The colonial history of Equatorial Guinea dates back to 1471 when Portuguese explorers descended on the country. The Igbo of Nigeria (mostly Aro) slave traders arrived and founded small settlements in Bioko and Rio Muni which expanded the Aro Confederacy in the 18th and 19th centuries. The islands of Fernando Pó and Annobón were colonized by Portugal in 1474. Upon independence and following the loss of a privileged access to Spanish markets, the export economy collapsed. By 1911, census-takers identified 10,000 Bubis. [22] Enrique Martino, “Dash-peonage: the contradictions of debt bondage in the colonial plantations of Fernando Po”, Africa 87.1 (2017):53-78. First, because the policy practiced upon Arabs and Moroccan Imazighen since the French colonization comprised one of the reasonings employed to justify the pro-Arab policies developed after independence. For a Spanish version of this discourse, Jerónimo María Usera, Observaciones al llamado Opúsculo sobre la Colonización de Fernando Poo publicado por D. Adolfo Guillemar de Aragón (Madrid: Imprenta y Librería de Don Eusebio Aguado, 1852). By that point, most Bubis had been disarmed as well.[18]. The Spanish colonial administrators in Fernando Po looked to emancipados and free people of color in the Caribbean as potential settlers who could spread Catholicism and Hispanic culture to this area. In the presence of a UN observer team, a referendum was held on August 11, 1968, and 63% of the electorate voted in favour of the constitution, which provided for a government with a General Assembly and a Supreme Court with judges appointed by the president. [1] And yet, in spite of its roaring economic productivity, hardly any contemporary Spaniards remember how deep Spain’s connections to Equatorial Africa run through history. The Portuguese explorer Fernão do Pó, seeking a path to India, is credited as being the first European to discover the island of Bioko in 1472. A few years before Spanish Guinea’s independence in 1968, exports per capita were the highest in Africa. NEW: Spanish Equatorial Region. And proclaimed as a Spanish colony in 1900. In letters to Iberia, they explained that most emancipados refused to embark upon such a trans-Atlantic journey on grounds that it reminded them of their earlier experience in the slave traffic. Western Sahara (disputed) Western Sahara is a disputed territory in the Maghreb region of North and West Africa; Equatorial Guinea (Capital: Malabo) The Republic of Equatorial Guinea is a country in Central Africa that is known as the colony of Spanish Guinea. However, the Spanish failed to establish a strong base here for the same reasons that the Portuguese had in the previous three centuries. up to 1959, when its status was raised from 'colony' to 'province', taking a leaf out of the approach of the Portuguese Empire; between 1960 and 1968, when Spain attempted a partial decolonisation which was hoped would conserve the territory as an integral segment of the Spanish system; and. [5] Martín del Molino, “Datos etnográficos de los bubis en el siglo XVIII,” Guinea Española 60.1565 (1963): 38. As the capitalist [12] But colonial administrators in Havana were reluctant to encourage such colonization schemes on grounds that the island was losing much-needed labor. [21][22][23][24], Historical development of Equatorial Guinea. References: Boddy-Evans A. [12] Archivo General de la Administración (Spain), 81/6941: “Relación nominal circunstanciada de los doscientos negros emancipados que por Real Orden de veinte y uno de marzo de mil ochocientos sesenta y dos se han trasladado desde esta Isla de Cuba a la de Fernando Poo en el vapor transporte Ferrol.” Havana, June 14, 1862. Formerly a colony of Spain with the name Spanish Guinea, the country achieved its independence on October 12, 1968. Her first book project is a socio-legal history of popular ideologies of race in nineteenth-century Cuba. [14] Juan B. Saluvet, Los deportados a Fernando Poo en 1869 (Matanzas: Aurora del Yumurí, 1892); Emilio Valdés Ynfante, Cubanos en Fernando Póo: horrores de la dominación española en 1897 a 1898 (Havana: El Figaro, 1898); Hipólito Sifredo y Llópiz, Los mártires cubanos en 1869 (Havana: La Prensa’ de R. M. Davila, 1893); For a secondary source, Susan Martín-Márquez, Disorientations: Spanish Colonialism in Africa and the Performance of Identity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), chs. The unsuccessful "Wonga Coup" by European and South African mercenaries in 2004 attempted to replace Obiang with a puppet ruler who would open the country's mineral wealth to the plotters[citation needed]. Francisco Macías Nguema, the first president, was a brutal dictator who despised intellectuals, killed a large number of the ethnic Bubi minority, banned fishing, and awarded himself a huge number of grandiose titles (including President . [23] Sundiata, From Slaving to Neoslavery, 181. The boundaries of Equatorial Guinea have been shaped by periods of European colonization and interest from Portugal, Spain and Britain. [24] A Bubi elite with missionary education and land emerged soon thereafter. Since then, it has been ruled by two men. This book clarifies the degree to which the Spanish colonization is responsible for the present-day management of cultural diversity in both countries. History. 