal and French Guinea in West Africa. He became involved in scandal and was suspended in 1905 when two of his protegés 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. He served as a volunteer in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. For a while he worked at the Folies Bergère and the Folies Dramatiques in Paris as a comic actor. He seems to have worked at the Folies Bergère until 1880. His personnel file says he was also a publicist.
Noirot was the artist and photographer on Dr. Jean-Marie Bayol's 1881-1882 expedition to explore the southern rivers of Senegal and Guinea. The expedition aimed to promote trade with the French as an alternative to existing arrangements with British traders in Freetown, Sierra Leone. He found a still-independent theocratic state in the Imamate of Futa Jallon. He made many landscapes, and several portrait photographs of local people and chiefs. 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. They spent a month in Bordeaux, Paris and Marseilles, where they were greatly impressed by what they saw.
Noirot's 1882 book À travers le Fouta Djallon et le Bambouc (Soudan Occidental). Souvenirs de Voyage records his experiences. The Societe de Geographie de Marseille gave a very positive review of the book, written by an artist with humor and understanding, of his stay among the hospitable Fulani and Malinke people of the region. 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.
On 1 April 1886 Noirot was appointed a colonial administrator. He was assigned to Senegal, where he was briefly commander of the Dagana circle (9 June - 12 July 1886), then Saldé (12 July 1886 - 16 February 1887) and then again Dagana (16 February 1887 - 1889) He received excellent reports for his performance. In 1887 he was with the French expedition that crushed Futa Jallon. In 1889 he represented Senegal at the Universal Exposition in Paris on the Centennial of the French Revolution. There he arranged the display of a Senegalese Village.
...
Wikipedia