Guinea

History

• Pre-history

  The modern state of Guinea did not come into existence until 1958, but the history of the area stretches back well before European colonization. Its current boundaries were determined during the colonial period by the Berlin Conference (1884-1885) and the French, who ruled Guinea until 1958. The prehistory of Guinea is similar to many West African counties. Early human settlers from northern Holocene societies arrived in West Africa around 12,000 B.C. At Gobero, the Kiffian, who were hunters of tall stature, lived during the green Sahara between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago. The Tenerian, who were a more lightly built people that hunted, fished and herded cattle, lived during the latter part of the green Sahara approximately 7,000 to 4,500 years ago.

  Sedentary farming began in, or around the fifth millennium B.C, as well as the domestication of cattle. By 1500 B.C, ironworking technology allowed an expansion of agricultural productivity, and the first city-states later formed. Northern tribes developed walled settlements and non-walled settlements that numbered at 400. In the forest region, Iron Age cultures began to flourish, and an inter-region trade began to appear. The desertification of the Sahara and the climatic change of the coast cause trade with upper Mediterranean peoples to be seen.

  The domestication of the camel allowed the development of a trans-Saharan trade with cultures across the Sahara, including Carthage and the Berbers; major exports included gold, cotton cloth, metal ornaments, and leather goods, which were then exchanged for salt, horses, textiles, and other such materials. Local leather, cloth, and gold also contributed to the abundance of prosperity for many of the following empires.

  Archaeological evidence indicates that at least some stone tools found in Guinea had been made by peoples who had moved there from the Sahara, pushed perhaps by the desiccation that had occurred in the Saharan region by 2000 bc. Agriculture had been practiced along the coast of Guinea by ad 1000, with rice the staple crop.

• The Sosso Empire

  The Kingdom of Sosso, also written as Soso or Susu, was an ancient kingdom on the coast of West Africa. During its empire, reigned their most famous leader, Sumanguru Kante. When he ascended the throne, Soumaoro hindered all commercial activities between Mandé and Ouagadou. He forcibly removed all the horses that the Soninke merchants were driving on his territory to sell them, or which were in transit for the Mande. The king of Sosso thus gave himself the monopoly of the horse trade. The other chiefs had no choice but to come to the markets of his country. From there comes the name Sosso. Sosso was under the control of the Tounka of Ouagadou.

  His governor (farin) was the lieutenant of an emperor. His name was Goumaté Fadé Diarisso, generally known as Gourmet Fané. Also, it should be pointed out, all the kings of Sosso were Soninké and their surname was Diarisso. (Diarra and his son Soumaoro were Soninke and Diarisso). After the fall of Koumbi, Kambine Diarisso proclaimed the independence of the country and became sovergin in 1105 for the first time. But his sons Souleymane, Bana, Boubou, Maghan, Ganne, Moussa and Birama were idle kings. They were unable to rule the kingdom. General Diarra Kanté (let’s emphasize it, he was Diarisso) took the opportunity to settle on the royal skin. He dispersed the pretenders to the throne. His son Soumaoro succeeded him. He was the most illustrious and the last king of the Sosso. This is how he and his father Diarra became Kanté. This name is born of a particular circumstance that diali explain by giving several versions.

  The legendary Soumaoro was a great hunter (soso sinbo ani sinbo salaba). He was tall with disgusting legs. Soumaoro had traveled the Ouagadou in all directions. He was a vagabond. But the griots who praised them said of him: “you are not a vagabond and you have no legs wily, worthy son of a charming man.” Some oral sources indicate that the birthplace of Soumaoro would be in Do Sankarana (Segou).

  The king of Sosso was a great warrior and a fetishist master. The heads of the kings defeated by him decorated the walls of his immense palace, a gigantic tower with several floors. Soumaoro owned a sparrowhawk, guardian of his home. Like the eagle of Mama Dinga, this raptor spoke to men and even communicated with Sosso simbo at a distance. He foresaw all the events. And like the milk on the fire, the bird watched the magic balafon of his master (Sosso bala), the specimen, the ancestor of other instruments of this kind. The famous messenger of Sogolon Diata discovered it and played it despite the warnings of the hawk. He played it so well that the king of Sosso held him prisoner.

