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104-669: Tanguiéta was the departmental seat of government during French colonial rule . The headquarters of the Pendjari National Park are based in the town, and the Hôpital Saint Jean de Dieu de Tanguiéta is a regionally recognized hospital. The town has internet access available. The main languages spoken in the town include French , Dendi , Waama , Nateni , and Biali . 10°37′N 1°16′E  /  10.617°N 1.267°E  / 10.617; 1.267 This Atakora Department location article

208-735: A French East India Company on the model of England and the Netherlands. On 1 June 1604, he issued letters patent to Dieppe merchants to form the Dieppe Company , giving them exclusive rights to Asian trade for 15 years. No ships were sent, however, until 1616. In 1609, another adventurer, Pierre-Olivier Malherbe , returned from a circumnavigation of the globe and informed Henry of his adventures. He had visited China and India and had an encounter with Akbar . Colonies were established in India's Chandernagore (1673) and Pondichéry in

312-528: A failed expedition in 1802, and were up against a crippling Royal Naval blockade the following year. As a result, the Empire of Haiti ultimately achieved independence in 1804 (becoming the first black republic in the world, followed by Liberia in 1847). The black and mulatto population of the island (including the Spanish east) had declined from 700,000 in 1789 to 351,819 in 1804. About 80,000 Haitians died in

416-436: A meta-analysis of 18 African countries found that a third of them experienced increased economic growth post-independence. Scholars including Dellal (2013), Miraftab (2012) and Bamgbose (2011) have argued that Africa's linguistic diversity has been eroded. Language has been used by western colonial powers to divide territories and create new identities, which have led to conflicts and tensions between African nations. In

520-572: A century. Ferhat Abbas and Messali Hadj 's movements marked the period between the two wars, but both sides radicalised after the Second World War. In 1945, the Sétif massacre was carried out by the French army. The Algerian War started in 1954. Atrocities characterized both sides , and the number killed became highly controversial estimates that were made for propaganda purposes. Algeria

624-510: A colonial power, lost its African empire, Italian East Africa , Italian Ethiopia , Italian Eritrea , Italian Somalia and Italian Libya , as a result of World War II. Furthermore, colonies such as Nigeria , Senegal and Ghana pushed for self-governance as colonial powers were exhausted by war efforts. The United Nations 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples stated that colonial exploitation

728-632: A colony was founded on Saint Kitts in 1625 (the island had to be shared with the English until the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, when it was ceded outright). The current isle of the Commonwealth of Dominica in the eastern Caribbean also fell under increasing French settlement from the early 1630s. The Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique founded colonies in Guadeloupe and Martinique in 1635, and

832-551: A colony was later founded on Saint Lucia by (1650). The food-producing plantations of these colonies were built and sustained through slavery, with the supply of slaves dependent on the African slave trade . Local resistance by the indigenous peoples resulted in the Carib Expulsion of 1660. France's most important Caribbean colonial possession was established in 1664, when the colony of Saint-Domingue (today's Haiti )

936-722: A political movement could be assembled. In the 1930s, the colonial powers had cultivated, sometimes inadvertently, a small elite of local African leaders educated in Western universities, where they became familiar with ideas such as self-determination . Although independence was not encouraged, arrangements between these leaders and the colonial powers developed, and such figures as Jomo Kenyatta ( Kenya ), Kwame Nkrumah ( Gold Coast , now Ghana ), Julius Nyerere ( Tanganyika , now Tanzania ), Léopold Sédar Senghor ( Senegal ), Nnamdi Azikiwe ( Nigeria ), Patrice Lumumba ( DRC ) and Félix Houphouët-Boigny ( Côte d'Ivoire ) came to lead

1040-578: A protectorate in Morocco between the years of 1912 to 1956. France's general approach to governing the protectorate of Morocco was a policy of in-direct rule where they co-opted existing governance systems to control the protectorate. Specifically, the Moroccan elite and Sultan were both left in control while being strongly influenced by the French government. French colonialism in Morocco was discriminatory against native Moroccans and highly detrimental to

1144-625: A result of their fight for independence. Historian James Meriweather argues that American policy towards Africa was characterized by a middle road approach, which supported African independence but also reassured European colonial powers that their holdings would remain intact. Washington wanted the right type of African groups to lead newly independent states, in other words communist and not especially democratic. Meriweather argues that nongovernmental organizations influenced American policy towards Africa. They pressured state governments and private institutions to disinvest from African nations not ruled by

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1248-457: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . French colonial empires The French colonial empire ( French : Empire colonial français ) comprised the overseas colonies , protectorates , and mandate territories that came under French rule from the 16th century onward. A distinction is generally made between the " First French colonial empire ", that existed until 1814, by which time most of it had been lost or sold, and

