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|today = [[Equatorial Guinea]] |
|today = [[Equatorial Guinea]] |
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|life_span=1843-1968}} |
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{{History of Equatorial Guinea}} |
{{History of Equatorial Guinea}} |
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[[File:Coat of Arms of the Portuguese and Spanish Guinea.svg|thumb|upright|Coat of arms of the Portuguese and Spanish Guinea.]] |
[[File:Coat of Arms of the Portuguese and Spanish Guinea.svg|thumb|upright|Coat of arms of the Portuguese and Spanish Guinea.]] |
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[[File:Coat of Arms of the Spanish Province of Río Muni.svg|thumb|upright|Coat of arms of the Spanish [[Río Muni]] colony.]] |
[[File:Coat of Arms of the Spanish Province of Río Muni.svg|thumb|upright|Coat of arms of the Spanish [[Río Muni]] colony.]] |
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'''Spanish Guinea''' ([[Spanish language|Spanish]]: ''Guinea Española'') was a set of [[Insular Region (Equatorial Guinea)|insular]] and [[Río Muni|continental]] territories controlled by [[Spain]] from |
'''Spanish Guinea''' ([[Spanish language|Spanish]]: ''Guinea Española'') was a set of [[Insular Region (Equatorial Guinea)|insular]] and [[Río Muni|continental]] territories controlled by [[Spain]] from 1843 in the [[Gulf of Guinea]] and on the [[Bight of Bonny]], in [[Central Africa]]. It gained independence in 1968 and is known as [[Equatorial Guinea]]. |
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==History== |
==History== |
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===18th—19th centuries=== |
===18th—19th centuries=== |
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The Spanish colony in the [[Guinea (region)|Guinea region]] was established in 1778, by the [[Treaty of El Pardo (1778)|Treaty of El Pardo]] between the [[Spanish Empire]] and the [[Kingdom of Portugal]]. Between 1778 and |
The Spanish colony in the [[Guinea (region)|Guinea region]] was established in 1778, by the [[Treaty of El Pardo (1778)|Treaty of El Pardo]] between the [[Spanish Empire]] and the [[Kingdom of Portugal]]. Between 1778 and 1780, Spain administered the territory of Equatorial Guinea via its colonial [[Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata]], based in [[Buenos Aires]] (in present-day [[Argentina]]) before abandoning it in 1780 due to a mutiny.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Fegley|first=Randall|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/19392295|title=Equatorial Guinea : an African tragedy|date=1989|publisher=P. Lang|isbn=0-8204-0977-4|location=New York|oclc=19392295}}</ref> |
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From 1827 to 1843, the [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|United Kingdom]] had a base on [[Bioko]] to combat the continuing [[slavery|Atlantic slave trade]] |
From 1827 to 1843, the [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|United Kingdom]] had a base on [[Bioko]] to combat the continuing [[slavery|Atlantic slave trade]] .<ref>"Fernando Po", ''Encyclopædia Britannica,'' 1911.</ref> Due to a change in public opinion in Spain<ref>{{Cite book|last=Fegley|first=Randall|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/19392295|title=Equatorial Guinea : an African tragedy|date=1989|publisher=P. Lang|isbn=0-8204-0977-4|location=New York|oclc=19392295}}</ref>, Queen Isabella of Spain sent a expedition under a Royal Commissioner<ref>{{Cite book|last=Fegley|first=Randall|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/19392295|title=Equatorial Guinea : an African tragedy|date=1989|publisher=P. Lang|isbn=0-8204-0977-4|location=New York|oclc=19392295}}</ref> called Juan Jose Lerena y Barry, who in March 1843 hoisted the Spanish flag in Port Clarence, renaming it Santa Isabel, establishing the colony of ''Territorios españoles del Golfo de Guinea'', and appointing the previous British Consul John Beecroft<ref>{{Cite book|last=Fegley|first=Randall|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/19392295|title=Equatorial Guinea : an African tragedy|date=1989|publisher=P. Lang|isbn=0-8204-0977-4|location=New York|oclc=19392295}}</ref> as the first governor. |
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In 1858 after a period of chaos in the aftermath of the death of Beecroft in 1854, the first Spanish governor arrived to take control<ref>{{Cite book|last=Fegley|first=Randall|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/19392295|title=Equatorial Guinea : an African tragedy|date=1989|publisher=P. Lang|isbn=0-8204-0977-4|location=New York|oclc=19392295}}</ref>. On June 20, 1861, a Royal Order was published by which the island of Fernando Poo became a Spanish penal colony<ref>{{Cite book|last=Fegley|first=Randall|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/19392295|title=Equatorial Guinea : an African tragedy|date=1989|publisher=P. Lang|isbn=0-8204-0977-4|location=New York|oclc=19392295}}</ref>. In the following years outbreaks of disease continued to decimate the white population of the colony<ref>{{Cite book|last=Fegley|first=Randall|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/19392295|title=Equatorial Guinea : an African tragedy|date=1989|publisher=P. Lang|isbn=0-8204-0977-4|location=New York|oclc=19392295}}</ref>. |
