French West Africa was a federation of eight French colonial territories in
Africa: Mauritania, Senegal, French Sudan, French Guinea, Ivory Coast, Upper
Volta, Dahomey and Niger. The capital of the federation was Dakar. The federation
existed from 1895 until 1960. History
Until after the Second World War almost all the Africans living in the colonies
of France were not citizens of France. Rather, they were "French Subjects",
lacking rights before the law, property ownership rights, rights to travel,
dissent, or vote. The exception were the Four Communes of Senegal: those areas
had been towns of the tiny Senegal Colony in 1848 when, at the abolition of
slavery by the French Second Republic, all residents of France were granted
equal political rights. Anyone able to prove they were born in these towns was
legally French. They could vote in parliamentary elections, which had been
previously dominated by white and Métis residents of Senegal.
The Four Communes of Senegal were entitled to elect a Deputy to represent
them in the French Parliament in the years 1848–1852, 1871–1876, and
1879–1940. In 1914, the first African, Blaise Diagne, was elected as the Deputy
for Senegal in the French Parliament. In 1916, Diagne pushed through the National
Assembly a law granting full citizenship to all residents of the so-called Four
Communes. In return, he had promised to help recruit millions of Africans to
fight in World War I. Thereafter, all black Africans of Dakar, Gorée,
Saint-Louis, and Rufisque could vote to send a representative to the French
National Assembly. As the French pursued their part in the
scramble for Africa in the 1880s and 1890s, they conquered large inland
areas, and at first ruled them as either a part of the Senegal colony, or as
independent entities. These conquered areas were usually governed by French
Army officers, and dubbed "Military Territories". In the late 1890s, the
French government began to rein in the territorial expansion of its "officers
on the ground", and transferred all the territories west of Gabon to a single
Governor based in Senegal, reporting directly to the Minister of Overseas
Affairs. The first Governor General of Senegal was named in 1895, and in 1904,
the territories he oversaw were formally named French West Africa. Gabon would
later become the seat of its own federation French Equatorial Africa,
which was to border its western neighbor on the modern boundary between Niger and
Chad. After the Fall of France in June 1940
and the two battles of Dakar against the Free French Forces in July and September
1940, authorities in West Africa declared allegiance to the Vichy regime,
as did the colony of French Gabon in AEF. While the latter fell to Free
France already after the Battle of Gabon in November 1940, West Africa remained
under Vichy control until the Allied landings in North Africa in November
1942. Following World War II, the French
government began a process of extending limited political rights in its
colonies. In 1945 the French Provisional Government allocated ten seats to French
West Africa in the new Constituent Assembly called to write a new French
Constitution. Of these five would be elected by citizens and five by African
subjects. The elections brought to prominence a new generation of
French-educated Africans. On 21 October 1945 six Africans were elected, the Four
Communes citizens chose Lamine Guèye, Senegal/Mauritania Léopold Sédar
Senghor, Ivory Coast/Upper Volta Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Dahomey/Togo
Sourou-Migan Apithy, Soudan-Niger Fily Dabo Sissoko, and Guinea Yacine Diallo.
They were all re-elected to the 2nd Constituent Assembly on 2 June 1946.
In 1946, the Loi Lamine Guèye granted some limited citizenship rights to
natives of the African colonies. The French Empire was renamed the French
Union on 27 October 1946, when the new constitutution of the French Fourth
Republic was established. In late 1946 under this new constitution each
territory was for the first time able elect local representatives, albeit on a
limited franchise, to newly established General Councils. These elected bodies
had only limited consultative powers, although they did approve local budgets.