2004 Equatorial Guinea coup d'état attempt, http://www.opensourceguinea.org/2012/12/slavery-conditions-in-liberia-times-27.html, http://www.opensourceguinea.org/2013/03/enrique-martino-clandestine-recruitment.html, "Equatorial Guinea's President Said to Be Retired, Not Ousted", "Country Profiles - Amnesty International", "Profile: Equatorial Guinea's great survivor", "Empresas portuguesas planeiam nova capital da Guiné Equatorial", "Boas NotÃcias - Atelier luso desenha futura capital da Guiné Equatorial", "Arquitetos portugueses projetam nova capital para Guiné Equatorial", "Green Savers â Ateliê português desenha futura capital da Guiné Equatorial", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_Equatorial_Guinea&oldid=1018759650, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from November 2020, Articles with unsourced statements from November 2016, Articles with unsourced statements from October 2008, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. The mainland of Equatorial Guinea became a Spanish colony in 1900. On September 22 a clash took place between a rebel group from Kogo and a loyal detachment from Bata. Finally, on October 14 a force of 200 rebels arrived in the merchant Ciudad de Mahón and took control of Bata and the rest of the colony. Resistance continued into 1910, with guerilla resistance as well as petitions to the colonial government by prominent Bubis. Equatorial Guinea, officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea is a country located in Central Africa. Equatorial Guinea is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. Spanish is spoken also in Morocco. All schools were ordered closed in 1975, and the country's churches were also closed in 1978. Journal of African History 35 (1994): 179-179. In 1898, under Esasi, the towns of Balachá, Kodda, and Bepepe managed to settle with the governor and avoid forced labor. Accordingly, the book strikes a balance between theoretical, methodological and empirical issues, integrated to a lesser or greater extent in most of the chapters.â ââ Archaeologies of Early Modern Spanish Colonialism illustrates how ... [8] Stephen Jacobson, “Imperial Ambitions in an Era of Decline: Micromilitarism and the Eclipse of the Spanish Empire, 1858-1923,” in Endless Empire, eds. Equatorial Guinea. Exploring the fraught processes of Spaniards' efforts to formulate a national identity - from the Enlightenment to the present - this book focuses on the nation's Islamic-African legacy, disputing the received wisdom that Spain has ... His own name underwent several transformations, so that by the end of his rule he was known as Masie Nguema Biyogo Ãegue Ndong. The Liberian labour agreement of 1914 favoured wealthy men with ready access to the state, and the shift in labour supplies from Liberia to Rio Muni increased this advantage. The continental part is known as Río Muni. Enrique Martino "Clandestine Recruitment Networks in the Bight of Biafra: Fernando Póâs Answer to the Labour Question, 1926â1945." A territory comprised of a mainland region (Río Muni) and several islands (Bioko, Annobon, Corisco, and Elobey) in the Bight of Biafra, present-day Equatorial Guinea became tenuously inserted into emerging Atlantic networks during the fifteenth century. This book examines how and why Portugal and Spain increasingly engaged with women in their African colonies in the crucial period from the 1950s to the 1970s. This particular ideological justification for forced labor suited Spanish interests well. Although President Obiang signed a national anti-torture decree in 2006 to ban all forms of abuse and improper treatment in Equatorial Guinea and commissioned the renovation and modernization of Black Beach prison in 2007 to ensure the humane treatment of prisoners,[16] human rights abuses continue. The plan came to a halt. -Now known as Equatorial Guinea, during this time the colony was known as Spanish Guinea. Equatorial Guinea, officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea is a country located on the west coast of Central Africa, with an area of 28,000 square kilometres (11,000 sq mi). A paradoxical effect of this autonomy was that Guineans could choose among several political parties while metropolitan Spaniards were under a single-party regime. Spain colonized: all the countries where Spanish is still an official first language today: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala. Most of them were from the Gold Coast, which is why their plight attracted the attention of British authorities. The newly created party Unión Liberal ushered in a brief era of micro-militaristic interventions across the globe promoting experiments with formal and informal empire. The mainland of the country, Río Muní, is in Africa, a continent north of Antarctica and South Africa, and west of the North Pole.The country borders the two francophone nations of Gaboon and Cameroon. Mortality rates were so high that deportation was the equivalent of a death sentence. Equatorial Guinea is the only Spanish speaking country in Africa. "Selected as one of the six best nonfiction books of 1990 by the editors f the New York Times Book Review, this is a compelling and entertaining account of the author's two-and-a-half year adventure in" Financial backers included Sir Mark Thatcher, son of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and possibly the novelist Jeffrey Archer. 