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During the British period, these brought to Bioko some two thousand freed slaves and Sierra Leoneans, who would end up establishing their own plantations and forming a black Creole elite that would dominate the island society together with the Europeans: the Fernandinos . After the departure of the British, limited immigration from West Africa and the West Indies had continued.. For this reason, throughout the nineteenth century most of Fernando Poo's plantations were for the most part in the hands of this Creole elite. A number of freed Angolan slaves, Portuguese-African Creoles, and immigrants from Nigeria and Liberia also began to settle in the colony, where they quickly became part of Fernandina society. A ethnic mixture was also added several hundred Afro-Cuban, two hundred and eighteen Rebel Philippine (of which only ninety four survive) and several dozen Spanish intellectuals and politicians deported to Fernando Poo for political reasons and other crimes, in addition to a small number of volunteer settlers. There was also a constant immigration of runaway slaves and fortune seekers from the neighboring Portuguese islands of São Tomé and Príncipe . |
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In 1870 the living conditions of the whites on the island improved thanks to the recommendation that they move to live in the highlands, and by 1884 the colonial administration and the large plantations had been on the Pico Basile, hundreds of meters above sea level. Henry Morton Stanley called Fernando Poo " ''a jewel that Spain does not polish'' " for refusing to apply more aggressive colonization policies. Despite the greater chances of survival for Europeans on the island, Mary Kingsley , who spent time on the island, described it as " ''an uncomfortable form of execution'' " for the Spanish sent there<ref>{{Cite book|last=Fegley|first=Randall|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/19392295|title=Equatorial Guinea : an African tragedy|date=1989|publisher=P. Lang|isbn=0-8204-0977-4|location=New York|oclc=19392295}}</ref>. |
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⚫ | A freedman from the West Indies named William Pratt was the first to establish a cocoa plantation in Fernando Poo, thus sowing the seeds of the economic future of the colony. Toward the end of the 19th century Spanish, Portuguese, German and [[Fernandino peoples|Fernandino]] planters started developing large [[cacao plantation]]s on the island of Fernando Po.<ref>Clarence-Smith, William G. "African and European Cocoa Producers on Fernando Poo, 1880s to 1910s." ''Journal of African History'' 35 (1994): 179-179.</ref> With the indigenous Bubi population decimated by disease and forced labour, the island's economy came to depend on imported agricultural contract workers. |
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On Fernando Poo the native Bubis, who had historically managed to keep foreigners out and safeguard themselves from slavery and exploitation at the hands of Europeans, were increasingly under pressure from the Spanish administration and plantation owners. This eventually leads to unrest, which was suppressed by the Spanish with their last king being imprisoned by the Spanish authorities in 1937, dying that same year.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Fegley|first=Randall|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/19392295|title=Equatorial Guinea : an African tragedy|date=1989|publisher=P. Lang|isbn=0-8204-0977-4|location=New York|oclc=19392295}}</ref> |
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In late 1800s, the continental region of the Gulf of Biafra was widely explored by adventurers such as Manuel Iradier y Bulfy and Emilio Bonelli<ref>{{Cite book|last=Fegley|first=Randall|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/19392295|title=Equatorial Guinea : an African tragedy|date=1989|publisher=P. Lang|isbn=0-8204-0977-4|location=New York|oclc=19392295}}</ref>, which will lay the foundations of Spanish rule on the mainland portion of Equatorial Guinea. |
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===20th century=== |
===20th century=== |
