SAN LUIGI DEL SENEGAL, APOSTOLIC PREFECTURE of. - From the sixteenth century onward, various missionaries succeeded one another intermittently along the coasts of West Africa, but by the beginning of the nineteenth century almost nothing remained of their work. In 1763 there were only the two stations of Saint-Louis and Gorée, erected into the apostolic prefecture of Senegal.
In 1847, the apostolic vicar of the Two Guineas established his see at Dakar. On 8 February 1863, the apostolic vicariate of Senegambia (v. DAKAR), whose southern boundary was the Núñez River, was detached from the apostolic vicariate of the Two Guineas; it bordered on the apostolic vicariate of Sierra Leone, erected on 20 March 1855. From 19 August 1873 to the present day, the apostolic prefecture of S. Luigi and the apostolic vicariate of Dakar have been governed by the same Ordinary, with residence at Dakar. On 10 March 1915 Mauritania was added to it, and on 27 January 1936 it took the name of S. L. del S. The statistics are included among those of the vicariate of Dakar.
BIBL. GM, 241; AAS, 7 (1915), pp. 148-49; 28 (1936), pp. 284-85. Saverio Paventi