The Loi Cadre of 23 June 1956 brought universal suffrage to elections held
after that date in all French African colonies. The first elections under
universal suffrage in French West Africa were the municipal elections of late
1956. On 31 March 1957, under universal suffrage, territorial Assembly elections
were held in each of the eight colonies. The leaders of the winning parties were
appointed to the newly instituted positions of Vice-Presidents of the
respective Governing Councils — French Colonial Governors remained as
Presidents. The Constitution of the French Fifth
Republic of 1958 again changed the structure of the colonies from the
French Union to the French Community. Each territory was to become a
"Protectorate", with the consultative assembly named a National Assembly. The
Governor appointed by the French was renamed the "High Commissioner", and
made head of state of each territory. The Assembly would name an African as
Head of Government with advisory powers to the Head of State. Legally, the
federation ceased to exist after the September 1958 referendum to approve
this French Community. All the colonies except Guinea voted to remain in the new
structure. Guineans voted overwhelmingly for independence. In 1960, a further
revision of the French constitution, compelled by the failure of the French
Indochina War and the tensions in Algeria, allowed members of the French
Community to unilaterally change their own constitutions. Senegal and former
French Sudan became the Mali Federation, while Ivory Coast, Niger, Upper Volta
and Dahomey subsequently formed the short-lived Sahel-Benin Union, later the
Conseil de l'Entente. Territorial changes
The administrative structure of French colonial possessions in West Africa,
while more homogeneous than neighboring British possessions, was marked by
variety and flux. Throughout the history of the AOF, individual colonies and
military territories were reorganised numerous times, as was the Government
General in Dakar. French Upper Volta was formed and parceled out to neighboring
colonies twice. The future states of Mauritania and Niger remained out of the
federation until the 1920s and 1940s respectively. They were Military
Territories, directly controlled by the French Army. World War II, and the
passing of the Loi Cadre, both radically restructured the administration of the
colonies. French Togoland, seized by France from Germany in World War I, was
for most of this period not nominally a colony but a Mandate territory.
Federal structure In theory, the Governors General of the
AOF reported directly to the Minister of Colonies in Paris, while individual
colonies and territories reported only to Dakar. Originally created in 1895 as
a union of Senegal, French Sudan, French Guinea and Ivory Coast only, the
federation was placed on a permanent footing in 1904. A governor-general was
based first in Saint-Louis, then in Dakar. The AOF subsequently expanded to
neighbouring French-ruled territories: Dahomey was added in 1904, after having
been put under colonial tutelage in 1892; Mauritania in 1920, and when the
territory of Upper Volta was divided from French Sudan by colonial decree in
1921, it automatically also entered the AOF. Between 1934 and 1937, the League
of Nations Mandate territory of French Togoland was subsumed into Dahomey, and
between its seizure from Germany in World War I and independence it was
administered through the AOF. In 1904, both Mauritania and Niger were classed
"Military Territories": ruled by the AOF in conjunction with officers of the
French Colonial Forces. Colonial administration
Each colony of French West Africa was administered by a Lieutenant Governor,
responsible to the Governor General in Dakar. Only the Governor General
received orders from Paris, via the Minister of Colonies. The Minister, with
the approval of the French National Assembly, chose Lieutenants Governor and
Governors General. = Governors General=
= Grand Council of French West Africa= Beginning in 1946, a Grand Council of
French West Africa was created in Dakar. Two representatives from each colony,
usually the Lieutenant Governor and a representative of the French population
there, were seated. This council had only consultative powers over the office
of the Governor General. The functioning of such bodies rested upon the Indigénat
legal code of 1885. Local administration
Despite this state of flux, and with the exception of the Senegalese Communes,
the administrative structure of French rule at the lower levels remained
constant, based upon the Cercle system. This was the smallest unit of French
political administration in French Colonial Africa that was headed by a
European officer. They might range in size, but French Sudan consisted of less
than a dozen Cercles for most of its existence. Thus, a Cercle Commander
might be the absolute authority over hundreds of thousands of Africans.
= Cercles= A Cercle consisted of several cantons,
each of which in turn consisted of several villages, and was almost
universal in France's African colonies from 1895 to 1946.
The "Cercle Commander" was subject to the authority of a District Commander,
and the government of the colony above him, but was independent of the Military
structure. Below the "Cercle Commander" were a series of African "Chefs de
canton" and "Chefs du Village": "chiefs" appointed by the French and subject to
removal by the Europeans. As well, the "Cercle Commander" made use of a large
number of servants, employees, and African officers such as the
"Gardes-de-cercle" police, any military units seconded to them by government
authorities, and sub-administrators such as the Precepteur du marché trade
inspectors, etc. Because of administrative practice and
geographic isolation, Cercle Commanders had a tremendous amount of power over
the lives of the Africans around them. The Cercle Commanders also had
tremendous power over the economic and political life of their territories.