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Spain had never undertaken colonial settlement of the large area in the [[Bight of Biafra]] to which it had treaty rights. The French expanded their occupation at the expense of the area claimed by Spain. By the [[Treaty of Paris (1900)|treaty of Paris]] in 1900, Spain was left with the continental enclave of [[Río Muni]], 26,000 km<sup>2</sup> of the 300,000 stretching east to the [[Ubangi River|Ubangi river]], which the Spaniards had previously claimed.<ref name=Clarence-Smith>William Gervase Clarence-Smith, 1986 "Spanish Equatorial Guinea, 1898-1940", in ''The Cambridge History of Africa: From 1905 to 1940'' Ed. J. D. Fage, A. D. Roberts, & Roland Anthony Oliver. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press>{{cite web |url=http://es.scribd.com/doc/63545279/The-Cambridge-History-of-Africa-Volume-7-From-1905-to-1940-0521225051-1986 |title=Archived copy |accessdate=2013-09-23 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140220142411/http://es.scribd.com/doc/63545279/The-Cambridge-History-of-Africa-Volume-7-From-1905-to-1940-0521225051-1986 |archivedate=2014-02-20 }}</ref> |
Spain had never undertaken colonial settlement of the large area in the [[Bight of Biafra]] to which it had treaty rights. The French expanded their occupation at the expense of the area claimed by Spain. By the [[Treaty of Paris (1900)|treaty of Paris]] in 1900, Spain was left with the continental enclave of [[Río Muni]], 26,000 km<sup>2</sup> of the 300,000 stretching east to the [[Ubangi River|Ubangi river]], which the Spaniards had previously claimed.<ref name=Clarence-Smith>William Gervase Clarence-Smith, 1986 "Spanish Equatorial Guinea, 1898-1940", in ''The Cambridge History of Africa: From 1905 to 1940'' Ed. J. D. Fage, A. D. Roberts, & Roland Anthony Oliver. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press>{{cite web |url=http://es.scribd.com/doc/63545279/The-Cambridge-History-of-Africa-Volume-7-From-1905-to-1940-0521225051-1986 |title=Archived copy |accessdate=2013-09-23 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140220142411/http://es.scribd.com/doc/63545279/The-Cambridge-History-of-Africa-Volume-7-From-1905-to-1940-0521225051-1986 |archivedate=2014-02-20 }}</ref> Because of this the chief Spanish negotiator and Governor General of the colony, Pedro Tovar ended up commiting suicide<ref>{{Cite book|last=Fegley|first=Randall|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/19392295|title=Equatorial Guinea : an African tragedy|date=1989|publisher=P. Lang|isbn=0-8204-0977-4|location=New York|oclc=19392295}}</ref>. |
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===Agricultural economy=== |
===Agricultural economy=== |
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⚫ | Toward the end of the 19th century Spanish, Portuguese, German and [[Fernandino peoples|Fernandino]] planters started developing large [[cacao plantation]]s on the island of Fernando Po.<ref>Clarence-Smith, William G. "African and European Cocoa Producers on Fernando Poo, 1880s to 1910s." ''Journal of African History'' 35 (1994): 179-179.</ref> With the indigenous Bubi population decimated by disease and forced labour, the island's economy came to depend on imported agricultural contract workers. |
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A labour treaty was signed with the Republic of [[Liberia]] in 1914; the transport of up to 15,000 workers by sea was orchestrated by the German [[Woermann-Linie]], the major shipping company.<ref>Sundiata, Ibrahim K. ''From Slaving to Neoslavery: the Bight of Biafra and Fernando Po in the Era of Abolition, 1827-1930,'' Madison, WI: Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1996.</ref> In 1930 an [[International Labour Organization]] (ILO) commission discovered that Liberian contract workers had ‘‘been recruited under conditions of criminal compulsion scarcely distinguishable from slave raiding and slave trading’’.<ref>"Slavery Conditions in Liberia", ''The Times'' 27 October 1930. http://www.opensourceguinea.org/2012/12/slavery-conditions-in-liberia-times-27.html</ref> The government prohibited recruiting of Liberian workers for Spanish Guinea. |
A labour treaty was signed with the Republic of [[Liberia]] in 1914; the transport of up to 15,000 workers by sea was orchestrated by the German [[Woermann-Linie]], the major shipping company.<ref>Sundiata, Ibrahim K. ''From Slaving to Neoslavery: the Bight of Biafra and Fernando Po in the Era of Abolition, 1827-1930,'' Madison, WI: Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1996.</ref> In 1930 an [[International Labour Organization]] (ILO) commission discovered that Liberian contract workers had ‘‘been recruited under conditions of criminal compulsion scarcely distinguishable from slave raiding and slave trading’’.<ref>"Slavery Conditions in Liberia", ''The Times'' 27 October 1930. http://www.opensourceguinea.org/2012/12/slavery-conditions-in-liberia-times-27.html</ref> The government prohibited recruiting of Liberian workers for Spanish Guinea. |
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====Colony of Spanish Guinea==== |
====Colony of Spanish Guinea==== |
