French Congo
French Congo Congo français | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1882–1960 | |||||||||||
Status | French colony | ||||||||||
Capital | Brazzaville | ||||||||||
Common languages | French (official) Fang, Myene, Kongo, Lingala | ||||||||||
Religion | Christianity, Bwiti, Islam, traditional religions | ||||||||||
History | |||||||||||
• Established | 1882[1] | ||||||||||
• Renamed Middle Congo | 1903 | ||||||||||
• Reestablished as French Equatorial Africa | 1910 | ||||||||||
Currency | French franc | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
Today part of | Republic of the Congo Central African Republic Gabon |
The French Congo (Template:Lang-fr) or Middle Congo (Template:Lang-fr) was a French colony which at one time comprised the present-day area of the Republic of the Congo and parts of Gabon, and the Central African Republic. In 1910, it was made part of the larger French Equatorial Africa.
Modern Republic of Congo is considered French Congo's successor state, having virtually identical borders, and having inherited rights to sovereignty and independence from France through the dissolution of French Equatorial Africa in the late 1950s.
History
The French Congo began at Brazzaville on 10 September 1880 as a protectorate over the Bateke people along the north bank of the Congo River.[1] The treaty was signed between King Iloo I and Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza; Iloo I died the same year it was signed, but the terms of the treaty were upheld by his queen Ngalifourou.[2] It was formally established as the French Congo on 30 November 1882,[1] and was confirmed at the Berlin Conference of 1884–85. Its borders with Cabinda, Cameroons, and the Congo Free State were established by treaties over the next decade. The plan to develop the colony was to grant massive concessions to some thirty French companies. These were granted huge swaths of land on the promise they would be developed. This development was limited and amounted mostly to the extraction of ivory, rubber, and timber. These operations often involved great brutality and the near enslavement of the locals.
Even with these measures most of the companies lost money. Only about ten earned profits. Many of the companies' vast holdings existed only on paper with virtually no presence on the ground in Africa.
The French Congo was sometimes known as Gabon-Congo.[3] It formally added Gabon on in 1891,[1] was officially renamed Middle Congo (Template:Lang-fr) in 1903, was temporarily divorced from Gabon in 1906, and was then reunited as French Equatorial Africa in 1910 in an attempt to emulate the relative success of French West Africa.
A 1906 study Template:Lang-fr, was published in conjunction with the French Colonial Exposition in Marseille.[4] In 1925 African-American historian, sociologist, and Pan-Africanist W. E. B. Du Bois wrote "'Batouala' voices it. In the depths of the French Congo one finds the same exploitation of black folk as in the Belgian Congo or British West Africa."[5][6]
List of Commissioners-General
The colony was administered under four commissioners-general (commissionaires généraux) prior to its reorganization into Middle Congo.[1]
- Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza (January 1883 – 1897)
- Louis Albert Grodet (1897–1898)
- Henri Félix de Lamothe (1898–1901)
- Emile Gentil (1901–1903)
See also
- Raphaël Etifier
- French Equatorial Africa
- List of French possessions and colonies
- French colonial empire
- Belgian Congo
- Ngalifourou
References
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Histoire militaire des colonies, pays de protectorat et pays sous mandat. 7. "Histoire militaire de l'Afrique Équatoriale française". 1931. Accessed 9 October 2011. (in French)
- ^ jeremy, rich (2012), "Ngalifourou", Dictionary of African Biography, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780195382075.001.0001/acref-9780195382075-e-1533, ISBN 978-0-19-538207-5, retrieved 16 January 2021
- ^ Payeur-Didelot: "Gabon – Colonie française du Gabon-Congo, 1/3,700,000", 1894. (in French)
- ^ Rouget, Ferdinand (1906). The Colonial Expansion of French Congo (in French). Émile Larose – via World Digital Library. Retrieved 19 June 2014.
- ^ Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt (April 1, 1925). "Worlds of Color". Foreign Affairs. Vol. 3, no. 3. ISSN 0015-7120.
- ^ DuBois, W. E. B. (1925). "The Negro Mind Reaches Out". In Locke, Alain LeRoy (ed.). The New Negro: An Interpretation (1927 ed.). Albert and Charles Boni. p. 385. LCCN 25025228. OCLC 639696145.
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Further reading
- Petringa, Maria. Brazza, A Life for Africa. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2006. ISBN 978-1-4259-1198-0. Describes Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza's extensive explorations of what became French Congo, and later, French Equatorial Africa.
External links
- Media related to French Congo at Wikimedia Commons
- French Congo
- French Equatorial Africa
- Former colonies in Africa
- Former French colonies
- French colonisation in Africa
- History of Central Africa
- History of Gabon
- History of the Central African Republic
- History of the Republic of the Congo
- States and territories established in 1882
- States and territories disestablished in 1910
- 1882 establishments in French Congo
- 1882 establishments in Africa
- 1910 disestablishments in Africa
- 1882 establishments in the French colonial empire
- 1910 disestablishments in the French colonial empire
- France–Republic of the Congo relations