• Mandés kingdoms

  Most of Upper Guinea were within the area influenced by the Ghana empire at the height of its power, but none of present-day Guinea was actually within the empire. The Mandés was initially a part of many fragmented kingdoms that formed after the collapse of Ghana empire in the 11th century. During the rule of Sundiata Keita, these kingdoms were consolidated, and the Mandinka expanded west from the Niger River basin under Sundiata’s general Tiramakhan Traore. This expansion was a part of creating a region of conquest, according to the oral tradition of the Mandinka people. This migration began in the later part of the 13th century.

  With the migration, many gold artisans and metalworking Mandinka smiths settled along the coast and in the hilly Fouta Djallon and plateau areas of West Africa. Their presence and products attracted Mandika merchants and brought trading caravans from North Africa and the eastern Sahel states Toby Green – a professor of African History and Culture. It also brought conflicts with other ethnic groups, such as the Wolof people, particularly the Jolof Empire.

  The caravan trade to North Africa and the Middle East brought Islamic people into Mandinka people’s original and expanded home region. The Muslim traders sought a presence in the host Mandinka community, and this likely initiated proselytizing efforts to convert the Mandinka from their traditional religious beliefs into Islam. In Ghana, for example, the Almoravids had divided its capital into two parts by 1077, one part was Muslim and other non-Muslim. The Muslim influence from North Africa had arrived in the Mandinka region before this, via Islamic trading diasporas.

  One of the legends among the Mandingo of western Africa is that the general Tiramakhan Traore led the migration because people in Mali had converted to Islam and he did not want to. Another legend gives a contrasting account and states that Traore himself had converted and married Muhammad’s granddaughter. The Traore’s marriage with Muhammad’s granddaughter, states Toby Green, is fanciful, but these conflicting oral histories suggest that Islam had arrived well before the 13th century and had a complex interaction with the Mandinka people.

• Kingdom of Futa Jallon

  Kingdom of Futa Jallon was the Fulani Kingdom ran by an imam or Almamy, located in central Guinea, founded in 1725. The state occupied the defensive side of a Hill. The kingdom came about with a joint coalition of Fulani, Mandinka, Susu, and other ethnic Muslims. Fulani Muslim reformers called Mujaddadin (“revivers of Islam” not mujahadeen, “warriors of Islam”) wanted to create a pure Islamic state. They conquered the Dialonke, a Mande speaking ethnic.

  The kingdom was ruled by the Almamy. His power was absolute but informed by his counselors who had the ears of the populace. The Almamy claimed authority from Allah and ruled in the name of Allah. The Almamy was elected every two years after 1800. They came from two Fulani families, the Alfa or Sori. The kingdom was divided into 9 provinces called diwal. Each diwal was further divided into sub-districts called miside. An army, manned by compulsory service, was kept for defense. The Almamy was the commander of the army.

  Since the 17th century, the Fouta Djallon region has been a stronghold of Islam. Early revolutionaries led by Karamokho Alfa and Ibrahim Sori set up a federation divided into nine provinces. Several succession crises weakened the central power located in Timbo until 1896, when the last Almamy, Bubakar Biro, was defeated by the French army in the battle of Poredaka.

  The Fulɓe of Fouta Djallonke spearheaded the expansion of Islam in the region. Fulɓe Muslim scholars developed an indigenous literature using the Arabic alphabet. Known as Ajamiyya, this literary achievement is represented by such great poet-theologians as Tierno Muhammadu Samba Mombeya, Tierno Saadu Dalen, Tierno Aliou Boubha Ndyan, Tierno Jaawo Pellel etc.

• Samori Touré

  Samori Touré was born in 1830 in Manyambaladugu (some texts mention Sanankoro instead), a village southeast of Kankan in present-day Guinea. Samori was a great warrior who fought imperialism in the 19th century such as many leaders today. He refused to submit to French colonization and thus chose the path of confrontation using warfare and diplomacy. Until the age of 20, Samori was a trader. After his mother was captured in a slave raid by the king Sori Birama, he offered to serve in his army and excelled by his military prowess and skills.

  Samori Touré had a vision of unity for the Malinké people and thus started organizing his empire using traditional and innovative methods. He effectively organized Malinké chiefdoms into a single state under his authority, at the core of which was the army. He managed to increase loyalty to the state in the Malinké people who now thought as one united people… this intensified their allegiance to him. His state was well-organized and efficient.