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Between 1926 and 1959, [[Monarchy of Spain|the Crown]] united Bioko and Río Muni as the "colony of Spanish Guinea". The economy was based on the exploitation of the commodity crops of [[Cocoa bean|cacao]] and [[coffee]], produced at large plantations, in addition to [[logging]] concessions. Owners of these companies hired mostly immigrant contract labour from [[Liberia]], [[Nigeria]], and [[Cameroon]].<ref name="opensourceguinea.org"/> |
Between 1926 and 1959, [[Monarchy of Spain|the Crown]] united Bioko and Río Muni as the "colony of Spanish Guinea". The economy was based on the exploitation of the commodity crops of [[Cocoa bean|cacao]] and [[coffee]], produced at large plantations, in addition to [[logging]] concessions. Owners of these companies hired mostly immigrant contract labour from [[Liberia]], [[Nigeria]], and [[Cameroon]].<ref name="opensourceguinea.org"/> |
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<!--This section needs expansion - meaning is unclear -->In the early 1900s, Spanish presence was limited almost entirely to the coast and concentrated on the capital, Bata ( which was founded in 1900 by the French as a trading post before the territory passed into Spanish hands by the Treaty of Paris and which in 1914 had a population of only a few dozen white settlers and Colonial Guard). However in the 1920s, Spain mounted military campaigns to subdue the indigenous [[Fang people]], as Liberia was trying to reduce recruiting of its workers. The Crown established garrisons of the [[Colonial Guard of Spanish Guinea|Colonial Guard]] throughout the enclave by 1926, and the whole colony was considered 'pacified' by 1929.<ref>Nerín, Gustau. ''"La última selva de España:" antropófagos, misioneros y guardias civiles. Crónica de la conquista de los Fang de la Guinea Española, 1914–1930'' (The last jungle of Spain: cannibals, missionaries and civil guards. Chronicle of the conquest of the Fang of Spanish Guinea, 1914–1930), Catarata, 2010.</ref> |
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⚫ | |||
⚫ | Río Muni had a small population, officially put at a little over 100,000 in the 1930s. Its people could easily escape over the borders into Cameroon or Gabon. Moreover, the timber companies needed growing amounts of labour, and the spread of coffee cultivation offered an alternative means of paying taxes. |
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The island of Fernando Po continued to suffer from labour shortages. The French only briefly permitted recruitment in Cameroon. Planters began to recruit [[Igbo people|Igbo]] laborers, who were smuggled in canoes from [[Calabar]], Nigeria. [[Bioko|Fernando Po]] was developed after the [[Second World War]] as one of Africa's most productive agricultural areas.<ref name="Clarence-Smith" /> |
The island of Fernando Po continued to suffer from labour shortages. The French only briefly permitted recruitment in Cameroon. Planters began to recruit [[Igbo people|Igbo]] laborers, who were smuggled in canoes from [[Calabar]], Nigeria. [[Bioko|Fernando Po]] was developed after the [[Second World War]] as one of Africa's most productive agricultural areas.<ref name="Clarence-Smith" /> |
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====Decolonisation==== |
====Decolonisation==== |
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In 1950, a political association in the modern sense was founded in Spanish Guinea for the first time, which campaigned for the independence of the area, the " Cruzada Nacional de Liberacion de la Guinea Ecuatorial " (German ''National Crusade for the Liberation of Equatorial Guinea'' ). The association gradually disbanded in the late 1950s after its President Acacio Mañe was assassinated by the Guardia Civil in 1958 . |
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⚫ | |||
Spain's accession to the UN in 1955 was a decisive step towards decolonization . Due to the international demand for decolonization, from 1956 to 1959, it had the status of a "province", having been raised from "colony"<ref>{{Citation|last=Schicho|first=Walter|title=‘Keystone of progress’ and mise en valeur d’ensemble|date=2016-05-16|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.7765/9781526110879.00021|work=Developing Africa|publisher=Manchester University Press|isbn=978-1-5261-1087-9|access-date=2021-08-02}}</ref> . Later in 1959, after the territory was split into two provinces, there were elections for two provincial assemblies (with Europeans as their presidents) in 1960, in which local “heads of families” were allowed to participate. With Wilwardo Jones Níger as the first local mayor of Santa Isabel and from the six representatives of Spanish Guinea in the Cortes were three Africans<ref>{{Cite book|last=Fegley|first=Randall|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/19392295|title=Equatorial Guinea : an African