Legally, all Africans outside the Four Communes of Senegal were "subjects"
under the Indigénat legal code of 1885. This code gave summary powers to French
administrators, including the rights to arrest, try, punish and imprison
subjects. It also gave French local authorities the right to requisition
forced labour, usually limited to able-bodied men for a few weeks a year,
but in practice having few restrictions. These "tools" included the Civilizing
mission ideology common in the period following the First World War. Every new
Cercle Commander might well bring with him vast projects for development and
the restructuring of the people's lives he governed.
= Chiefs= The other official office particular to
the local administration of French West Africa was the "Chief". These were
Africans appointed by French officials for their loyalty to France, regardless
of their rights to local power. These chiefs were assigned created territories
based on the scale of a French Canton, as well as on the small scale tribal
structures the French found in the coastal areas of the Rivières du Sud
colony in the 1880s, modern Guinea. The Canton, then, was much smaller than, and
qualitatively different from, the precolonial states of the Sahel which
the French would later conquer. They were styled "Chefs de canton",
"Chefs du Village", or occasionally taking the title of precolonial states
assimilated by the French structure whole. This last was uncommon, but
became more prevalent in the later colonial territories conquered, as fewer
administrators were available to rule over larger, less populated territories
with strong pre-colonial state structures.
Where these larger polities resisted the French, they were often broken into
small chiefdoms. Larger polities which presented a segment of the elite who
would work with the French, were maintained under new leadership. The
Sultan of Agadez, the Sultan of Damagaram, and the Djermakoy of Dosso
are examples of these large scale "Chefs de canton". But even these rulers were
replaced by individuals handpicked by French authorities.
Regardless of source, chiefs were given the right to arm small numbers of guards
and made responsible for the collection of taxes, the recruitment of forced
labour, and the enforcement of "Customary Law". In general, Canton
Chiefs served at the behest of their Cercle Commander, and were left to see
to their own affairs as long as calm was maintained and Administrative orders
were carried out. Geography
With an area of some 4,689,000 square kilometres extending from Africa's
westernmost point to the depths of the Sahara, the federation contained more
than ten million inhabitants at its creation, and some 25 million at its
dissolution. The AOF included all of the Senegal River valley, most of the Niger
River valley, and most of the West African Sahel region. It also included
tropical forests in Ivory Coast and Guinea, the Fouta Djallon highlands, and
the Aïr Mountains of modern Niger. = Territories=
Ivory Coast Dahomey
French Sudan Guinea
Mauritania Niger
Senegal Upper Volta
French Togoland See also
Colonialism Decolonization
Françafrique Four Communes
François-Victor Équilbecq French colonial empire
List of French possessions and colonies Postage stamps and postal history of
French West Africa French Equatorial Africa
French colonial flags References
Further reading Aldrich, Robert. Greater France: a
History of French Overseas Expansion. Palgrave Macmillan ISBN 0-312-16000-3.
Jean Suret-Canale. 'French Colonialism in Tropical Africa, 1900–1945. New York,
1971. Conklin. Alice L.. A Mission to
Civilize: the Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa 1895–1930.
Stanford: Stanford University Press ISBN 978-0-8047-2999-4.
Crawford Young. The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective. Yale
University Press ISBN 0-300-06879-4. Lusignan, Guy De. French-speaking Africa
Since Independence Manning, Patrick. Francophone
Sub-Saharan Africa, 1880–1995. Cambridge University Press ISBN 0-521-64255-8.
Thompson, Virginia and Richard Adloff. French West Africa
External links Map of the progression of French
expansion in West Africa in the period 1885–1920. Related maps of French West
African expansion are at sandafayre.com, Sandafayre Stamp Atlas: French West
Africa. Dated 2000, retrieved January 2008.