History

Pre-history

Approximately 10,000 years ago, desertification forced hunter-gatherer societies south into the Sahel regions of northern Central Africa, where some groups settled and began farming as part of the Neolithic Revolution. Initial farming of white yam progressed into millet and sorghum, and then later the domestication of African oil palm improved the groups’ nutrition and allowed for the expansion of the local populations. Bananas arrived in the region and added an important source of carbohydrates to the diet; they were also used in the production of alcohol. This Agricultural Revolution, combined with a “Fish-stew Revolution”, in which fishing began to take place, and the use of boats, allowed for the transportation of goods. Products were often moved in ceramic pots, which are the first known examples of artistic expression from the region’s inhabitants.

Diamond prospectors in the Central African Republic have found polished flint and quartz tools that are at least 8,000 years old. About 2,500 years ago local farmers set up megaliths weighing several tons each near Bouar. The cooperation necessary to make and position these monuments suggests that they were built by fairly large social units. By the 15th century CE, various groups speaking languages related to those of the present day were living in the area. These people lived in relatively isolated small settlements, where they hunted and cleared land for cultivation using the slash-and-burn method. The region also produced such states as Dar al-Kuti, Zande, and Bandi, all founded in the 19th century.

The Bouar Megaliths in the western region of the country indicate an advanced level of habitation dating back to the very late Neolithic Era (c. 3500-2700 BC). Iron-working arrived in the region around 1000 BC from both Bantu cultures in what is today Nigeria and from the Nile city of Meroë, the capital of the Kingdom of Kush. During the Bantu Migrations from about 1000 BC to AD 1000, Ubangian-speaking people spread eastward from Cameroon to Sudan, Bantu-speaking people settled in the southwestern regions of the CAR, and Central Sudanic-speaking people settled along the Ubangi River in what is today Central and East CAR. The territory of the modern Central African Republic is known to have been settled from at least the 7th century on by overlapping empires, including the Kanem-Bornu, Ouaddai, Baguirmi, and Dafour groups based on the Lake Chad region and along the Upper Nile.

Wadai Empire

The Daju and the 14th-century migrants the Tunjur were the earliest powers in Darfur according to written records. The transition of power from the Daju to the Tunjur was facilitated through marriage. Eventually, the Tunjur began marrying amongst the Fur people producing Sultan Dali, a celebrated figure in Darfur histories, who was on his mother’s side a Fur and thus brought the dynasty closer to the people it ruled. Dali divided the country into provinces and established a penal code, which, under the title of Kitab Dali or Dali’s Book, is still preserved, and differs in some respects from the Quranic law. The Wadai Empire or Sultanate was a kingdom located to the east of Lake Chad in present-day Chad and in the Central African Republic. It emerged in the seventeenth century as an offshoot of the Sultanate of Darfur (in present-day Sudan).

In 1635, the Maba and other small groups in the region rallied against the Islamic banner of Abd al-Karim, who led an invasion from the east and overthrew the ruling Tunjur group. Abd al-Karim became the first Kolak or Sultan of a dynasty that lasted until the arrival of the French. During much of the 18th century, Wadai resisted reïncorporation into Darfur. After 1804, during the reign of Muhammad Sabun (r. 1804 – c. 1815), the Sultanate of Wadai began to expand its power as it profited considerably from its strategic position astride the trans-Saharan trade routes. A new trade route to the north was found, via Ennedi, Kufra, and Jalu-Awjila to Benghazi, and Sabun outfitted royal caravans to take advantage of it. He began minting his own coinage and imported chain mail, firearms, and military advisers from North Africa. Saban’s successors were less able than he, and Darfur took advantage of a disputed political succession in 1838 to put its own candidate in power in Ouara, the capital of Wadai. This tactic backfired, however, when Darfur’s choice, Muhammad Sharif, rejected Darfur’s meddling and asserted his own authority. In doing so, he gained acceptance from Wadai’s various factions and went on to become Wadai’s ablest ruler.