tragedy|date=1989|publisher=P. Lang|isbn=0-8204-0977-4|location=New York|oclc=19392295}}</ref>. At the end of 1963 the two provinces were granted a certain degree of autonomy and in 1964 elections for the provincial parliaments were held. However, the actual power remained in the hands of the government of the "motherland", namely Luis Carrero Blanco . Blanco was also the majority shareholder of the ''Compania Nacional de Colonización Africana'' and thus controlled large parts of the wood, cocoa and coffee production. As it became clear that the independence of the mainland could not be prevented, he wanted at least to keep the colony on the islands<ref>{{Citation|last=Schicho|first=Walter|title=‘Keystone of progress’ and mise en valeur d’ensemble|date=2016-05-16|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.7765/9781526110879.00021|work=Developing Africa|publisher=Manchester University Press|isbn=978-1-5261-1087-9|access-date=2021-08-02}}</ref>. |
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At the same time, desires of neighboring countries arose. Nigeria pointed out that the majority of Bioko's residents were Nigerians. Gabon made claims on the islands of Elobey Chico, Elobey Grande and Corisco off its coast. In 1961, an organization in exile demanded that the country be federated with neighboring Cameroon. |
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⚫ | In 1966, the UN General Assembly voted for Equatorial Guinea's independence. A constitutional conference was convened in Madrid in October 1967, in particular over the question of the unity of the new state. On 12 October 1968, Spain granted independence to the [[Republic of Equatorial Guinea]]. [[Francisco Macías Nguema]] was [[Equatorial Guinean presidential election, 1968|elected as president]].<ref>Campos, Alicia. "The decolonization of Equatorial Guinea: the relevance of the international factor", ''Journal of African History'' (2003): 95–116.</ref> |
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==Colonial demographics== |
==Colonial demographics== |
Revision as of 16:54, 2 August 2021
Spanish Territories on the Gulf of Guinea Territorios españoles en Golfo de Guinea (Spanish) | |||||||||||||
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1843-1968 | |||||||||||||
Anthem: Marcha Real (1844–1873, 1874–1931, 1942–1968) Himno de Riego (1873–1874, 1931–1942) | |||||||||||||
Status | Union of Spanish colonies (1858–1926) Colony of Spain (1926–1956) Province of Spain (1956–1968) | ||||||||||||
Capital | Santa Isabel | ||||||||||||
Common languages | Spanish | ||||||||||||
Religion | Roman Catholicism | ||||||||||||
Government | Spanish colonial government | ||||||||||||
Head of State | |||||||||||||
• 1844–1868 (first) | Isabella II | ||||||||||||
• 1936–1968 (last) | Caudillo Francisco Franco | ||||||||||||
Governor-General | |||||||||||||
• 1858–1859 (first) | Carlos Chacon y Michelina | ||||||||||||
• 1966–1968 (last) | Víctor Suances Díaz del Río | ||||||||||||
Historical era | New Imperialism, World War I, World War II, Cold War | ||||||||||||
• Established | 11 March 1778 | ||||||||||||
• Spanish take possession of Fernado Poo. Administered as part of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata | 1778 | ||||||||||||
• Spanish evacuate Fernado Poo | 1780 | ||||||||||||
• Spanish sovereignty reasserted over Fernando Poo | 1844 | ||||||||||||
• Protectorate established over Rio Muni | 1885 | ||||||||||||
• Administrative union of the various colonies | 1926 | ||||||||||||
12 October 1968 | |||||||||||||
Currency | Spanish peseta | ||||||||||||
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Today part of | Equatorial Guinea |
History of Equatorial Guinea |
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Chronological |
Spanish Guinea (Spanish: Guinea Española) was a set of insular and continental territories controlled by Spain from 1843 in the Gulf of Guinea and on the Bight of Bonny, in Central Africa. It gained independence in 1968 and is known as Equatorial Guinea.
History
18th—19th centuries
The Spanish colony in the Guinea region was established in 1778, by the Treaty of El Pardo between the Spanish Empire and the Kingdom of Portugal. Between 1778 and 1780, Spain administered the territory of Equatorial Guinea via its colonial Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, based in Buenos Aires (in present-day Argentina) before abandoning it in 1780 due to a mutiny.[1]
From 1827 to 1843, the United Kingdom had a base on Bioko to combat the continuing Atlantic slave trade .[2] Due to a change in public opinion in Spain[3], Queen Isabella of Spain sent a expedition under a Royal Commissioner[4] called Juan Jose Lerena y Barry, who in March 1843 hoisted the Spanish flag in Port Clarence, renaming it Santa Isabel, establishing the colony of Territorios españoles del Golfo de Guinea, and appointing the previous British Consul John Beecroft[5] as the first governor.
