History

Pre-history

Little is known about the original inhabitants of Cote d’Ivoire Historians believe that they were all either displaced or absorbed by the ancestors of the present inhabitants. The first recorded history is found in the chronicles of North African traders, who, from early Roman times, conducted a caravan trade across the Sahara in salt, slaves, gold, and other items. The southern terminals of the trans- Saharan trade routes were located on the edge of the desert, and from there supplemental trade extended as far south as the edge of the rainforest.

The more important terminals Djenne, Gao, and Timbuctu—grew into major commercial centers around which the great Sudanic empires developed. By controlling the trade routes with their powerful military forces, these empires were able to dominate neighboring states. The Sudanic empires also became centers of Islamic learning. Islam had been introduced into western Sudan (see Glossary) by Arab traders from North Africa and spread rapidly after the conversion of many important rulers. From the eleventh century, by which time the rulers of the Sudanic empires had embraced Islam, it spread south into the northern areas of contemporary Cote d’Ivoire.

Ghana, the earliest of the Sudanic empires, flourished in present-day eastern Mauritania from the fourth to the thirteenth century. At the peak of its power in the eleventh century, its realms extended from the Atlantic Ocean to Timbuctu The territory of the Mali Empire in Cote d’Ivoire was limited to the northwest corner around Odienne. Its slow decline starting at the end of the fourteenth century followed internal discord and revolts by vassal states, one of which, Songhai, flourished as an empire between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. Songhai was also weakened by internal discord, which led to factional warfare. This discord spurred most of the migrations of peoples southward toward the forest belt.

The dense rain forest covering the southern half of the country created barriers to large-scale political organizations as seen farther north. Five important states flourished in Cote d’Ivoire in the pre European era. The Muslim empire of Kong was established by the Juula in the early eighteenth century in the north-central region inhabited by the Senoufo, who had fled Islamization under the Mali Empire. From their settlement south of Bondoukou, the Abron gradually extended their hegemony over the Juula in Bondoukou, who were recent emigres from the market city of Begho. Bondoukou developed into a major center of commerce and Islam. The kingdom’s Quranic scholars attracted students from all parts of West Africa.

In the mid-eighteenth century in east-central Cote d’Ivoire, other Akan groups fleeing the Asante established a Baoule kingdom at Sakasso and two Agni kingdoms, Indenie and Sanwi. The Baoule, like the Asante, elaborated a highly centralized political and administrative structure under three successive rulers, but it finally split into smaller chiefdoms. Despite the breakup of their kingdom, the Baoule strongly resisted French subjugation. The descendants of the rulers of the Agni kingdoms tried to retain their separate identity long after Cote d’Ivoire’s independence; as late as 1969, the Sanwi of Krinjabo attempted to break away from Cote d’Ivoire and form an independent kingdom.

The Arrival of European

The African continent, situated between Europe and the imagined treasures of the Far East, quickly became the destination of the European explorers of the fifteenth century. The first Europeans to explore the West African coast were the Portuguese. At first, the trade included gold, ivory, and pepper, but the establishment of American colonies in the sixteenth century spurred demand for slaves, who soon became the major export from the West African coastal regions. Local rulers, under treaties with the Europeans, procured goods and slaves from inhabitants of the interior.

By the end of the fifteenth century, commercial contacts with Europe had spawned strong European influences, which permeated areas northward from the West African coast. Cote d’Ivoire, like the rest of West Africa, was subject to these influences, but the absence of sheltered harbors along its coastline prevented Europeans from establishing permanent trading posts. Seaborne trade, therefore, was irregular and played only a minor role in the penetration and eventual conquest by Europeans of Cote d’Ivoire. The slave trade, in particular, had little effect on the people of Cote d’Ivoire. A profitable trade in ivory, which gave the area its name, was carried out during the seventeenth century, but it brought about such a decline in elephants that the trade itself virtually had died out by the beginning of the eighteenth century.