  Samori’s army was powerful, disciplined, professional, and trained in modern-day warfare. They were equipped with European guns. The army was divided into two flanks, the infantry or sofa, with 30,000 to 35,000 men, and the cavalry or sere of 3,000 men. Each wind was further subdivided into permanent units, fostering camaraderie among members and loyalty to both the local leaders and Samori himself. Talk about African organization and discipline… this was really a strong army! His empire reached his apogee between 1883 and 1887, and he took the title of Almami or religious leader of a Muslim empire.

• Mandinka empire

  Samori Touré created the Mandinka empire (the Wassoulou empire) between 1852 and 1882. His empire extended to the east as far as Sikasso (present-day Mali), to the west up to the Fouta Djallon empire (middle of modern-day Guinea), to the north from Kankan to Bamako (in Mali); to the south, down to the borders of present-day Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Cote d’Ivoire. His capital was Bisandugu, in the present-day Gambia. In the 1850s, slavery being abolished, European powers decided to establish colonies in Africa, and could not tolerate strong states like the Mandinka empire, and strong leaders like Samori Touré.

  In 1882, at the height of the Mandinka empire, the French accused Samori Touré of refusing to comply to their order to withdraw from an important market center, Kenyeran (his army had blockaded the market). They thus started a war on him. This was an excuse to start the war! From 1882 to 1885, Samori fought the French and had to sign infamous treaties in 1886 and then 1887. In 1888, he took up arms again when the French reneged on the treaty by attempting to foster rebellion within his empire. He defeated the French several time between 1885 and 1889. After several confrontations, he concluded several treaties with the French in 1889.

  In 1890, he reorganized his army and signed a treaty with the British in Sierra Leone, where he obtained modern weapons. He reorganized his army so as to stress defense, and employed guerilla tactics. In December 1891, French forces overran the major cities of the Mandinka empire, leaving death and desolation in their wake (sounds familiar? Côte d’Ivoire April 2011). These incursions into Touré’s empire led to the exodus of the entire nation eastward. In 1893, Samori moved his capital east from Bisandugu to Dabakala. In 1894, the French assembled all their troops in western Sudan (Senegal, Mali, Niger, etc…) to fight Samori.

• The End of Samori

  Between 1893 and 1898, Samori’s army retreated eastward, toward the Bandama and Como (in modern-day Cote d’Ivoire), conquering huge territories in the northern part of modern-day Cote d’Ivoire. He led the scorched earth tactic, destroying every piece of land he evacuated. Although that tactic cut him from his new source of weapons in Liberia, he still managed to delay the French. He formed a second empire, and moved his capital to Kong, in upper Cote d’Ivoire.

  On May 1, 1898, the French seized the town of Sikasso and his army took up positions in the Liberian forests to resist a second invasion. This time Samori’s army fought valiantly but was no match to the power of the French arsenal. Samori forced to fight a total war against a foreign invader, and fighting against all odds, was captured on September 29, 1898, in his camp in Gué(lé)mou in present-day Côte d’Ivoire. He was exiled to Gabon where he died two years later on June 2, 1900.

  Samori Touré was a warrior, a fighter, an empire builder, and one of the greatest African military leaders ever seen… he fought and won against the French army several times before his capture. Interestingly enough, over 50 years later, the grandson of Samori, Sekou Touré, was the only one to say ‘NO’ to France, and to General De Gaulle: they preferred freedom over slavery under the European master… that was in Guinea!

• Colonial France

  European exploration of the Guinea coast had begun by the middle of the 15th century; it was led by the Portuguese. By the 17th century, French, British, and Portuguese traders and slavers were competing with one another. When the slave trade was prohibited during the first half of the 19th century, Guinean creeks became hiding places for slavers harried by the ships of the British Royal Navy. French rights along the coast were expressly preserved by the Peace of Paris (1814), and French, as well as British and Portuguese trading activities, expanded in the middle years of the 19th century, when trade in peanuts, palm oil, hides, and rubber replaced that in slaves.