Sharif conducted military campaigns as far west as Bornu and eventually established Wadai’s hegemony over Baguirmi and kingdoms as far away as the Chari River. In Mecca, Sharif had met the founder of the Senussi Islamic brotherhood, a movement that was strong among the inhabitants of Cyrenaica (in present-day Libya) and that was to become a dominant political force and source of resistance to French colonization. Last charge of the cavalry. Armed with spear, bow, and sword, and accompanied by deafening music, Wadai’s forces held to the old methods- mass cavalry charges followed by the infantry. These were insufficient against modern weapons. Sultan Dud Murra of Wadai opposed French domination until being overcome on June 6, 1909, with the occupation of the capital Abéché by French troops where a puppet sultan was installed. Resistance continued until the last independent sultan was captured in 1912 bringing the sultanate to an end. It became part of the independent Republic of Chad on that country’s independence in 1960. The Ouaddaï Region of modern Chad covers part of the area of the old kingdom. Its chief town is Abéché.

The Slave Trade Era

During the 16th and 17th centuries, slave traders began to raid the region as part of the expansion of the Saharan and Nile River slave routes. Their captives were enslaved and shipped to the Mediterranean coast, Europe, Arabia, the Western Hemisphere, or to the slave ports and factories along the West and North Africa or South the Ubanqui and Congo rivers. The region of the Central African Republic was not directly connected to external commercial routes until the 17th century. At that time, slavery became an important factor in Central African history as Arabic-speaking slave traders extended the trans-Saharan and Nile River trade routes into the region. Before the mid-19th century, these slave traders’ captives were sent to North Africa, where they were eventually sold to countries such as Egypt or Turkey or down the Ubangi and Congo rivers to the Atlantic coast to slave ships that transported them to the Americas.

In the mid-19th century, the Bobangi people became major slave traders and sold their captives to the Americas using the Ubangi river to reach the coast. During the 18th century, the Bandia-Nzakara people established the Bangassou Kingdom along the Ubangi River. In 1875, the Sudanese sultan Rabih az-Zubayr governed Upper-Oubangui, which included present-day CAR. Before its colonial history, the area now known as the Central African Republic was settled by successive waves of peoples, mostly Bantu. Both European and Arab slave traders exploited the area in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, and slave raids and intertribal wars were frequent until the French conquest. In the 19th century, the main population groups, the Baya and the Banda, arrived from the north and east, respectively, to flee the slave trade.

Later in the mid-19th century the Bobangi people from the Ubangi River area, who had become major slave traders, raided the nearby Baya and Mandjia peoples for captives. In exchange for captives, the slave traders received arms, which allowed them to continue to raid for more slaves. Though these raids largely ended by the end of the century, they continued in the north until 1912 when Dar al-Kuti fell. The slave trade disrupted the societies in its wake and depopulated the region. It also created lasting tensions between ethnic groups. The ruling elite is still resented today by many in Central Africa because they tend to come from riverine groups akin to the Bobang

Colonial France

In the 19th century, the main population groups, the Baya and the Banda, arrived from the north and east, respectively, to flee the slave trade. The French explored and conquered the country, chiefly from 1889, when an outpost was established at Bangui, to 1900, as part of a plan to link French colonies from the Atlantic to the Nile. In the last two decades of the 19th century, Belgium, Great Britain, Germany, and France competed for control of equatorial Africa. Belgium, Germany, and France each wanted the region that would eventually become the Central African Republic. The French were ultimately successful and named it the French Congo (later French Equatorial Africa), with its capital at Brazzaville. The French colonies included Ubangi-Shari (Oubangui-Chari; which later became the Central African Republic), Chad, Gabon, and the Middle Congo (which became the Republic of the Congo).