In 1858 after a period of chaos in the aftermath of the death of Beecroft in 1854, the first Spanish governor arrived to take control[6]. On June 20, 1861, a Royal Order was published by which the island of Fernando Poo became a Spanish penal colony[7]. In the following years outbreaks of disease continued to decimate the white population of the colony[8].
During the British period, these brought to Bioko some two thousand freed slaves and Sierra Leoneans, who would end up establishing their own plantations and forming a black Creole elite that would dominate the island society together with the Europeans: the Fernandinos . After the departure of the British, limited immigration from West Africa and the West Indies had continued.. For this reason, throughout the nineteenth century most of Fernando Poo's plantations were for the most part in the hands of this Creole elite. A number of freed Angolan slaves, Portuguese-African Creoles, and immigrants from Nigeria and Liberia also began to settle in the colony, where they quickly became part of Fernandina society. A ethnic mixture was also added several hundred Afro-Cuban, two hundred and eighteen Rebel Philippine (of which only ninety four survive) and several dozen Spanish intellectuals and politicians deported to Fernando Poo for political reasons and other crimes, in addition to a small number of volunteer settlers. There was also a constant immigration of runaway slaves and fortune seekers from the neighboring Portuguese islands of São Tomé and Príncipe .
In 1870 the living conditions of the whites on the island improved thanks to the recommendation that they move to live in the highlands, and by 1884 the colonial administration and the large plantations had been on the Pico Basile, hundreds of meters above sea level. Henry Morton Stanley called Fernando Poo " a jewel that Spain does not polish " for refusing to apply more aggressive colonization policies. Despite the greater chances of survival for Europeans on the island, Mary Kingsley , who spent time on the island, described it as " an uncomfortable form of execution " for the Spanish sent there[9].
A freedman from the West Indies named William Pratt was the first to establish a cocoa plantation in Fernando Poo, thus sowing the seeds of the economic future of the colony. Toward the end of the 19th century Spanish, Portuguese, German and Fernandino planters started developing large cacao plantations on the island of Fernando Po.[10] With the indigenous Bubi population decimated by disease and forced labour, the island's economy came to depend on imported agricultural contract workers.
On Fernando Poo the native Bubis, who had historically managed to keep foreigners out and safeguard themselves from slavery and exploitation at the hands of Europeans, were increasingly under pressure from the Spanish administration and plantation owners. This eventually leads to unrest, which was suppressed by the Spanish with their last king being imprisoned by the Spanish authorities in 1937, dying that same year.[11]
In late 1800s, the continental region of the Gulf of Biafra was widely explored by adventurers such as Manuel Iradier y Bulfy and Emilio Bonelli[12], which will lay the foundations of Spanish rule on the mainland portion of Equatorial Guinea.
20th century
Spain had never undertaken colonial settlement of the large area in the Bight of Biafra to which it had treaty rights. The French expanded their occupation at the expense of the area claimed by Spain. By the treaty of Paris in 1900, Spain was left with the continental enclave of Río Muni, 26,000 km2 of the 300,000 stretching east to the Ubangi river, which the Spaniards had previously claimed.[13] Because of this the chief Spanish negotiator and Governor General of the colony, Pedro Tovar ended up commiting suicide[14].
Agricultural economy
A labour treaty was signed with the Republic of Liberia in 1914; the transport of up to 15,000 workers by sea was orchestrated by the German Woermann-Linie, the major shipping company.[15] In 1930 an International Labour Organization (ILO) commission discovered that Liberian contract workers had ‘‘been recruited under conditions of criminal compulsion scarcely distinguishable from slave raiding and slave trading’’.[16] The government prohibited recruiting of Liberian workers for Spanish Guinea.
The persisting labour shortage in the cacao, coffee and logging industries led to a booming trade in illegal canoe-based smuggling of Igbo and Ibibio workers from the Eastern Provinces of Nigeria. The number of clandestine contract workers on the island of Fernando Po grew to 20,000 in 1942.[17] A labour treaty was signed with the British Crown in the same year. This led to a continuous stream of Nigerian workers going to Spanish Guinea. By 1968 at the time of independence, almost 100,000 ethnic Nigerians were living and working in Spanish Guinea.[18]
Colony of Spanish Guinea
Between 1926 and 1959, the Crown united Bioko and Río Muni as the "colony of Spanish Guinea". The economy was based on the exploitation of the commodity crops of cacao and coffee, produced at large plantations, in addition to logging concessions. Owners of these companies hired mostly immigrant contract labour from Liberia, Nigeria, and Cameroon.[17]
In the early 1900s, Spanish presence was limited almost entirely to the coast and concentrated on the capital, Bata ( which was founded in 1900 by the French as a trading post before the territory passed into Spanish hands by the Treaty of Paris and which in 1914 had a population of only a few dozen white settlers and Colonial Guard). However in the 1920s, Spain mounted military campaigns to subdue the indigenous Fang people, as Liberia was trying to reduce recruiting of its workers. The Crown established garrisons of the Colonial Guard throughout the enclave by 1926, and the whole colony was considered 'pacified' by 1929.[19]
Río Muni had a small population, officially put at a little over 100,000 in the 1930s. Its people could easily escape over the borders into Cameroon or Gabon. Moreover, the timber companies needed growing amounts of labour, and the spread of coffee cultivation offered an alternative means of paying taxes.
