Alfa Yaya and the Fula of Futa Jallon

Alfa Yaya Maudo, of Labé in present-day Guinea, was a 19th-century ruler of the Fula people in the Fouta Djallon confederacy that included the interior of much of Guinea and Guinea-Bissau.

Alfa Yaya was the son of Alfa Molo who led the Siege of Kansala, the capital of the kingdom of Kaabu. When the city fell after a long siege, ending Kaabu's independent existence, Alfa Molo married a Kaabu princess who gave birth to Alfa Yaya.

Fula people or Fulani or Fulbe are an ethnic group spread over many countries, predominantly in West Africa, but found also in Central Africa and Sudanese North Africa.

Fouta Djallon is a highland region in the centre of Guinea, West Africa. The indigenous name is Fuuta-Jaloo. The origin of the name is from the Fula word for the region and the name of the original inhabitants, the Jalonke. In Fuuta-Jaloo their language is called Pular, which is a dialect of Fula.

Pro-French stance

Revolt by his own son

Launch attacks against other rulers in Futa Jallon

Permanent chief of an enlarged Labe province

Treaty of protection of 1897

Although Yaya did cultivate a close relationship with the French he did not long submit to their authority, which indicates that he sought their support of his own interest for power.

Alfa Yaya's relationship with the French went downhill in 1904.

Tax collections Extent of Yaya’s political autonomy French ceded part of Labé to the control

of Portuguese Guinea

Alfa Yaya began stockpiling arms and dispatching emissaries throughout the region to intensify anti-French sentiment.

Released in 1910, he immediately began to organize resistance; he was again arrested in 1911 and taken to Port Etienne, where he died on 10 October 1912.