In 1875, the Sudanese sultan Rabih az-Zubayr governed Upper-Oubangui, which included present-day CAR. Europeans, primarily the French, German, and Belgians, arrived in the area in 1885. The French consolidated their legal claim to the area through an 1887 convention with the Congo Free State, which granted France possession of the right bank of the Oubangui River. Two years later, the French established an outpost at Bangui, and in 1894, Oubangui-Chari became a French territory. However, the French did not consolidate their control over the area until 1903, after having defeated the forces of Rabih in the battle of Kousséri, and established colonial administration throughout the territory. In 1906, the Oubangui-Chari territory was united with the Chad colony; in 1910, it became one of the four territories of the Federation of French Equatorial Africa (AEF), along with Chad, Middle Congo, and Gabon. The next thirty years were marked by mostly small-scale revolts against French rule and the development of a plantation-style economy. The largest of these revolts was the Kongo-Wara rebellion when over 350,000 natives rebelled against the colonial administration.

By the beginning of the 20th century, frontiers had been established for the Ubangi-Shari colony by the European powers. During the 1930s, cotton, tea, and coffee emerged as important cash crops in Ubangi-Shari and the mining of diamonds and gold began in earnest. Several cotton companies were granted purchasing monopolies over large areas of cotton production and were able to fix the prices paid to cultivators, which assured profits for their shareholders. Many Africans resisted French control, and several military expeditions in the first decade of the century were needed to crush their opposition. The Kongo-Wara rebellion (1928–31) was widespread, though unsuccessful, anti-colonial uprising in the western and southwestern parts of the colony. In September 1940, during the Second World War, pro-Gaullist French officers took control of Ubangi-Shari.

Struggle for Independence

After it was suppressed, its leaders were imprisoned and executed and populations of Central Africans were forcibly relocated to colonially designated villages where they could be supervised. In September 1940, during the Second World War, pro-Gaullist French officers took control of Ubangi-Shari and General Leclerc established his headquarters for the Free French Forces in Bangui. In August 1940, the territory responded, with the rest of the AEF, to the call from General Charles de Gaulle to fight for Free France. After World War II, the French Constitution of 1946 inaugurated the first of a series of reforms that led eventually to complete independence for all French territories in western and equatorial Africa. In November 1946 Barthélemy Boganda became the first Central African elected to the French National Assembly. All AEF inhabitants were granted French citizenship and allowed to establish local assemblies. The assembly in CAR was led by Barthélemy Boganda, a Catholic priest who also was known for his forthright statements in the French Assembly on the need for African emancipation.

In 1946 Barthélémy Boganda was elected with 9,000 votes to the French National Assembly, becoming the first representative of the CAR in the French government. Boganda maintained a political stance against racism and the colonial regime but gradually became disheartened with the French political system and returned to CAR to establish the Movement for the Social Evolution of Black Africa (Mouvement pour l’évolution Sociale de l’Afrique Noire, MESAN) in 1950. In 1956 French legislation eliminated certain voting inequalities and provided for the creation of some organs of self-government in each territory.

During World War II French Gen. Charles de Gaulle called on the residents of the colonial territories to help fight the Germans, and 3,000 responded from Central Africa. After the war, these troops returned to their homeland with a new sense of pride and a national, rather than ethnic, identity. After the war de Gaulle organized the French Union and created new local assemblies—consisting of French colonists and a handful of Africans—with regional political representatives. The French constitutional referendum of September 1958 dissolved the AEF, and on 1 December of the same year, the Assembly declared the birth of the autonomous Central African Republic with Boganda as head of government. Boganda ruled until his death in a plane crash on 29 March 1959. His cousin, David Dacko, replaced him as head of Government. On 12 July 1960 France agreed to the Central African Republic becoming fully independent. On 13 August 1960, the Central African Republic became an independent country and David Dacko became its first President.