The earliest recorded French voyage to West Africa took place in 1483. The first West African French settlement, Saint Louis, was founded in the mid-seventeenth century in Senegal, while at about the same time the Dutch ceded to the French a settlement at He de Goree off Dakar. A French mission was established in 1687 at Assini, and it became the first European outpost in that area. Assini’s survival was precarious, however, and only in the mid-nineteenth century did the French establish themselves firmly in Cote d’Ivoire. By that time, they had already established settlements around the mouth of the Senegal River and at other points along the coasts of what are now Senegal, Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau.

Meanwhile, the British had permanent outposts in the same areas and on the Gulf of Guinea east of Cote d’Ivoire. Activity along the coast stimulated European interest in the interior, especially along the two great rivers, Senegal and Niger. In the 1840s, the French concluded a series of treaties with local West African rulers that enabled the French to build fortified posts along the Gulf of Guinea to serve as permanent trading centers.

The treaties provided for French sovereignty within the posts and for trading privileges in exchange for fees or costumes paid annually to the local rulers for the use of the land. The arrangement was not entirely satisfactory to the French because the trade was limited and misunderstandings over treaty obligations often arose. The defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War (1871) and the subsequent annexation by Germany of the French region of Alsace-Lorraine caused the French government to abandon its colonial ambitions and withdraw its military garrisons from its French West African trading posts, leaving them in the care of resident merchants.

Colonial French

In 1885 France and Germany brought all the European powers with interests in Africa together at the Berlin Conference. Its principal objective was to rationalize what became known as the European scramble for colonies in Africa. Prince Otto von Bismarck also wanted a greater role in Africa for Germany, which he thought he could achieve in part by fostering competition between France and Britain. The agreement signed by all participants in 1885 stipulated that on the African coastline, only European annexations or spheres of influence that involved effective occupation by Europeans would be recognized. Another agreement in 1890 extended this rule to the interior of Africa and set off a scramble for territory primarily by France, Britain, Portugal, and Belgium.

Local Resistance and Establishment of Protectorates In 1886, to support its claims of effective occupation, France again assumed direct control of its West African coastal trading posts and embarked on an accelerated program of exploration in the interior. Cote d’Ivoire: A Country Study In 1887 Lieutenant Louis Binger began a two-year journey that traversed parts of Cote d’Ivoire’s interior. By the end of the journey, he had concluded four treaties establishing French protectorates in Cote d’Ivoire. Also in 1887, Verdier’s agent, Maurice TreichLaplene, negotiated five additional agreements that extended French influence from the headwaters of the Niger River Basin through Cote d’Ivoire.

By the end of the 1880s, France had established what passed for effective control over the coastal regions of Cote d’Ivoire, and in 1889 Britain recognized French sovereignty in the area. That same year, France named Treich-Laplante titular governor of the territory In 1893 Cote d’Ivoire was made a French colony, and then Captain Binger was appointed the governor. Agreements with Liberia in 1892 and with Britain in 1893 determined the eastern and western boundaries of the colony, but the northern boundary was not fixed until 1947 because of efforts by the French government to attach parts of Upper Volta (present-day Burkina Faso) and French Sudan (present-day Mali) to Cote d’Ivoire for economic and administrative reasons. Throughout the process of partition, the Africans were little concerned with the occasional white person who came wandering by.

Repression and Conquest In 1906 Gabriel Angoulvant was appointed the governor of Cote d’Ivoire. Angoulvant, who had little prior experience in Africa, believed that the development of Cote d’Ivoire could proceed only after the forceful conquest, or so-called pacification, of the colony. He thus embarked on a vigorous campaign, sending military expeditions into the hinterland to quell resistance. As a result of these expeditions, local rulers were compelled to obey existing antislavery laws, supply porters and food to the French forces, and ensure the protection of French trade and personnel. In return, the French agreed to leave local customs intact and specifically promised not to intervene in the selection of rulers. But the French often disregarded their side of the agreement, deporting or interning rulers regarded as instigators of revolt. They also regrouped villages and established a uniform administration throughout most of the colony. Finally, they replaced the costume with an allowance based on performance.

