French Equatorial Africa

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French Equatorial Africa

French Equatorial Africa ( French Afrique -Equatoriale française , AEF ) was a French colony in central Africa between the Gulf of Guinea and western Sudan from 1910 to 1958 . The capital was Brazzaville on the Congo.

In 1895 the French West Africa colony was founded by France. It was also dissolved in 1958.

Administrative division

The colony had a size of about three million km² and about six million inhabitants. Its administration consisted of four originally independent units:

Establishment of colonial rule

Postage stamp of the Moyen-Congo from 1907.

After the Portuguese had dominated the coastal area of ​​what would later become Gabon since the 15th century, Louis Edouard Bouet-Willaumez established the first French bases there in 1839. In 1875 Gabon became a French colony. The inland expansion did not begin until the 1880s. It is particularly associated with the name of Count Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza , who declared the Central Congo ( Moyen-Congo ) to be a French sphere of interest and influence from 1880 onwards . The attempt to establish a French colonial empire from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean in Equatorial Africa failed in 1898 when the French met the British in Faschoda on the Nile ( Faschoda crisis ).

The de facto occupation of the Ubangi-Shari territory began in 1889 with the establishment of the first French base in Bangui . From here, the area was largely brought under French control until 1894. The resistance of the indigenous societies lasted until the eve of the First World War.

With the Battle of Kousséri (April 22, 1900), in which three united French military expeditions under the command of Amédée-François Lamy over the troops of the Afro-Arab usurper Rabih b. Fadlallah won, the French position of power on Lake Chad was cemented. On September 5, 1900, the military territory of Chad (Chad) was set up as a further administrative unit. The seat of the administration was the Fort Lamy founded opposite Kousséri at Logone (named after the troop leader who fell in the battle; today N'Djamena ). In the following years, the French subjugated the central Sudanese countries Kanem (1901–1905), Wadai (1903–1911), Borku and Tibesti (1911–1918) in the north of the colony to their rule .

In 1906, Ubangi-Shari and the Chad territory were initially united to form the Ubangi-Shari-Chad colony. In 1910 this structure was merged with the previously independent colonies of Gabon and Central Congo to form the Federation of French Equatorial Africa and Brazzaville was designated the capital. Parts were ceded to the German colony of Cameroon ( New Cameroon ) with the contract of November 4, 1911 ( Morocco-Congo Agreement ). Germany refused the French offer of a larger area of ​​equatorial Africa against German Togo. Instead, France received the northeast corner of Cameroon ( duck bill ). After Germany lost the First World War , Neukamerun demanded it from Germany and received it in the Versailles Peace Treaty in 1919.

Independence movements

The road to independence took a long time. In 1946, the Africans were given a limited right of co-determination, and French Equatorial Africa became an autonomous federation within the Union française . On November 30, 1958, French Equatorial Africa was dissolved and four republics were formed from the previous member states within the Communauté française . In 1960 (" African Year ") the four countries of the Congo (Brazzaville) , Gabon , Central African Republic and Chad became independent.

After the Second World War, parties and independence movements formed in all parts of the country , fighting for power even before the formal release to independence.

In Gabon the Bloc Démocratique Gabonais (BDG) was founded in 1946 , and the Union Démocratique et Sociale Gabonaise (UDSG) in 1948 . The BDG found its supporters mainly in the cities, while the ethnically dominated UDSG had its strongholds in the rural regions. Until 1957 the UDSG was the stronger group. It was then replaced by the BDG with the help of the European sections of the population in the government. The chairman of the BDG was L. M'Ba, who also led the country to independence in 1960.

In Moyen-Congo , where there were massive anti-colonial expressions of resistance as early as the 1920s and 1930s, the Parti Progressiste Congolais (PPC) was founded after the Second World War by Jean-Félix Tchicaya , which was massively opposed by the colonial administration. Instead, the French relied on the European-friendly policy of the Union Démocratique de Défense des Intérêts Africains (UDDIA) of Abbé Fulbert Youlou , who, with massive French help, became head of government of the autonomous Republic of Congo within the Communauté française in 1958. In February 1959, Youlou succeeded in eliminating important rivals from his own camp during ethnic conflicts in the capital Brazzaville. At the same time, the socialist opposition was suppressed, so that the UDDIA emerged from the parliamentary elections on June 14, 1959 with 51 seats as the strongest force. Youlou was also first state and prime minister after independence on August 15, 1960.

In September 1947, the Union Ubangienne, led by Antoine Darlan , was the first liberation movement in Central Africa . This was followed in 1952 by the Mouvement pour l'Évolution Sociale de l'Afrique Noire (MESAN) by Barthélemy Boganda , who became the most important leader of the independence movement.

literature

  • Karl Hänel: French Equatorial Africa (= The countries of Africa. Volume 1). Schroeder, Bonn 1958
  • Georges Bruel, M. Lucien Hubert: Afrique equatoriale française AEF Larose, Paris 1930.
  • Georges Bruel: La France equatoriale africaine. Le pays. Les habitants. La colonization. Les pouvoirs publics. Larose, Paris 1935.
  • Virginia Thompson, Richard Adloff: The Emerging States of French Equatorial Africa. Stanford University Press, Stanford 1960.
  • Édouard Trézenem: L'Afrique Equatoriale Francaise. Éditions Maritimes et Coloniales, Paris 1955.
  • Henri Ziéglé: Afrique equatoriale française. Berger-Levrault, Paris 1952.

Web links

Commons : French Equatorial Africa  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Horst founder : History of the German colonies . 5th edition, Paderborn: Schöningh / UTB, 2004, p. 101, ISBN 3-506-99415-8 ( preview on Google Books )