Independent Central African Republic

In the Ubangi-Shari Territorial Assembly election in 1957, MESAN captured 347,000 out of the total 356,000 votes and won every legislative seat, which led to Boganda being elected president of the Grand Council of French Equatorial Africa and vice-president of the Ubangi-Shari Government Council. Within a year, he declared the establishment of the Central African Republic and served as the country’s first prime minister. MESAN continued to exist, but its role was limited. After Boganda’s death in a plane crash on 29 March 1959, his cousin, David Dacko, took control of MESAN and became the country’s first president after the CAR had formally received independence from France. Dacko threw out his political rivals, including former Prime Minister and Mouvement d’évolution démocratique de l’Afrique Centrale (MEDAC), leader Abel Goumba, whom he forced into exile in France. With all opposition parties suppressed by November 1962, Dacko declared MESAN as the official party of the state.

On 31 December 1965, Dacko was overthrown in the Saint-Sylvestre coup d’état by Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa, who suspended the constitution and dissolved the National Assembly. President Bokassa declared himself President for Life in 1972 and named himself Emperor Bokassa I of the Central African Empire (as the country was renamed) on 4 December 1976. A year later, Emperor Bokassa crowned himself in a lavish and expensive ceremony that was ridiculed by much of the world. On 1 January 1966, following a swift and almost bloodless overnight coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa assumed power as president of the Republic. Bokassa abolished the constitution of 1959, dissolved the National Assembly, and issued a decree that placed all legislative and executive powers in the hands of the president. On 4 December 1976, the republic became a monarchy – the Central African Empire – with the promulgation of the imperial constitution and the proclamation of the president as Emperor Bokassa I. His regime was characterized by numerous human rights atrocities.

Dacko’s efforts to promote economic and political reforms proved ineffectual, and on 20 September 1981, he, in turn, was overthrown in a bloodless coup by General André Kolingba. For four years, Kolingba led the country as head of the Military Committee for National Recovery (CRMN). Kolingba suspended the constitution and ruled with a military junta until 1985. In 1985, the CRMN was dissolved, and Kolingba named a new cabinet with increased civilian participation, signaling the start of a return to civilian rule. The process of democratization quickened in 1986 with the creation of a new political party, the Rassemblement Démocratique Centrafricain (RDC), and the drafting of a new constitution that subsequently was ratified in a national referendum. General Kolingba was sworn in as constitutional President on 29 November 1986.

The Continued Coup

In 1998, parliamentary elections resulted in Kolingba’s RDC winning 20 out of 109 seats but in 1999, in spite of widespread public anger in urban centers over his corrupt rule, Patassé won a second term in the presidential election. On 28 May 2001, rebels stormed strategic buildings in Bangui in an unsuccessful coup attempt. In March 2003, Bozizé launched a surprise attack against Patassé, who was out of the country. Libyan troops and some 1,000 soldiers of Bemba’s Congolese rebel organization failed to stop the rebels and Bozizé’s forces succeeded in overthrowing Patassé. Despite these shortcomings, and his promise to step down at the end of the transition, Bozizé contested the 13 March 2005 presidential elections in which all of the leading opposition candidates were allowed to run except for Patassé. Bozizé won on the second run-off round on 8 May 2005, defeating Martin Ziguélé, who ran on the ticket of the MLPC, the former ruling party. The National Elections Commission declared Bozizé the winner with 64.6 percent of the vote to 35.4 percent for Ziguélé.

In late 2012, a coalition of old rebel groups under the new name of Séléka renewed fighting. Two other, previously unknown groups, the Alliance for Revival and Rebuilding (A2R) and the Patriotic Convention for Saving the Country (CPSK) also joined the coalition, as well as the Chadian group FPR. On 27 December 2012, CAR President Francois Bozizé requested international assistance to help with the rebellion, in particular from France and the United States. On 11 January 2013, a ceasefire agreement was signed in Libreville, Gabon. The rebels dropped their demand for President François Bozizé to resign, but he had to appoint a new prime minister from the opposition party by 18 January 2013. On 13 January, Bozizé signed a decree that removed Prime Minister Faustin-Archange Touadéra from power, as part of the agreement with the rebel coalition. On 17 January, Nicolas Tiangaye was appointed Prime Minister.