1352-412: Is a denial of human rights, and that power should be transferred back to the countries or territories concerned. Colonial economic exploitation involved diverting resource extraction (such as mining) profits to European shareholders at the expense of internal development, causing significant local socioeconomic grievances. For early African nationalists, decolonisation was a moral imperative around which

1456-555: Is now entirely deprived of her influence and her power in the West Indies." Meanwhile, France's newly resumed war with Britain resulted in the British capture of practically all remaining French colonies. These were restored at the Treaty of Amiens in 1802, but when war resumed in 1803, the British soon recaptured them. France's 1800 recovery of Louisiana from Spain in the secret Third Treaty of San Ildefonso came to nothing, as

1560-912: Is now known as the Cape Coast Castle . The Colony of Liberia, later the Commonwealth of Liberia, was a private colony of the American Colonization Society (ACS) beginning in 1822. It became an independent nation—the Republic of Liberia —after declaring independence in 1847. Colonialism in the colonial era, mostly refers to Western European countries' colonisation of lands in the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. The main European countries active in this form of colonization included Spain , Portugal , France ,

1664-900: Is sometimes known as the Second Hundred Years' War . Although the War of the Austrian Succession was indecisive – despite French successes in India under the French Governor-General Joseph François Dupleix and Europe under Marshal Saxe – the Seven Years' War, after early French successes in Menorca and North America, saw a French defeat, with the numerically superior British (over one million to about 50 thousand French settlers) conquering not only New France (excluding

1768-613: The Françafrique had replaced formal direct rule. They argued that while de Gaulle was granting independence, on one hand, he was creating new ties with the help of Jacques Foccart , his counsellor for African matters. Foccart supported in particular the Nigerian Civil War during the late 1960s. Robert Aldrich argues that with Algerian independence in 1962, it appeared that the Empire practically had come to an end, as

1872-728: The Atlantic Charter , which in part stipulated that they would, "respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them." This agreement became the post-WWII stepping stone toward independence as nationalism grew throughout Africa. Consumed by post-war debt, European powers could no longer afford to maintain control of their African colonies. This allowed African nationalists to negotiate decolonisation very quickly and with minimal casualties. Some territories, however, saw large death tolls as

1976-631: The French Community . Only Guinea refused by referendum to take part in the new colonial organisation. However, the French Community dissolved itself amid the Algerian War; almost all of the other African colonies were granted independence in 1960, following local referendums. Some colonies chose instead to remain part of France, under the status of overseas départements (territories) . Critics of neocolonialism claimed that

2080-618: The French Union , which endured until 1958. Newer remnants of the colonial empire were integrated into France as overseas departments and territories within the French Republic. These now total altogether 119,394 km (46,098 sq. miles), with 2.8 million people in 2021. Links between France and its former colonies persist through La francophonie , the CFA franc , and joint military operations such as Operation Serval . During

2184-718: The Gold Coast (present Ghana ) from 22 April 1650 to 20 April 1663, when Fort Carlsborg and the capital Fort Christiansborg were seized by Denmark. In 1652, the Swedes took Cape Coast (in modern Ghana) which had previously been under the control of the Dutch and before that the Portuguese . Cape Coast was centered on the Carolusburg Castle which was built in 1653 and named after King Charles X Gustav of Sweden but

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2288-583: The Isle de France (now Mauritius ). In 1825 Charles X sent an expedition to Haïti , resulting in the Haiti indemnity controversy . The beginnings of the second French colonial empire were laid in 1830 with the French invasion of Algeria , which was fully conquered by 1903. Historian  Ben Kiernan  estimates that 825,000 Algerians died during the conquest by 1875. The French Colonial Empire established

2392-692: The Mascarene Islands . Initial French colonial projects, partially administered by the French East India Company , prioritized plantation economies and slave labor. These economies were based on monoculture agriculture and forced African labor. Poor living conditions, famines, and disease made enslaved labor conditions particularly lethal across French colonies. French presence in Senegal began in 1626, although formal colonies and trading posts were not established until 1659 with

2496-539: The National Liberation Front was able to negotiate a peace accord with French President Charles de Gaulle, the Évian Accords in which Europeans would be able to return to their native countries, remain in Algeria as foreigners or take Algerian citizenship. Most of the one million Europeans in Algeria poured out of the country. The French Union was replaced in the new Constitution of 1958 by

2600-667: The Netherlands , France took control of Mauritius, which it renamed the Island of France in 1721. Furthermore, France took control of Rodrigues in 1735 and Seychelles in 1756. On Reunion Island ( Bourbon Island ), the French East India Company first introduced the slave trade in the 1730s. The French East India Company additionally introduced coffee and sought to create a plantation economy centered around forced labor. Characteristic of plantation colonies,

