Matam

Matam lies beside the Senegal River in the country of Futa Toro. Local tradition traces the town to a sixteenth-century settlement founded by Boubou Samba Gaye, a fisherman who came from the upper river. The settlement was known as Sinthiou Jamm Hara before taking the name Matam. It stood in Nguénar, one of the provinces of Futa Toro, whose communities occupied the river valley and the drier lands beyond its banks.