On 18 February 2014, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the UN Security Council to immediately deploy 3,000 troops to the country, bolstering the 6,000 African Union soldiers and 2,000 French troops already in the country, to combat civilians being murdered in large numbers. The Séléka government was said to be divided. It is argued that the focus of the initial disarmament efforts exclusively on the Seleka inadvertently handed the anti-Balaka the upper hand, leading to the forced displacement of Muslim civilians by anti-Balaka in Bangui and western CAR. On 11 January 2014, Michael Djotodia and Nicolas Tiengaye resigned as part of a deal negotiated at a regional summit in neighboring Chad. Elections completed in March 2016 installed independent candidate Faustin-Archange TOUADERA as president; he continues to work towards peace between the government and armed groups and is developing disarmament, demobilization, reintegration, and repatriation (DDRR) program to reintegrate the armed groups into society.

The Assassination of Barthélemy Boganda

Barthélemy Boganda (4 April 1910 – 29 March 1959) was the leading nationalist politician of what is now the Central African Republic. Boganda was active prior to his country’s independence, during the period when the area, part of French Equatorial Africa, was administered by France under the name of Oubangui-Chari. He served as the first Prime Minister of the Central African Republic autonomous territory. Boganda was born into a family of subsistence farmers and was adopted and educated by Roman Catholic Church missionaries. In 1938, he was ordained as the first Roman Catholic priest from Oubangui-Chari. During World War II, Boganda served in a number of missions and was persuaded by the Bishop of Bangui to enter politics. In 1946, he became the first Oubanguian elected to the French National Assembly, where he maintained a political platform against racism and the colonial regime. He then returned to Oubangui-Chari to form a grassroots movement in opposition to French colonialism. The movement led to the 1949 foundation of the Movement for the Social Evolution of Black Africa (MESAN), which became popular among villagers and the working class. He continued to advocate for equal treatment and civil rights for blacks in the territory well into the 1950s.

Boganda was poised to become the first president of the independent CAR when he boarded a plane at Berbérati for a flight to Bangui on 29 March 1959, just prior to legislative elections. The aircraft exploded in midair over Boukpayanga in the sub-prefecture of Boda (about 160 kilometers (100 mi) west of Bangui), killing all passengers and crew. No clear cause has ever been ascertained for the mysterious crash and no commission of inquiry was ever formed; sabotage was widely suspected. The nation was shocked at the death of its revered leader, whose funeral on 2 April at the cathedral of Notre Dame de Bangui saw a great outpouring of grief from thousands of Orangutans. The 7 May edition of the Paris weekly L’Express revealed that experts had found traces of explosives in the wreckage, but the French high commissioner banned the sale of that magazine edition when it appeared in the CAR. Many suspected that expatriate businessmen from the Bangui chamber of commerce, possibly aided by the French secret service, played a role.

Abel Goumba, the vice-premier and finance minister whom Titley describes as “intelligent, honest, and strongly nationalistic”, emerged as Boganda’s logical successor. However, his close confidant and cousin, interior minister David Dacko, more likely to lead a regime deferential to foreign interests, was backed by the high commissioner, Colonel Roger Barberot, with the support of the chamber of commerce and Michelle Jourdain. He thus brushed aside Goumba and by 1962 had shut down the opposition, with MESAN becoming the country’s single party. The events after Boganda’s death are strongly evocative of other French efforts to maintain economic domination by ensuring that compliant leaders came to power in its former colonies. It also robbed the country of a charismatic leader in the Houphouët-Boigny or Senghor mold, whose prestige alone might have sufficed to retain civilian rule, which ended when Bokassa deposed the unpopular Dacko in 1966.