2704-552: The Nigerian Civil War . The " Scramble for Africa " between 1870 and 1914 was a significant period of European imperialism in Africa that ended with almost all of Africa, and its natural resources, claimed as colonies by European powers, who raced to secure as much land as possible while avoiding conflict amongst themselves. The partition of Africa was confirmed at the Berlin Conference of 1885, without regard for

2808-575: The Tsardom of Russia (later Russian Empire and Soviet Union ), the Kingdom of England (later Great Britain ), the Netherlands , Belgium and the Kingdom of Prussia (now mostly Germany), and, beginning in the 18th century, the United States . Most of these countries had a period of almost complete dominance of world trade at some stage in the period from roughly 1500 to 1900. Beginning in

2912-545: The colonial police on a protest march. Riots broke out in Accra and though Nkrumah and other Ghanaian leaders were temporarily imprisoned, the event became a catalyst for the independence movement. After being released from prison, Nkrumah founded the Convention People's Party (CPP), which launched a wide-scale campaign in support of independence with the slogan "Self Government Now!" Heightened nationalism within

3016-699: The " Second French colonial empire ", which began with the conquest of Algiers in 1830. On the eve of World War I, France's colonial empire was the second-largest in the world after the British Empire . France began to establish colonies in the Americas , the Caribbean , and India in the 16th century but lost most of its possessions after its defeat in the Seven Years' War . The North American possessions were lost to Britain and Spain, but Spain later returned Louisiana to France in 1800. The territory

3120-561: The 16th century, the French colonization of the Americas began. Excursions of Giovanni da Verrazzano and Jacques Cartier in the early 16th century, as well as the frequent voyages of French boats and fishermen to the Grand Banks off Newfoundland throughout that century, were the precursors to the story of France's colonial expansion. But Spain's defense of its American monopoly, and the further distractions caused in France itself in

3224-463: The 17th and 19th century to secure access to and to control the slave trade. Through an emphasis on controlling seaports, the French sought to forcibly extract enslaved people to send them abroad for profit. Colonial development prioritized export oriented production while local industry remained very underdeveloped. There was high development of production for export oriented production, notably of ground nuts in Senegal . In additional coastal areas,

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3328-399: The 1802–03 campaign alone. Of the 55,131 French soldiers dispatched to Haiti in 1802–03, 45,000, including 18 generals, died, along with 10,000 sailors, the great majority from disease. Captain [first name unknown] Sorrell of the British navy observed, "France lost there one of the finest armies she ever sent forth, composed of picked veterans, the conquerors of Italy and of German legions. She

3432-512: The 1945 Pan-African Congress , the Gold Coast's (modern-day Ghana's) independence leader Kwame Nkrumah made his focus clear. In the conference's declaration, he wrote, "We believe in the rights of all peoples to govern themselves. We affirm the right of all colonial peoples to control their own destiny. All colonies must be free from foreign imperialist control, whether political or economic." In 1948, three Ghanaian veterans were killed by

3536-512: The 1960s with the beginning of self-rule. Under French control, the colony of Madagascar included the dependencies of Comoros , Mayotte , Réunion , Kerguelen , Île Saint-Paul , Amsterdam Island , Crozet Islands , Bassas da India , Europa Island , Juan de Nova Island , Glorioso Islands , and Tromelin . Decolonization of Africa The decolonisation of Africa was a series of political developments in Africa that spanned from

3640-946: The African and Asian continents. In December 1600, a company was formed through the association of Saint-Malo , Laval , and Vitré to trade with the Moluccas and Japan. Two ships, the Croissant and the Corbin , were sent around the Cape of Good Hope in May 1601. One was wrecked in the Maldives , leading to the adventure of François Pyrard de Laval , who managed to return to France in 1611. The second ship, carrying François Martin de Vitré , reached Ceylon and traded with Aceh in Sumatra , but

3744-519: The Battle of Adwa but was later occupied by Italy in 1936. Britain and France had the largest holdings, but Germany , Spain , Italy , Belgium , and Portugal also had colonies. By 1977, 50 African countries had gained independence from European colonial powers. The early twentieth century was a time of rising nationalism throughout the world. The end of the First World War saw

3848-535: The Belgian Congo. The colony was founded in 1908 following the transfer of sovereignty from the Congo Free State , which was the personal property of Belgium's king, Leopold II . The violence used by Free State officials against indigenous Congolese and the ruthless system of economic extraction had led to intense diplomatic pressure on Belgium to take official control of the country. Belgian rule in

3952-619: The British Parliament that the document referred to "the States and nations of Europe now under the Nazi yoke". President Roosevelt regarded it as applicable across the world. Anticolonial politicians immediately saw it as relevant to colonial empires. The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, three years after the end of World War II, recognised all people as being born free and equal. After World War II ,

4056-573: The Caribbean island of Hispaniola ), France's richest and most important colony, was riven by a massive slave revolt , caused partly by the divisions among the island's elite, which had resulted from the French Revolution of 1789. The slaves, led eventually by Toussaint L'Ouverture and then, following his capture by the French in 1801, by Jean-Jacques Dessalines , held their own against French and British opponents. The French launched

