Cover Image: "Panama" Al Brown - 1926 - cropped
Press photo in the public domain

The Musée du Quai Branly Jacques Chirac is currently hosting Mission Dakar-Djibouti [1931-1933]: Contre-Enquêtes (Dakar-Djibouti [1931-1933]: Counter Investigations), an exhibition that provides a fresh perspective on Africa's colonial history. 

Mission Dakar-Djibouti exhibition flier

The (now defunct) Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadero organized the transcontinental exploration of 14 countries* from the Atlantic Ocean (Dakar) to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden (Djibouti) with the intent to document African cultures that were supposedly disappearing due to colonization.   

It was meant to enrich the collections of the museum and to promote the science of French ethnology through what were considered to be innovative field research methods.

Palais du Trocadéro
Home of the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro
Photo in public domain

The mission raised many ethical questions, particularly concerning the conditions under which thousands of objects and natural specimens (including several human remains) were acquired and housed/displayed at the museum. 

Michel Leiris, secretary of the mission, fueled these questions through information published in his personal diary - L'Afrique fantôme** - after his return to France.

The current exhibition at the Musée du quai Branly presents work conducted by a team of researchers from several African countries and France who have been collectively undertaking a re-examination of the Dakar-Djibouti mission since 2021.  Prioritizing African perspectives and current knowledge, it examines the acquisition conditions and the narratives generated during the two-year expedition.

The Dakar-Djibouti mission was quite an expensive undertaking.  It was supported in part by an extravaganza of eight boxing matches held at the Cirque d'Hiver on April 15, 1931.

Cirque d'Hiver (c. 1925)
Image source: Circopedia.org
CC-BY-NC-ND- 3.0 US

The main draw was a bout between world bantamweight champion Alfonso (Panama Al) Brown and French featherweight champion, Roger Simendé.

Georges Henri Rivière, who was deputy director of the museum, organized the evening.  He and Brown were friends, and he persuaded Brown to donate his purse to the mission.

(Professor Bennetta Jules-Rosette reports that Rivière also organized an improvised boxing match between Brown and Josephine Baker, which was refereed by actor/stuntman/songwriter Roland Toutain and photographed by the press in support of the expedition.)

According to biographer Eduardo Arroyo, an image of Brown's head, crowned by a map of Africa, graced the cover of the program.

Brown addressed the sold-out crowd in English to express his support for the expedition, saying that he was boxing for the development of the culture and knowledge of Africa.

"Panama" Al Brown - 1926
Press photo in the public domain

Uniformed guards from the Trocadéro were stationed at the four corners of the ring.

The fight did not last long - Brown knocked Simendé out 30 seconds into the third round.  True to his word, he donated every centime of his winnings - 101 335 FF (roughly 15,450 euros at today's exchange rate) to the expedition. 

The funds were reportedly used to purchase a boat.

The match inspired American poet E. E. Cummings to write a collage poem called "ondumonde," which takes its title from the words "champion du monde" (world champion).  First published in 1932, this work describes Brown and the happenings of the bout.  Professor Michael Webster extensively explores the poem and the story behind it in an article called "'Floating Particles of Paper' : E. E. Cummings' Collage Poems."

Interestingly, I have not been able to find a single image of the program or a single photo of the opening announcements, the boxing matches (real or improvised), or the individual boxers taken during this event.

I have not yet visited the Musée du quai Branly to see the Mission Dakar-Djibouti exhibition.  It will be interesting to see how much, if any, information is presented about the funding of the expedition.

Mission Dakar-Djibouti [1931-1933]: Contre-Enquêtes runs through September 14, 2025.

*Senegal, French Sudan (present-day Mali), Upper Volta (present-day Burkina Faso), Dahomey (present-day Benin), Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Ubangi-Shari (present-day Central African Republic), Belgian Congo (present-day Democratic Republic of Congo), Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (present-day South Sudan and Sudan), Ethiopia, Eritrea, and the French Somaliland (present-day Djibouti)

**Click HERE to find the English-language translation of L'Afrique Fantôme, entitled Phantom Africa, by Professor Brent Hayes Edwards.