  The French established a protectorate over Boké in 1849 and consolidated their rule over the coastal areas in the 1860s. This inevitably led to attempts to secure a more satisfactory arrangement with the Fulani chiefs of Futa Jallon. A protectorate was established over the region in 1881, but effective sovereignty was not secured for another 15 years. Resistance to the French advance up Senegal and the Niger, toward Lake Chad, came from Samory Touré, a Malinké born in Upper Guinea. He had seized Kankan in 1879 and established his authority in the area southeast of Siguiri; but his attacks had spurred the inhabitants of the area to seek aid from French troops already established at Kita in French Sudan (Soudan Français, now Mali) in 1882.

  Samory had signed treaties with the French first in 1886, and also in 1890. But on various pretexts, both he and the French later renounced the treaties, so hostilities resumed. His capture in 1898 marked the end of concerted local resistance to the French occupation of Guinea, Ivory Coast (now Côte d’Ivoire), and southern Mali. In 1891, Guinea was reconstituted as a French territory separate from Senegal, of which it had hitherto been a part. Four years later, the French territories in West Africa became a federation under a governor-general.

• Fight for Independence

  The French protectorate of Rivières du Sud was detached from Senegal as a separate colony in 1890. As French Guinea, it became part of the Federation of French West Africa in 1895. Treaties with Liberia and Great Britain largely established the present boundaries by World War I.

  The French set up a bureaucracy to administer the colony and collected taxes and requisitioned forced labor. The tried to capitalize on the area’s natural resources, such as gold but were largely unsuccessful. The French built schools, courts, and medical clinics. While they brutalized some sectors of the population, colonialism was ameliorated by the lack of French personnel. The French depended on local chefs and institutions for the day-to-day administration of the colony; as a result, colonial policies were often implemented incompletely.

  Under the 1946 constitution of the French Fourth Republic, a small number of French-educated Africans in Guinea were allowed to vote for deputies to the French National Assembly. Sekou Touré led the nation to independence in the 1950s. A postal clerk and union activist, Touré was head of the Democratic Party of Guinea (PDG), which drew support from market women and low-level African bureaucrats. Declaring, “We prefer poverty in freedom to riches in chains,” Touré conducted a campaign against the proposed French Union, which would have kept French colonies in a federation.

  n September 1958, France’s president, granted the nation’s independence and ordered a swift withdrawal. All French personnel was deployed back to France, public works in progress were demolished, and the medicines, textbooks, and records used in colonial hospitals, schools, and offices were removed or destroyed. Taking office as the country’s first president in 1958, Touré faced immense challenges.

• Independent Guinea

  By 1960, Touré had declared the PDG the only legal party. For the next 24 years, the government and the PDG were one. Touré was reelected unopposed to four seven-year terms as president, and every five years voters were presented with a single list of PDG candidates for the National Assembly. Advocating a hybrid African Socialism domestically and Pan-Africanism abroad, Touré quickly became a polarising leader, and his government became intolerant of dissent, imprisoning hundreds, and stifling the free press. Sékou Touré died on March 26, 1984, after a heart operation in the United States, and was replaced by Prime Minister Louis Lansana Beavogui, who was to serve as interim president pending new elections.

  The PDG was due to elect a new leader on April 3, 1984. Under the constitution, that person would have been the only candidate for president. However, hours before that meeting, Colonels Lansana Conté and Diarra Traoré seized power in a bloodless coup. Conté assumed the role of president, with Traoré serving as prime minister until December. Conté immediately denounced the previous regime’s record on human rights, released 250 political prisoners and encouraged approximately 200,000 more to return from exile.

  16 November 2010, Alpha Condé, the leader of the opposition party Rally of the Guinean People (RGP), was officially declared the winner of a 7 November run-off in Guinea’s presidential election. He had promised to reform the security sector and review mining contracts if elected. 

• Source:

  http://www.everyculture.com/Ge-It/Guinea.html#ixzz5KpiVcnGl

  http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/knowledge/Guinea.html#ixzz5Kp5UDtl6

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Guinea

  http://www.afropedea.org/kingdom-of-futa-jallon

  http://www.everyculture.com/Ge-It/Guinea.html

  https://www.thecrazytourist.com/15-best-places-visit-guinea/9/

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  https://www.export.gov/article?id=Guinea-Agriculture

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  https://www.classbase.com/countries/Guinea/Education-System

  https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/ethnic-groups-of-guinea-conakry.html

  https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/asia-and-africa/african-history/guinea#HISTORY

  https://www.britannica.com/place/Guinea/Government-and-society#ref55225

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