4160-502: The Congo was based on the "colonial trinity" ( trinité coloniale ) of state, missionary and private company interests. During the 1940s and 1950s, the Congo experienced extensive urbanization and the administration aimed to make it into a "model colony". As the result of a widespread and increasingly radical pro-independence movement, the Congo achieved independence, as the Republic of Congo-Léopoldville in 1960. Of Belgium's other colonies,

4264-495: The European and Asian theatres of war. Approximately one million sub-Saharan Africans served in European armies in some capacity. Many Africans were compelled or even forced into military service by their respective colonial regimes, but some voluntarily enlisted in search of better opportunities than they could find in civilian employment. This led to a deeper political awareness and the expectation of greater respect and self-determination, which went largely unfulfilled. Because

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4368-665: The First World War, African labor was essential on the Western Front, and African soldiers fought in the Egypt and Palestine campaigns. Many Africans were not allowed to bear arms or serve on an equal basis with whites. The sinking of the SS Mendi in 1917 was a particularly tragic incident for Africans in the war, with 607 of the 646 crew killed being Black South Africans . In the Second World War, Africans fought in both

4472-703: The French colonists were a minority on Reunion Island. In 1763 there were only 4,000 French colonists while there were over 18,000 African enslaved people. The majority of enslaved people on Reunion Island worked on coffee plantations. They primarily came from Madagascar, Mozambique, and Senegal. The economy of the Mauritius (Island of France) was similarly based on an exploitative plantation system dependent on forced African labor. The monoculture plantations farmed sugar cane, cotton, indigo, rice, and wheat. Around 2,000 colonists and enslaved people from Reunion Island migrated to Mauritius. Conditions for enslaved people on

4576-498: The French from committing fully to the conflict, and thus the French forces suffered high losses. For example, at the Battle of El Herri in 1914, 600 French soldiers were killed. The fighting was primarily characterized by Guerrilla warfare. The Zaian forces additionally received military and economic support from the Central Powers. The Berber independence leader Abd el-Krim (1882–1963) organized armed resistance against

4680-620: The French governed indirectly and preserved the existing government structure. The bey remained an absolute monarch, Tunisian ministers were still appointed, although they were both subject to French authority. Over time, the French gradually weakened the existing structures of power and centralized power into a French colonial administration. French West Africa was a confederation of eight other French colonial territories including French Mauritania , French Senegal , French Guinea , French Ivory Coast , French Niger , French Upper Volta , French Dahomey , French Togoland , and French Sudan . At

4784-439: The French set up slave plantations. Initial French development prioritized the building of roads to connect natural resources to harbors and ports. Additional initial French settlements were established on the Mascarene Islands which include Reunion Island , Mauritius , and Rodrigues . Reunion Island was first settled in 1642 and was administered by the French East India Company starting in 1665. After initial settlement by

4888-492: The Mascarene Island plantations were very poor. Enslaved labor was highly lethal because of poor living conditions and famines. After a series of crop failures from 1725 to 1737, as much as 10% of the islands' enslaved populations died due to famine and disease. In the middle of the 18th century, a series of colonial conflicts began between France and Britain , which ultimately resulted in the destruction of most of

4992-429: The Moroccan economy. Moroccans were treated as second class citizens and discriminated against in all aspects of colonial life. Infrastructure was discriminatory in colonial Morocco. The French colonial government built 36.5 kilometers of sewers in the new neighborhoods created to accommodate new French settlers while only 4.3 kilometers of sewers were built in indigenous Moroccan communities. Additionally, land in Morocco

5096-459: The Spanish and French for control of Morocco . The Spanish had faced unrest off and on from the 1890s, but in 1921 Spanish forces were massacred at the Battle of Annual . El-Krim founded an independent Rif Republic that operated until 1926 but had no international recognition. Paris and Madrid agreed to collaborate to destroy it. They sent in 200,000 soldiers, forcing el-Krim to surrender in 1926; he

5200-401: The US and the African colonies put pressure on Britain to abide by the terms of the Atlantic Charter. After the war, some Britons considered African colonies childish and immature. British colonisers introduced democratic government at local levels in the colonies. Britain was forced to agree but Churchill rejected the universal applicability of self-determination for subject nations. Italy,

5304-404: The Vichy France regime controlled the Empire. One after another, most of the colonies were occupied by foreign powers (Japan in Indochina, Britain in Syria , Lebanon, and Madagascar , the United States and Britain in Morocco and Algeria , and Germany and Italy in Tunisia ). Control was gradually reestablished by Charles de Gaulle , who used the colonial bases as a launching point to help expel