1. The Bubis, like indigenous people in the Americas, were treated as legal minors, or wards of the colonial regime. Even when the Spanish authorities introduced a Native Labor Code in 1906, the British government still considered it insufficient evidence of a will to end brutal laboring conditions. [13] AGA 81/6946: “Informe dado por la comisión creada por Real Ordén de 29 de setiembre de 1881 para proponer los medios para fundar en Fernando Póo una colonia penitenciaria. However, the last Spanish colony to claim independence from Spain in 1968 was a territory in West Africa—Equatorial Guinea—a nation-state where Spanish still serves as the official language. Colonial rule: 1472-1968 A large island off the Guinea coast (the site today of Malabo, capital of Equatorial Guinea) becomes known in history as Fernando Po - because it is first reached, in about 1472, by the Portuguese navigator Fernão do Pó. Indeed, the British consul in Calabar followed closely news about abuses of British subjects and breaches of contract on Fernando Po throughout the 1890s. This is part of our special feature, Beyond Eurafrica: Encounters in a Globalized World. Historically, the peoples of Equatorial Guinea produced gold and iron before being colonized by Spain. [3], Towards the end of the 19th century Spanish, Portuguese, German and Fernandino planters started developing large cacao plantations. Bioko, by far the largest of the islands, lies off the coast of Cameroon in the Bight of Biafra. In 1904, Bubi groups had less success though. [7] Military campaigns were mounted to subdue the Fang people in the 1920s, at the time that Liberia was beginning to cut back on recruitment. Coloniality in Equatorial Guinea is still played out in the present: in the low-quality Spanish foodstuffs that the Guineans consume everyday (even vegetables come from other countries and the most common meat is frozen chicken from Spain); in the Spanish, Chinese or Moroccan contractors that build cities, harbors and airports, and engage in . Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1996. Relations between both nations almost severed again due to debt renegotiation in 1983 and the fact that Equatorial Guinea owed Spain over 6 million Spanish pesetas. 1, 2, and 5. [26] It is then unsurprising that it was the Rio Muni population that would clamor for independence. 1926 to 1959. (12 October, 2007), ‘Equatorial Guinea Gains Independence from Spain’ from African History [online] Available at www.africanhistory.about.com [Accessed: 31 August 2011] Schippke W. ‘Annabon Island (Pagalu)’ from 425dxn.org [online] Available at www.425dxn.org [Accessed: 31 August 2011], Equatorial Guinea gains Independence from Spain. Her second book project focuses on reverse Atlantic networks after the end of the contraband slave trade to the Americas, with particular attention to Spanish colonialism in West Africa. By the 1960s, in response to anti-Spanish mobilization in the area, the regime provided Guinea with limited autonomy; in 1968, it granted it full independence. The effective Spanish colonization of Africa was finally established in the first third of the 20th century. In March 1968, under pressure from Equatoguinean nationalists and the United Nations, Spain announced that it would grant independence to Equatorial Guinea. The name of the country was changed to Equatorial Guinea. North Morocco, Ifni, the Tarfaya region, Western Sahara, and the territories of early-21st-century Equatorial Guinea . In 1917, the metropolitan government ruled that forced Bubi labor for the benefit of private companies was illegal. A Labour Treaty was signed with the Republic of Liberia in 1914, the transport of up to 15,000 workers was orchestrated by the German Woermann-Linie. German troops in Cameroon have lost much of the territory and are entering the deep jungle of Equatorial Guinea, colonized by Spain. [17] The term “emancipated African” referred to individuals who had petitioned the Spanish colonial government to grant them a variable set of rights. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other non-governmental organizations have documented severe human rights abuses in prisons, including torture, beatings, unexplained deaths and illegal detention.