The island of Fernando Po continued to suffer from labour shortages. The French only briefly permitted recruitment in Cameroon. Planters began to recruit Igbo laborers, who were smuggled in canoes from Calabar, Nigeria. Fernando Po was developed after the Second World War as one of Africa's most productive agricultural areas.[13]
Decolonisation
In 1950, a political association in the modern sense was founded in Spanish Guinea for the first time, which campaigned for the independence of the area, the " Cruzada Nacional de Liberacion de la Guinea Ecuatorial " (German National Crusade for the Liberation of Equatorial Guinea ). The association gradually disbanded in the late 1950s after its President Acacio Mañe was assassinated by the Guardia Civil in 1958 .
Spain's accession to the UN in 1955 was a decisive step towards decolonization . Due to the international demand for decolonization, from 1956 to 1959, it had the status of a "province", having been raised from "colony"[20] . Later in 1959, after the territory was split into two provinces, there were elections for two provincial assemblies (with Europeans as their presidents) in 1960, in which local “heads of families” were allowed to participate. With Wilwardo Jones Níger as the first local mayor of Santa Isabel and from the six representatives of Spanish Guinea in the Cortes were three Africans[21]. At the end of 1963 the two provinces were granted a certain degree of autonomy and in 1964 elections for the provincial parliaments were held. However, the actual power remained in the hands of the government of the "motherland", namely Luis Carrero Blanco . Blanco was also the majority shareholder of the Compania Nacional de Colonización Africana and thus controlled large parts of the wood, cocoa and coffee production. As it became clear that the independence of the mainland could not be prevented, he wanted at least to keep the colony on the islands[22].
At the same time, desires of neighboring countries arose. Nigeria pointed out that the majority of Bioko's residents were Nigerians. Gabon made claims on the islands of Elobey Chico, Elobey Grande and Corisco off its coast. In 1961, an organization in exile demanded that the country be federated with neighboring Cameroon.
In 1966, the UN General Assembly voted for Equatorial Guinea's independence. A constitutional conference was convened in Madrid in October 1967, in particular over the question of the unity of the new state. On 12 October 1968, Spain granted independence to the Republic of Equatorial Guinea. Francisco Macías Nguema was elected as president.[23]
Colonial demographics
The population of the Colony of Spanish Guinea was stratified (before slavery was abolished). The system was somewhat similar to the one operating in the French, English and Portuguese colonies in the rest of Africa:[24]
- Peninsulares — White Spanish population, whose immigration was regulated by the Spanish government.
- Emancipados — Black African population, assimilated into the Peninsulares' culture via Spanish Catholic educations. Some were descended from freed Cuban slaves, repatriated to Africa after emancipation and abolition of slavery by the Spanish Royal Orders of 13 September 1845 (voluntary), and of 20 June 1861 (deported). The latter group included mestizos (indigenous-European) and mulattoes (African-European), mixed-race descendants who had been acknowledged by a white Peninsular father.[25]
- Fernandinos — Creole peoples, multi-ethnic or multi-race populations, often speaking the local Pidgin English of Spanish Guinea's island of Fernando Po (now known as Bioko).
- "Individuals of colour" under patronage — included the majority of the indigenous Black African people, and those mestizos−mulattoes who were not acknowledged by white fathers and were being deported from the Americas. Of the indigenous ethnic groups in Guinea, most were Bubi and Bantu peoples such as the Fang of Rio Muni.
- Others — primarily Nigerian, Cameroonian, Han Chinese, and Indian peoples who were hired as contract laborers under types of indentures.
See also
References
- ^ Fegley, Randall (1989). Equatorial Guinea : an African tragedy. New York: P. Lang. ISBN 0-8204-0977-4. OCLC 19392295.