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5408-440: The Vichy government from Metropolitan France. De Gaulle, together with most Frenchmen, was committed to preserving the Empire in its new form. The French Union , included in the Constitution of 1946 , nominally replaced the former colonial empire, but officials in Paris remained in full control. The colonies were given local assemblies with only limited local power and budgets. A group of elites, known as evolués, who were natives of

5512-543: The beginning of Napoleon III's reign, the presence of France in Senegal was limited to a trading post on the island of Gorée , a narrow strip on the coast, the town of Saint-Louis , and a handful of trading posts in the interior. The economy had largely been based on the slave trade , carried out by the rulers of the small kingdoms of the interior, as well as elite families, until France abolished slavery in its colonies in 1848. In 1854, Napoleon III named an enterprising French officer, Louis Faidherbe , to govern and expand

5616-478: The breakup of the German , Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires according to the principles espoused in Woodrow Wilson 's Fourteen Points . Though many anti-colonial intellectuals saw the potential of Wilsonian Internationalism to advance their aims, Wilson had no intention of applying the principle of self-determination outside the lands of the defeated Central Powers . The independence demands of Egyptian and Tunisian leaders, which would have compromised

5720-411: The close of the Napoleonic Wars , most of France's colonies were restored to it by Britain, notably Guadeloupe and Martinique in the West Indies , French Guiana on the coast of South America , various trading posts in Senegal , the Île Bourbon ( Réunion ) in the Indian Ocean , and France's tiny Indian possessions; however, Britain finally annexed Saint Lucia , Tobago , the Seychelles , and

5824-405: The colonial era, principally the Belgian Congo (modern DRC ) from 1908 to 1960 and Ruanda-Urundi (modern Rwanda and Burundi ) from 1922 to 1962. It also had a small concession in China (1902–1931) and was a co-administrator of the Tangier International Zone in Morocco . Roughly 98% of Belgium's overseas territory was just one colony (about 76 times larger than Belgium itself) – known as

5928-474: The colony, and to give it the beginning of a modern economy. Faidherbe built a series of forts along the Senegal River, formed alliances with leaders in the interior, and sent expeditions against those who resisted French rule. He built a new port at Dakar , established and protected telegraph lines and roads, followed these with a rail line between Dakar and Saint-Louis and another into the interior . He built schools, bridges, and systems to supply fresh water to

6032-400: The country grew their power and the political party widely expanded. In February 1951, the CPP gained political power by winning 34 of 38 elected seats, including one for Nkrumah who was imprisoned at the time. The British government revised the Gold Coast Constitution to give Ghanaians a majority in the legislature in 1951. In 1956, Ghana requested independence inside the Commonwealth , which

6136-473: The end of colonialism, and delegates included future presidents of Ghana , Kenya and Malawi among other nationalist activists. Following World War II, rapid decolonisation swept across the continent of Africa as many territories gained their independence from European colonisation. In August 1941, United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met to discuss their post-war goals. In that meeting, they agreed to

6240-522: The establishment of elected territorial assemblies, representation in Paris in a new "French Federation", and the eventual representation of Sub-Saharan Africans in the French Assembly. However, Independence was explicitly rejected as a future possibility: After the war ended, France was immediately confronted with the beginnings of the decolonisation movement. In Algeria demonstrations in May 1945 were repressed with an estimated 20,000-45,000 Algerians killed. Unrest in Haiphong, Indochina, in November 1945

6344-402: The establishment of the 1663 Sovereign Council , the territories of New France were developed as mercantile colonies . It is only after the arrival of intendant Jean Talon in 1665 that France gave its American colonies the proper means to develop population colonies comparable to that of the British. Acadia itself was lost to the British in the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Back in France, there

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6448-419: The exclusion of any indigenous languages from administrative (and often, any public) use. An extensive body of literature has examined the legacy of colonialism and colonial institutions on economic outcomes in Africa, with numerous studies showing disputed economic effects . Modernisation theory posits that colonial powers built infrastructure to integrate Africa into the world economy ; however, this

6552-438: The existing political and social structures. Almost all the pre-colonial states of Africa lost their sovereignty. The only exceptions were Liberia , which had been settled in the early 19th century by formerly enslaved African-Americans and was recognized as independent by the United States in 1862 but was viewed by European powers as being in the United States' sphere of influence, and Ethiopia , which won its independence at

6656-425: The first French colonial empire and the near-complete expulsion of France from the Americas. These wars were the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748), the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), the American Revolution (1775–1783), the French Revolutionary Wars (1793–1802) and the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815). It may even be seen further back in time to the first of the French and Indian Wars . This cyclic conflict

6760-403: The foundation of Port Royal in the colony of Acadia in North America, in what is now Nova Scotia , Canada. A few years later, in 1608, Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec , which was to become the capital of the enormous, but sparsely settled, fur-trading colony of New France (also called Canada). New France had a rather small population, which resulted from more emphasis being placed on

