French West Africa was a federation of eight colonies in western Africa. France conquered and controlled the territories from 1895 to 1958. Dakar, now the capital of Senegal, was the capital. The eight colonies that made up French West Africa are now independent countries: Côte d’Ivoire, Dahomey (now Benin), French Guinea (now Guinea), French Sudan (now Mali), Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, and Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso). For more detailed information about these countries, see their separate articles in World Book.
The land.
French West Africa occupied 1,789,186 square miles (4,633,970 square kilometers), or about one-seventh of the African continent. It included most of the great bulge of Africa that juts into the Atlantic Ocean. An area of rolling plains, it has tropical rain forests along the southern coasts, a belt of thick grasslands across the center, the dry plains of the Sahel farther north, and the barren Sahara in the far north.
History.
Before Europeans took control of what became French West Africa, the people of the region were divided into many groups. Some of the groups were loose associations of families that lived in small areas without centralized authority. Other groups formed more elaborate states, with central governments and large populations.
Several great empires bordered the Sahara. The Ghana Empire was strongest during the A.D. 1000’s. The Mali Empire reached its height in the 1300’s. The Songhai Empire flourished in the 1500’s.
The Portuguese were the first Europeans to explore the west African coast. They arrived in the mid-1400’s. Then came the French, the Dutch, and the English. The Europeans were mainly interested in buying slaves they could sell in the Caribbean and America. In 1624, King Louis XIII of France granted a French company a charter to trade in Senegal. The French established a trading post at the mouth of the Senegal River in 1638. In 1658, they built a fort there and founded Saint-Louis, now a city in Senegal.
Throughout the 1700’s, Britain (now the United Kingdom) and France competed for control of this area. In 1815, Britain finally recognized French control of Saint-Louis and Goree at the tip of Cape Verde peninsula. But France did not seriously impose its control in the African interior until the late 1800’s. In 1895, France grouped its colonies in western Africa under the authority of a governor general. Dakar became the governor general’s headquarters in 1902.
France proclaimed a constitution for the Federation of West Africa in 1904. But many areas remained outside French control. Some remained under military authority until after 1945.
In 1946, French West Africa became a federation of eight overseas territories within the French Union. France extended citizenship rights to the Africans, but gave only some of them the right to vote. In 1956, France gave all Africans in the federation the right to vote.
When France adopted a new constitution in 1958, French Guinea voted to leave the French Union and became an independent country. The other seven territories voted to remain associated with France within the new French Community, an organization that linked France and its overseas territories. But by the end of 1958, these territories had voted to become autonomous republics.
In 1959, French Sudan and Senegal united to form the Federation of Mali. They negotiated with France for full independence, but agreed to remain in the French Community. The Federation of Mali broke up in August 1960, and French Sudan became the Republic of Mali. The other five republics then asked for complete independence. All of them received their freedom by the end of 1960.
