Encyclopedia of African History.
Kevin Shillington, ed. Vol. 1. New York & London. Fitzroy Dearborn,
p. 599-601
Guinea is a crescent-shaped country, the result of the arbitrary amalgamation
of various regions by colonial conquest. The practice of dividing Guinea into four
geopolitical regions dates to this period, but it also reflects both precolonial
features (states and peoples) and the very process of colonial conquest. The four
regions comprise coastal or Lower Guinea, the highlands of Futa
Jalon,
Upper Guinea, and the Forest region.
Initially an administrative dependency of Senegal, thus known as the “Rivières
du Sud” (“Southern Rivers”), French Guinea became a colony with
its own governor in 1893. Its territory was progressively broadened, beginning
in the 1860s, with commercial expansion on the coast. In 1896, after more than
a decade of negotiation and protectorate treaties with the Muslim state of Futa-Jalon,
the military conquest of central Guinea took place. Starting in 1882, severe fighting
erupted between the forces led by Samori Touré and the French Military.
Over the next decade, parts of Touré's former empire were gradually annexed
into French Sudan. In 1899 this region was incorporated in French Guinea. Due to
long-lasting resistance in the numerous forest chiefdoms, the eastern extremity
remained under military control as late as 1911-1912.
After some hesitation and compromises with former paramount chiefs, such as Alpha Yaya Diallo, head of Labé Province (Diiwal) in the Futa-Jalon, the administration
of Guinea adopted the policy applied elsewhere in French West Africa: the colony
was divided into administrative units known as “circles.” Africans
were used as intermediaries serving as “chefs de canton” (a new administrative
position) and as village headmen. Former chiefs who demonstrated their loyalty
to French authority were kept in power, especially in Central Guinea. However,
the power of these auxiliaries was controlled, and their tasks included collecting
taxes, recruiting manpower for forced labor or military service, carrying out judicial
responsibilities, and transmitting economic policy to the local level.
As elsewhere in colonial Africa, most borders were arbitrary. Of greatest significance
for their impact on the local population were the boundaries between French and
foreign territories, for they disrupted established trading and social networks.
As a result of the crescent shape of Guinea, some regions were much farther from
the capital, Conakry, than from two other international harbors: Freetown, Sierra
Leone and Monrovia, Liberia. This has an impact even today in terms of smuggling
or cross-boundary strategies. A coercive policy was therefore necessary to attract
exports from far-away regions to Conakry. This was effected through the construction
of roads and a railway, and the imposition of taxes and high customs duties.
Agriculture (mainly cash crops) was the basis of the economy and the main source
of revenue until the 1950s, when some mineral ores began to be exported in significant
quantities. Guinea went through successive economic cycles. The first product to
be exported on a large scale, and one of the driving forces behind the colonization
of the hinterland was wild rubber, from central and upper Guinea. Collecting the
latex required long hours of hard work. A railway line alleviated the difficult
task of portage: it linked Conakry to Mamou (about 186 miles from the capital)
in 1908 and reached Kouroussa in 1910 and Kankan in 1914 (a total of 414 miles).
Rubber exports peaked in 1909-1912, with 1,700 to 2, 100 tons per year. Rubber
provided an average of 73 per cent of Guinea's exports by value between 1892 and
1913. After the turn of the century, Guinean wild rubber was in competition with
plantation rubber from Indonesia and later Brazil. After two crises in 1907 and
1911, the market for wild rubber collapsed in 1913. The following year, exports
dropped to 914 tons, representing only 28 per cent of exports by value. Despite
low prices, rubber continued to be exported, as it represented the only product
for some regions, and hence the only means of procuring sufficient
funds to pay taxes.