6864-451: The founding of Saint-Louis , and 1677 with the founding of Gorée . Additionally, the first settlement of Madagascar began in 1642 with the establishment of Fort Dauphin . Initial French colonial expansion in Senegal and Madagascar was primarily motivated by desires to secure access to natural resources including gum arabic, groundnuts (or peanuts) and other raw materials. In addition they were further motivated by desires throughout

6968-401: The fur trade rather than agricultural settlements. Due to this emphasis, the French relied heavily on creating friendly contacts with the local First Nations community. Without the appetite of New England for land, and by relying solely on Aboriginals to supply them with fur at the trading posts, the French composed a complex series of military, commercial, and diplomatic connections. These became

7072-473: The humiliation of defeat and occupation, France was eager to maintain its overseas empire at the end of the Second World War." However, after 1945, anti-colonial movements began to challenge European authority. Revolts in Indochina and Algeria proved costly and France lost both colonies. After these conflicts, a relatively peaceful decolonization took place elsewhere after 1960. The French Constitution of 27 October 1946 (Fourth French Republic) established

7176-427: The interests of the victorious Allies, were not entertained. Though Wilsonian ideals did not endure as the interwar order broke down, the principle of an international order based on the self-determination of peoples remained relevant. After 1919, anti-colonial leaders increasingly oriented themselves toward the Soviet Union's proletarian internationalism . Many Africans fought in both World War and World War II. In

7280-403: The late 19th century, Imperial Japan also engaged in settler colonization, most notably in Hokkaido and Korea . While some European colonisation focused on shorter-term exploitation of economic opportunities ( Newfoundland , for example, or Siberia ) or addressed specific goals such as settlers seeking religious freedom ( Massachusetts ), at other times long-term social and economic planning

7384-497: The later 16th century by the French Wars of Religion , prevented any constant efforts by France to settle colonies. Early French attempts to found colonies in Brazil, in 1555 at Rio de Janeiro (" France Antarctique ") and in Florida (including Fort Caroline in 1562), and in 1612 at São Luís (" France Équinoxiale "), were not successful, due to a lack of official interest and to Portuguese and Spanish vigilance. The story of France's colonial empire truly began on 27 July 1605, with

7488-516: The majority population. These efforts also helped change American policy towards South Africa, as seen with the passage of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986. Occupied by Italy briefly [REDACTED] Togoland South African Border War On 6 March 1957, Ghana (formerly the Gold Coast ) became the first sub-Saharan African country to gain its independence from European colonisation. Starting with

7592-766: The mid-1950s to 1975, during the Cold War . Colonial governments gave way to sovereign states in a process often marred by violence, political turmoil, widespread unrest, and organised revolts . Major events in the decolonisation of Africa included the Mau Mau rebellion , the Algerian War , the Congo Crisis , the Angolan War of Independence , the Zanzibar Revolution , and the events leading to

7696-589: The most enduring alliances between the French and the First Nation community. The French were, however, under pressure from religious orders to convert them to Catholicism . Through alliances with various Native American tribes, the French were able to exert a loose control over much of the North American continent. Areas of French settlement were generally limited to the St. Lawrence River Valley. Prior to

7800-536: The most significant was Ruanda-Urundi , a portion of German East Africa , which was given to Belgium as a League of Nations Mandate , when Germany lost all of its colonies at the end of World War I . Following the Rwandan Revolution , the mandate became the independent states of Burundi and Rwanda in 1962. The French colonial empire began to fall during the Second World War when

7904-543: The overseas territories but lived in metropolitan France emerged. De Gaulle assembled a major conference of Free France colonies in Brazzaville, in central Africa, in January–February 1944. The survival of France depended on support from these colonies, and De Gaulle made numerous concessions. These included the end of forced labour, the end of special legal restrictions that applied to natives but not to whites,

8008-585: The post-war world. The result was the Atlantic Charter . It was not a treaty and was not submitted to the British Parliament or the Senate of the United States for ratification, but it turned out to be a widely acclaimed document. Clause Three referred to the right to decide what form of government people wanted, and to the restoration of self-government. Prime Minister Churchill argued in

8112-731: The region connected to Canada through the Great Lakes , was maintained through a vast system of fortifications, many of them centred in the Illinois Country and in present-day Arkansas. As the French empire in North America grew, the French also began to build a smaller but more profitable empire in the West Indies . Settlement along the South American coast in what is today French Guiana began in 1624, and

8216-677: The remaining colonies were quite small and lacked active nationalist movements. However, there was trouble in French Somaliland ( Djibouti ), which became independent in 1977. There also were complications and delays in the New Hebrides Vanuatu , which was the last to gain independence in 1980. New Caledonia remains a special case under French suzerainty. The Indian Ocean island of Mayotte voted in referendum in 1974 to retain its link with France and forgo independence. Sweden temporarily controlled several settlements on