[17][18]. [10] The first local elections were held in 1959, and the first Equatoguinean representatives were seated in the Cortes Generales (Spanish parliament). On September 19 the Colonial Guard and the Civil Guard began the rebellion and took control of the island of Fernando Po, while the rest of the colony remained loyal to the Republic. Between 1979 and 1983, Spain sent Equatorial Guinea 15 million Spanish pesetas for the development of the nation. Equatorial Guinea's current land borders stretch for a distance of approximately 328 miles and are shared with two nations: Cameroon and Gabon. Most of the Cameroonian natives stayed in Muni, while the Germans moved to Fernando Po. In 1942, Spanish and British authorities signed a labor migration agreement. The British pressure on Spain mounted throughout the next decade and in 1817, the Spanish signed a treaty ending the slave trade to their American possessions. Found inside â Page 184 Although the sociolinguistic situation in Equatorial Guinea differs substantially from the environment in which ... The Spanish of Equatorial Guinea The Republic of Equatorial Guinea , formerly the colony of Spanish Guinea and an ... [5] The Liberian labour supply was cut off in 1930 after an International Labour Organization (ILO) commission discovered that contract workers had "been recruited under conditions of criminal compulsion scarcely distinguishable from slave raiding and slave trading". Near the coast are the small islands of Corisco and Great and Little Elobey. Working their own small cocoa farms gave them a considerable degree of autonomy. Given that cocoa planters could not control native laborers, they looked to labor migrants as a population that could be more easily subjected to forced labor on their properties. In 1885, the Spanish formally establish the protectorate of Rio de Oro. This book is a call to reinvigorate the critical way in which history can be written. "Fernando Po", Encyclopædia Britannica, 1911. This 102-page report details how the dictatorship under President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has used an oil boom to entrench and enrich itself further at the expense of the country's people. [3] William D. Phillips, “Africa and the Atlantic Islands Meet the Garden of Eden: Christopher Columbus’ View of America,” Journal of World History 3.2 (1992): 149-164. The failure to manage cultural diversity in Morocco and Equatorial Guinea in an egalitarian manner has been linked to the hallmark of colonialism. Found insideA pioneering comparative history of European decolonization from the formal ending of empires to the postcolonial European present. When the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1820, rebel forces took control of the colony. Found insideEquatorial Guinea, Spain's first and longest-held colony in sub-Saharan Africa, consists of Bioko Island and a continental region surrounded by Gabon and Cameroon. As of the 2010s, the two most prominent languages were Spanish and ... Spain had neglected to occupy the large area in the Bight of Biafra to which it had treaty rights, and the French had been expanding their occupation at the expense of the area claimed by Spain. Between 1778 and 1810, the territory of Equatorial Guinea was administered by the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, based in Buenos Aires. Slavers, explorers, scientists, and political figures portrayed the island as a pit of diseases that no outsider would be able to withstand. This blog invites specialists and the individuals interested in issues of the Spanish colonization in Equatorial Guinea to share the bibliographic resources available and opinions on the Spanish colonization in this African nation. This proved a feeble instrument, and, with growing pressure for change from the UN, Spain gave way to the currents of nationalism. They had supported such migration schemes from neighboring African territories (most notably from Liberia) during the nineteenth century. In 1972 Macias took complete control of the government and assumed the title of President for Life. Aworawo, David. On 12 October 1968, Equatorial Guinea became an independent state with Francisco Macias Nguema as the first President. [6] Ugo Nwokeji, The Slave Trade and Culture in the Bight of Biafra: An African Society in the Atlantic World (NY: Cambridge University Press, 2010). Events such as the Congreso de Geografía Colonial y Mercantil (1883), which promoted immigration, agriculture, and trade as a means of asserting a Spanish presence in west Africa. The earliest indigenous population of this country were the pygmies and Ndowe societies. In fact, Equatorial Guinea is the only country . Found insideThe forbidden colony of Equatorial Guinea suddenly became highly valuable for an impoverished Spain who could not count on the rest of Europe for the imports of basic goods. In the forties, most of the coffee consumed was Guinean, ... From 1827 to 1843, the United Kingdom had a base on Bioko to combat the slave trade, which was then moved to Sierra Leone upon agreement with Spain in 1843.