The rubber cycle was followed by a long depression, until the colony started to
export bananas from lower Guinea in the 1930s. This production was encouraged by
the government through preferential customs duties. The introduction of refrigerated
ships in 1935 accelerated the process. Most plantations were European-owned: the
expatriates benefited from their access to capital and from the support of an administration
that recruited manpower through forced labor. Some Africans were nevertheless able
to enter the banana industry. Exports grew steadily:
Year |
Quantity (tons) |
1920 |
114 |
1933 |
20,000 |
1938 |
52,800 |
1955 |
98,000 |
Thus by the mid-1950s Guinea was the main banana producer in French West Africa, with 80 per cent of total exports. Exports reached a peak of but then declined because of a leaf disease. Besides this main product, Guinea also exported palm products, cola nuts, hides, and cattle, and, after World War II, coffee and pineapples. The exploitation of minerals started in the 1950s, although some diamonds had been exported from the forest region as early as 1936. Iron ore was extracted near Conakry beginning in 1953, by the Compagnie Minière de la Guinée française, with partial American capital. It peaked at 1 million tons in 1957, but mining ceased in 1966. Bauxite was to become the main export after independence, but exploitation only started in the early 1950s, at three different mines:
In 1958, bananas and coffee still provided
80 per cent of exports by value.
Colonization brought with it severe social disruption.
Slavery was a major problem, particularly in Futa Jalon. There, slaves were estimated
at more than 50 per cent of the population, as opposed to 40 per cent in the colony as a whole, according to a 1904 report. The formal abolition of this status in 1905 did not change immediately the captives' social position. Former slaves were the first to be sent to the army or to forced labor projects, and their ex-masters used Islamic religious knowledge to dominate them. But colonization also implied demographic movements between the hinterland and the capital city or other new economic regions, such as the coastal region (Basse-Côte). The urban population was estimated at 6 per cent in 1958, half of which was concentrated
in Conakry (80,000 to 100,000 people). The total population grew from about 1.8
million in 1910 to 2.6 million in 1956. Population growth accelerated after 1945,
although medical equipment was still deficient with three hospitals (two in the
capital) and ninety-nine dispensaries. The education system was also underdeveloped.
Colonization introduced changes in the relationships between elders and family
members of lower social status, especially “younger brothers” who could
seek wage labor and therefore partly escape the elders' authority. The absence
of cash crops combined with French-imposed taxation pushed young men to migrate
to more promising economic zones, such as the groundnut fields of Senegal in the
1920s-1930s (navétanat), or the diamond mines of Sierra Leone from the 1940s.
Formal political activity was highly restricted until 1946, as in other French
colonies. Political parties and trade unions were not authorized; only a few associations
promoting leisure or solidarity, sometimes on a regional basis, were allowed. Some
of these associations later became the starting point for larger unions, such as “Association
Gilbert Vieillard”, “Union du Mandé” or the “Union
forestière.” Other forms of political expression existed, including
exodus to neighboring countries, and strikes among the few wage workers (dock workers,
civil servants). In 1946, associations-political parties, labor unions, and cultural
groups-were authorized. The nation witnessed the birth of many political parties
at that time. Some representatives from Guinea helped found the Rassemblement
Démocratique Africain (RDA) party in Bamako in 1946, and the following year the Guinean branch
was started; it was renamed the Parti
Démocratique de Guinée (PDG)
in 1950. Under the leadership of Sékou Touré, who became its secretary
general in 1952, the party grew rapidly. (In 1945 Touré had initiated the
first trade union, followed by a confederation a year later.)
Other parties were also formed, some, such as the Union Franco-Africaine, under
the auspices of French colonizers, who hoped to control the election results. After
1945 several legislative elections were held, and the first municipal elections
occurred in 1956. In that year Sékou Touré became the first mayor
of Conakry. The PDG was first successful in the Forest region
and Upper
Guinea,
later along the Coast. Central Guinea (or Futa-Jalon), the last region to vote
for the PDG, was long dominated by two local parties, the Démocratie Socialiste
de Guinée and the Bloc Africain de Guinée. The first semi-autonomous
government, formed in 1957 as a result of the Loi-cadre (a decree instituting decentralization
and devolution for French-administered regions) was headed by Sékou
Touré.
Saifoulaye Diallo, number two in the party, was elected president of the Territorial
Assembly, which immediately took significant measures, such as the
abolition of headmanship in December 1957, replacing this unpopular institution with elected
councils.
Responding to President Charles de Gaulle of France on August 25, 1958, Sékou
Touré proclaimed in a speech that his country preferred poverty in freedom
to opulence in slavery. The PDG advocated a “no” vote in the referendum
of September 28, 1958. As a result, an overwhelming 95 per cent rejected the French
Community. Independence was proudly declared on the second of October, abruptly
severing all links with France. Guinea was the first French Sub-Saharan colony
to achieve independence.
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