Diamou

Diamou stands on the left bank of the Senegal River in the country around Kayes, in southwestern Mali. About forty-five kilometres separate the town from Kayes itself. Its wider territory embraces a network of twenty-five villages, giving the place a rural setting that extends well beyond the riverbank settlement, and the Senegal is the clearest geographical link binding this cluster of communities to the surrounding region.

The river gives the area a dependable corridor through a relatively dry landscape of hills and grassland. Villages can use both the river and the surrounding rain-fed land, while seasonal conditions affect grazing and harvests. Close enough to Kayes for trade, yet far enough to keep a distinctly rural network, Diamou's identity is shared among many small settlements rather than concentrated in one urban core.

This stretch of the upper Senegal belonged to Khasso, whose Fula-descended Khassonke rulers won independence at Toumbifara in 1681 under Yamadou Hawa. His son Séga Doua became the first king, and his successors, among them Demba Séga from 1758 to 1796, made Khasso the most powerful state of the upper Senegal valley. After Demba Séga's death civil war broke out, Kaarta sacked the capital Kouniakary, and the kingdom split into smaller states, of which Dembaya, centred on Médine and ruled by Hawa Demba Diallo from 1810 to 1833, was the strongest.