Evolution of Colonial Policy

French colonial policy incorporated concepts of assimilation and association. Assimilation presupposed the inherent superiority of French culture over all others so in practice the assimilation policy in the colonies meant the extension of the French language, institutions, laws, and customs. The policy of association also affirmed the superiority of the French in the colonies, but it entailed different institutions and systems of laws for the colonizer and the colonized. Under this policy, the Africans in Cote d’Ivoire were allowed to preserve their own customs insofar as they were compatible with French interests. An indigenous elite trained in French administrative practice formed an intermediary group between the French and the Africans.

Assimilation was practiced in Cote d’Ivoire to the extent that after 1930 a small number of Westernized Ivoirians were granted the right to apply for French citizenship. Most Ivoirians, however, were classified as French subjects and were governed under the principle of association. Until 1958, governors appointed in Paris administered the colony of Cote d’Ivoire, using a system of direct, centralized administration that left little room for Ivoirian participation in policy-making.

The French colonial administration also adopted divide-and-rule policies, applying ideas of assimilation only to the educated elite. The French were also interested in ensuring that the small but influential elite was sufficiently satisfied with the status quo to refrain from any anti-French sentiment. Colonial Administration French expansion in Africa during the last quarter of the nineteenth century was so rapid that it was difficult to find enough administrators to govern the growing number of possessions effectively. For a brief period, therefore, the French adopted a system of indirect rule using indigenous leaders as their surrogates. The local rulers, however, exercised authority only by the sanction of the French administrators. Those rulers who refused to submit to French directives were deposed and replaced with more cooperative ones.

France divided the individual colonies into districts known as circles, each of which was governed by a district commander the circles, and the colonial governors exercised their responsibilities with relative autonomy. Within a circle, the commander ruled through a hierarchy of local rulers, whom he appointed and could dismiss at will. He was advised by a council of notables (Conseil des notables) consisting of these local rulers and of other individuals appointed by him. Most of the inhabitants of the colonies were subjects of France with no political rights. Moreover, they were drafted for work in mines, on plantations, as porters, and on public projects as part of their tax responsibility. They were also expected to serve in the military and were subject to the indigent, a separate system of law.

Brazzaville Conference

After the defeat of France and the alignment of many West Afri- cans with the Free French, the political maturity of the indigenous populations developed. De Gaulle recognized the need to revise the relationship between France and its colonies in Africa. In January 1944, Free French politicians and high-ranking colonial officials from the French African colonies met in Brazzaville (in present-day Congo). The Brazzaville Conference, as it came to be known, recommended political, social, and economic reforms. It accepted the representation of the colonies in the French Constituent Assembly, which was to draw up a new French constitution after the war, and the subsequent representation of the colonies in whatever parliamentary body the constitution established.

The conference also recommended that the colonies be administered with greater autonomy and that both French citizens and Africans be permitted to elect a legislative assembly. In addition, the conference committed the French government to respect local customs, abolish the indigent, adopt a new penal code, end labor conscription, improve health and educational facilities, and open positions in the colonial administration to Africans. The only immediate effect of the conference was the passage of a law in August 1944 granting workers in the AOF the right to organize. In October 1945, after the defeat of Germany and the end of the war, the first countrywide elections were held in Cote d’Ivoire to choose two delegates for the French Constituent Assembly, which was to meet in Paris before the end of the year.

When the French Constituent Assembly met in Paris, 63 of the 600 delegates represented the African colonies. The African delegates, all members of the educated elite, demanded liberal reforms in the colonial system, for which they received support from French socialist and communist delegates. In the end, the assembly reevaluated colonial policy and drafted a plan for the union of France and the colonies. In addition to abolishing the indigent and forced labor system, in 1945 and 1946, the French government decreed a number of other important reforms concerning Africans. It granted freedom of speech, association, and assembly to the residents of the colonies; it provided funds for economic and social development; it permitted the AOF to adopt a new penal code, and it granted all inhabitants of French colonies French citizenship.