- ^ "Fernando Po", Encyclopædia Britannica, 1911.
- ^ Fegley, Randall (1989). Equatorial Guinea : an African tragedy. New York: P. Lang. ISBN 0-8204-0977-4. OCLC 19392295.
- ^ Fegley, Randall (1989). Equatorial Guinea : an African tragedy. New York: P. Lang. ISBN 0-8204-0977-4. OCLC 19392295.
- ^ Fegley, Randall (1989). Equatorial Guinea : an African tragedy. New York: P. Lang. ISBN 0-8204-0977-4. OCLC 19392295.
- ^ Fegley, Randall (1989). Equatorial Guinea : an African tragedy. New York: P. Lang. ISBN 0-8204-0977-4. OCLC 19392295.
- ^ Fegley, Randall (1989). Equatorial Guinea : an African tragedy. New York: P. Lang. ISBN 0-8204-0977-4. OCLC 19392295.
- ^ Fegley, Randall (1989). Equatorial Guinea : an African tragedy. New York: P. Lang. ISBN 0-8204-0977-4. OCLC 19392295.
- ^ Fegley, Randall (1989). Equatorial Guinea : an African tragedy. New York: P. Lang. ISBN 0-8204-0977-4. OCLC 19392295.
- ^ Clarence-Smith, William G. "African and European Cocoa Producers on Fernando Poo, 1880s to 1910s." Journal of African History 35 (1994): 179-179.
- ^ Fegley, Randall (1989). Equatorial Guinea : an African tragedy. New York: P. Lang. ISBN 0-8204-0977-4. OCLC 19392295.
- ^ Fegley, Randall (1989). Equatorial Guinea : an African tragedy. New York: P. Lang. ISBN 0-8204-0977-4. OCLC 19392295.
- ^ a b William Gervase Clarence-Smith, 1986 "Spanish Equatorial Guinea, 1898-1940", in The Cambridge History of Africa: From 1905 to 1940 Ed. J. D. Fage, A. D. Roberts, & Roland Anthony Oliver. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press>"Archived copy". Archived from the original on 20 February 2014. Retrieved 23 September 2013.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ Fegley, Randall (1989). Equatorial Guinea : an African tragedy. New York: P. Lang. ISBN 0-8204-0977-4. OCLC 19392295.
- ^ Sundiata, Ibrahim K. From Slaving to Neoslavery: the Bight of Biafra and Fernando Po in the Era of Abolition, 1827-1930, Madison, WI: Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1996.
- ^ "Slavery Conditions in Liberia", The Times 27 October 1930. http://www.opensourceguinea.org/2012/12/slavery-conditions-in-liberia-times-27.html
- ^ a b Enrique Martino, “Clandestine Recruitment Networks in the Bight of Biafra: Fernando Pó’s Answer to the Labour Question, 1926–1945.” in International Review of Social History, 57, pp 39-72. http://www.opensourceguinea.org/2013/03/enrique-martino-clandestine-recruitment.html
- ^ Pélissier, René. Los Territorios Espanoles De Africa. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1964.
- ^ Nerín, Gustau. "La última selva de España:" antropófagos, misioneros y guardias civiles. Crónica de la conquista de los Fang de la Guinea Española, 1914–1930 (The last jungle of Spain: cannibals, missionaries and civil guards. Chronicle of the conquest of the Fang of Spanish Guinea, 1914–1930), Catarata, 2010.
- ^ Schicho, Walter (16 May 2016), "'Keystone of progress' and mise en valeur d'ensemble", Developing Africa, Manchester University Press, ISBN 978-1-5261-1087-9, retrieved 2 August 2021
- ^ Fegley, Randall (1989). Equatorial Guinea : an African tragedy. New York: P. Lang. ISBN 0-8204-0977-4. OCLC 19392295.
- ^ Schicho, Walter (16 May 2016), "'Keystone of progress' and mise en valeur d'ensemble", Developing Africa, Manchester University Press, ISBN 978-1-5261-1087-9, retrieved 2 August 2021
- ^ Campos, Alicia. "The decolonization of Equatorial Guinea: the relevance of the international factor", Journal of African History (2003): 95–116.
- ^ Anuario del Instituto Cervantes (2005). Panorama de la literatura en español en Guinea Ecuatorial, Justo Bolekia Boleká, Introducción histórica
- ^ Espacio, Tiempo y Forma, Serie V, Hª Contemporánea, t. 11, 1998, págs. 113-138, "Penología e indigenismo en la antigua Guinea española" Archived 2011-05-30 at the Wayback Machine, Pedro María Belmonte Medina