8320-410: The rule of King Leopold II of Belgium in the 19th century and Siddharth Kara has described colonial rule and European and Chinese influence in the 20th and 21st centuries. Colonisation may be used as a method of absorbing and assimilating foreign people into the culture of the imperial country. One instrument to this end is linguistic imperialism , or the use of non-indigenous colonial languages to

8424-469: The small islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon ), but also most of France's West Indian (Caribbean) colonies, and all of the French Indian outposts . While the peace treaty saw France's Indian outposts, and the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe restored to France, the competition for influence in India had been won by the British, and North America was entirely lost – most of New France

8528-575: The south east (1674), and later at Yanam (1723), Mahe (1725), and Karikal (1739) (see French India ). In 1664, the French East India Company was established to compete for trade in the east. Although initial French colonization primarily occurred in the Americas and in Asia , the French did establish a few colonies and trading posts on the African continent. Initial French colonization in Africa began in modern-day Senegal , Madagascar , and along

8632-546: The southern and eastern parts of Africa was not a peaceful process. Kenyan independence was preceded by the eight-year Mau Mau Uprising . In Rhodesia , the 1965 Unilateral Declaration of Independence by the white minority resulted in a civil war that lasted until the Lancaster House Agreement of 1979, which set the terms for recognised independence in 1980, as the new nation of Zimbabwe . Belgium controlled several territories and concessions during

8736-581: The struggles for African nationalism . During the Second World War, some local African industries and towns expanded when U-boats patrolling the Atlantic Ocean impeded the shipping of raw materials to Europe. Over time, urban communities, industries, and trade unions grew, improving literacy and education, and leading to the establishment of pro-independence newspapers. By 1945, the Fifth Pan-African Congress demanded

8840-533: The success of the Haitian Revolution convinced Napoleon that holding Louisiana would not be worth the cost, leading to its sale to the United States in 1803. The French attempt to establish a colony in Egypt in 1798–1801 was not successful. Battle casualties for the campaign were at least 15,000 killed or wounded and 8,500 prisoners for France; 50,000 killed or wounded and 15,000 prisoners for Turkey, Egypt, other Ottoman lands, and Britain. At

8944-546: The time; colonialism was widely regarded as both unimportant to France, and immoral. Some recovery of the French colonial empire was made during the French intervention in the American Revolution , with Saint Lucia being returned to France by the Treaty of Paris in 1783, but not nearly as much as had been hoped for at the time of French intervention. True disaster came to what remained of France's colonial empire in 1791 when Saint Domingue (the Western third of

9048-869: The towns. He also introduced the large-scale cultivation of Bambara groundnuts and peanuts as a commercial crop. Reaching into the Niger valley, Senegal became the primary French base in West Africa and a model colony. Dakar became one of the most important cities of the French Empire and of Africa. French Equatorial Africa was a confederation of French colonial possessions in the Sahel and Congo River regions of Africa. Colonies included in French Equatorial Africa include French Gabon , French Congo , Ubangui-Shari , and French Chad . Cameroon

9152-523: The victorious allied powers had no intention of withdrawing from their colonial holdings at the end of the war, and would instead need to rely on the resources and manpower of their African colonies during postwar reconstruction in Europe, the colonial powers downplayed Africans' contributions to the allied victory. On February 12, 1941, United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met to discuss

9256-521: Was a three-way conflict due to the large number of " pieds-noirs " (Europeans who had settled there in the 125 years of French rule ). The political crisis in France caused the collapse of the Fourth Republic, as Charles de Gaulle returned to power in 1958 and finally pulled the French soldiers and settlers out of Algeria by 1962. Lasting more than eight years, the estimated death toll typically falls between 300,000 and 400,000 people. By 1962,

9360-567: Was always receding [and] the colonial populations treated like subjects not citizens." France sent small numbers of settlers to its empire, with the notable exception of Algeria, where the French settlers took power while being a minority. In World War II, Charles de Gaulle and the Free French took control of the overseas colonies one-by-one and used them as bases from which they prepared to liberate France . Historian Tony Chafer argues: "In an effort to restore its world-power status after

9464-582: Was built mainly for extraction purposes. African economies were structured to benefit the coloniser and any surplus was likely to be 'drained', thereby stifling local capital accumulation . Dependency theory suggests that most African economies continued to occupy a subordinate position in the world economy after independence with a reliance on primary commodities such as copper in Zambia and tea in Kenya . Despite this continued reliance and unfair trading terms,

9568-472: Was captured by the Dutch on the return leg at Cape Finisterre . François Martin de Vitré was the first Frenchman to write an account of travels to the Far East in 1604, at the request of Henry IV, and from that time numerous accounts on Asia would be published. From 1604 to 1609, following the return of François Martin de Vitré, Henry developed a strong enthusiasm for travel to Asia and attempted to set up