Regional Political Cooperation Increasing political activity and a growing national consciousness were both responsible for and stimulated by postwar constitutional reforms. Pressure from the SAA and similar organizations in other territories brought about most of the 1946 reforms. The reforms grouped the territories into the AOF under one elected council, the Grand Council in Dakar, thereby encouraging cooperation across territorial boundaries. As a result, in 1947 HouphouetBoigny and several other French West African leaders formed the African Democratic Rally (Rassemblement Democratique Africain RDA).

By 1951 the PDCI was close to collapse. Its alliance, through the RDA, with the French Communist Party had alienated the more moderate elements of the party. Government-sponsored rival parties had eroded much of its popular support and drastically weakened its position in elective bodies of the French Union. HouphouetBoigny, in a radical effort to preserve the PDCI, severed connections with the French Communist Party and expelled the RDA’s secretary general, who supported the communist association. He then abandoned the PDCI policy of militant opposition to the administration and embarked on a policy of practical cooperation. This policy change restored the strength and prestige of the PDCI at home and of the RDA in the rest of the AOF and France. Also, it led to political concessions as well as significant economic cooperation with France and members of the local French community. Within a short time, Cote d’Ivoire became the wealthiest territory in the AOF.

Independent Cote d’Ivoire

The reforms of 1956, or lot cadre, passed by the French Fourth Republic, acknowledged the growing nationalism and a developing political consciousness in the AOF. From its inception, the loi cadre drew on the suggestions of African leaders who were permitted to participate in the decision-making process. Conceptually, the loi cadre ended the integrational phase of French colonial policy and granted considerable internal autonomy to the overseas territories. Universal suffrage and the elimination of the dual college electoral system led to the creation of the district and local representative councils and a great enlargement of the powers of the territorial assemblies.

In September 1958, France presented a referendum to the community. Each member could accept the Constitution and consequent membership in the community or reject it and immediately sever all ties with France. In March 1959, Cote d’Ivoire adopted its first constitution as a self-governing republic. It provided for a unicameral legislature elected by universal, direct suffrage and an executive headed by a prime minister elected by a majority vote of the legislature and responsible to it. The PDCI won all seats of the newly formed legislature, and Houphouet-Boigny resigned his post in the French government to form the first government of Cote d’Ivoire.

Independence and the Institutionalization of the One-Party SystemI n 1959 several West African members of the French Community formed the Mali Federation. Although the federation initially included Senegal, French Sudan, Upper Volta, and Dahomey, all but Senegal and French Sudan withdrew quickly under pressure from Houphouet-Boigny, who regarded the federation’s desire for independence from France as a threat to the economic development of the former French colonies. Nonetheless, the federation gained independence in June 1960 and split into the two independent nations of Senegal and Mali.

Therefore, election provisions made it almost impossible for another party to win seats in the National Assembly. As the sole political party, the PDCI came to exercise political control over all branches of government. By the late 1960s, power was concentrated in the hands of Houphouet-Boigny, who, in addition to his position as president, was also titular president of the PDCI. Loyal colleagues received positions of authority within the police and armed forces, as well as in the government and PDCI. Philippe Yace, who held the positions of secretary general of the PDCI and president of the National Assembly, was the second most powerful figure in Cote d’Ivoire. The president appointed the administrative heads of the 6 departments (departments), 24 prefectures (prefectures), and 107 subprefectures (sous-prefectures), which constituted the administration of Cote d’Ivoire.

Houphouet-Boigny also took steps to ensure the new regime’s security. Although Cote d’Ivoire had no military until more than a year after independence, one was finally organized and strengthened with French assistance. Ivoirian members of the French colonial marine infantry who had been born in Cote d’Ivoire were transferred to Abidjan in October 1961 and formed the core of the first battalion.