French Equatorial Africa

   French Equatorial Africa (Afrique équatoriale française) was a federation of French colonies, stretching northward from the Congo River into the Sahara Desert. From 1880 to 1910, the French expanded their colonial empire into West and Central Africa. The federation was formed in 1910, as an administrative grouping modeled after the Afrique Occidentale Francaise, French West Africa, which was formed in 1895. Savorgna de Brazza, the French Commissioner for the French Congo, was largely responsible for its creation. The new federation consisted of Middle Congo, Gabon, and Ubangi-Shari-Chad. In 1920, however, Chad left the federation and was ruled as a separate colony. After the Agadir Crisis in 1911, part of French Equatorial Africa was ceded to German Cameroon. This part was later returned to France according to the terms in the Treaty of Versailles signed in 1919. The federation’s capital and seat of the governor-general was Brazzaville. With only 3 million inhabitants spread over 965,000 square miles, the federation was sparsely populated and not an attractive target for investment.

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   FURTHER READING:

    Aldrich, Robert. Greater France: A History of French Overseas Expansion. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996;

    Manning, Patrick. Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa 1880-1995. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998;

    Wesseling, H. L. The European Colonial Empires 1815-1919. New York: Longman, 2004.

   NURFADZILAH YAHAYA