9672-529: Was exiled in the Pacific until 1947. Morocco became quiet, and in 1936 became the base from which Francisco Franco launched his revolt against Madrid. The French protectorate of Tunisia lasted from 1881 to 1956. The protectorate was initially established after the successful invasion of Tunisia in 1881. The groundwork for occupation was laid on April 24, 1881, when the French deployed 35,000 troops from Algeria to invade several Tunisian cities. As in Morocco,

9776-427: Was far more expensive for Moroccans than for French settlers. For example, while the average Moroccan had a plot of land 50 times smaller than their French settler counterparts, Moroccans were forced to pay 24% more per hectare. Moroccans were additionally prohibited from buying land from French settlers. Colonial Morocco's economy was designed to benefit French businesses at the detriment of Moroccan laborers. Morocco

9880-628: Was forced to import all of its goods from France despite higher costs. Additionally, improvements to agriculture and irrigation systems in Morocco exclusively benefited colonial agriculturalists while leaving Moroccan farms at a technological disadvantage. Between the years of 1914 to 1921 the Zaian Confederation of Berber Tribes, primarily from the Atlas Mountain region of Morocco, staged an armed resistance against French colonial control . The outbreak of World War One prevented

9984-496: Was founded on the western half of the Spanish island of Hispaniola . In the 18th century, Saint-Domingue grew to be the richest sugar colony in the Caribbean. The eastern half of Hispaniola (today's Dominican Republic ) also came under French rule for a short period, after being given to France by Spain in 1795. With the end of the French Wars of Religion , King Henry IV encouraged various enterprises to establish trade with

10088-728: Was granted peacefully in 1957 with Nkrumah as prime minister and Queen Elizabeth II as sovereign. Prime Minister Harold Macmillan gave the famous "Wind of Change" speech in South Africa in February 1960, where he spoke to the country's Parliament of "the wind of change blowing through this continent." Macmillan urgently wanted to avoid the same kind of colonial war that France was fighting in Algeria. Under his premiership decolonisation proceeded rapidly. Britain's remaining colonies in Africa, except for Southern Rhodesia , were all granted independence by 1968. British withdrawal from

10192-551: Was initially colonized by the German Empire in 1884. The indigenous people of Cameroon refused to work on German related projects, which turned into force labor. However, after World War One, the colony was partitioned by France and Britain. The French colony lasted from 1916 to until self-rule was achieved in 1960. French colonialism in Madagascar began in 1896 when France established a protectorate by force and ended in

10296-413: Was involved for both parties, but more on the colonizing countries themselves, based on elaborate theory-building (note James Oglethorpe 's Colony of Georgia in the 1730s and Edward Gibbon Wakefield 's New Zealand Company in the 1840s). In some cases European colonization appeared to be primarily for long-term economic gain, as in the Congo where Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness described life under

10400-734: Was met by a warship bombarding the city. Paul Ramadier 's ( SFIO ) cabinet repressed the Malagasy Uprising in Madagascar in 1947. French officials estimated the number of Malagasy killed from as low as 11,000 to a French Army estimate of 89,000. In Cameroun , the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon 's insurrection which began in 1955 headed by Ruben Um Nyobé , was violently repressed over two years, with perhaps as many as 100,000 people killed. French involvement in Algeria stretched back

10504-576: Was relatively little interest in colonialism, which concentrated rather on dominance within Europe, and for most of its history, New France was far behind the British North American colonies in both population and economic development. In 1699, French territorial claims in North America expanded still further, with the foundation of Louisiana in the basin of the Mississippi River . The extensive trading network throughout

10608-516: Was seen as a way to restore French prestige in the world. It was also to provide manpower during the world wars. A major goal was the Mission civilisatrice or " Civilizing Mission ". In 1884, the leading proponent of colonialism, Jules Ferry , declared: "The higher races have a right over the lower races, they have a duty to civilize the inferior races ." Full citizenship rights – assimilation – were offered, although in reality "assimilation

10712-419: Was taken by Britain (also referred to as British North America ), except Louisiana , which France ceded to Spain as payment for Spain's late entrance into the war (and as compensation for Britain's annexation of Spanish Florida). Also ceded to the British were Grenada and Saint Lucia in the West Indies. Although the loss of Canada would cause much regret in future generations, it excited little unhappiness at

10816-567: Was then sold to the United States in 1803 . France rebuilt a new empire mostly after 1850, concentrating chiefly in Africa as well as Indochina and the South Pacific . As it developed, the new French empire took on roles of trade with the metropole , supplying raw materials and purchasing manufactured items. Especially after the disastrous Franco-Prussian War , which saw Germany become the leading economic and military power of Continental Europe, acquiring colonies and rebuilding an empire

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