From islands to territorial empire: The French colonial administration at Gorée and the environmental causes of continental expansion after the Seven Years War (original) (raw)

The Directory and the Future of France's Colonial Possessions in Africa, 1795-1802

French Historical Studies , 2021

This article examines how French revolutionaries envisioned a republican imperial future in Africa between the decreed abolition of slavery and its restoration under Napoléon. Drawing on proposals within the Ministry of the Marine and the Colonies and analyzing French activities in the Senegambian holdings of Saint-Louis and Gorée, the author argues that, although the French Revolution included numerous creative imperial processes vis-à-vis Africa, they did not amount to an imperial revolution in their own right.

Colonial Borderlands. France and the Netherlands in the Atlantic in the 19th Century

2008

France and the Netherlands were both important European colonial powers in the nineteenth century. This book, based primarily on archival research, is a contribution to the study of the relations between France and the Netherlands overseas in the nineteenth century. It focuses on those regions of the world where these two nations shared colonial borderlands: the island of St Martin in the Caribbean, the Gold Coast in Africa, and French Guiana and Surinam in South America. The border question in these regions is dealt with in the European context of colonial and international policy, as well as in the local context. The work addresses Franco-Dutch relations in the colonies, but also the interactions with the slaves on St Martin, the peoples of the Gold Coast (Ashanti, Agni of Sanwi, Fanti and Apollonians or Nzema), and the Maroons such as the Boni (Aluku) and the Ndyuka in the Guianese interior.

European Colonialism and Territorial Disputes in Africa: The Gulf of Guinea and the Indian Ocean

Mediterranean Quarterly, 2009

This essay examines how European colonialism continues to underlie most territorial disputes in Africa. How these disputes have been resolved or are likely to be resolved is described, based on the following four long drawn-out disputes: the Nigeria–Cameroon dispute over the Bakassi Peninsula; the Gabon–Equatorial Guinea dispute over the islands of Mbanié, Cocotiers, and Conga in the Corisco Bay; the Mauritius–United Kingdom dispute over the Chagos Archipelago; and the Comoros–France dispute over Mayotte.

FRANCE'S AFRICAN COLONIAL POLICIES IN THE EXAMPLE OF NORTH AFRICA

2023

Between the 18th and the 20th century, France built a great colonial empire in Africa. The French Colonization had its authentic mentality since France as a state passed many historical developments, which consequently affected its colonial methods. The study aims to review summarily the French colonial policy by identifying general determinants for its methods by taking North Africa as a study case. The study starts with a brief look at the history of French colonialism and the philosophy of French colonialism. Then, the study reviews North Africa as a study case briefly as a practical example of those colonial styles. Throughout the essay, the study uses the historical approach and deduction from specific to general, and from the study case to generalize the whole scope of the study, to reach the result that the French colonization was more direct and violent compared to the British one. However, the French colonization was still influenced by the British methods in some areas, and North Africa is one of them. Moreover, the French colonization was based more on the idea of making those colonies part of the homeland of France, especially after the French Revolution.

Colonial Governance in the Atlantic World - revised in 26-06-2019

Oxford Bibliographies - Atlantic History, 2019

From the beginning of the European overseas expansion into the Atlantic in the 15th-century onward, Europeans had to figure how to govern the newly conquered lands and peoples across Africa and the Americas. Western European polities transplanted to their Atlantic territories forms of governance already tested within the European context, but institutions of colonial governance were built in fits and starts and constantly adapted to local demands and characteristics. American elites sought and sometimes achieved a relationship with the imperial center that could be similar to the one experienced by European local elites. However, Old World models of government were deeply transformed by distance, by environmental conditions, and, above all, by the variety of peoples that were under European rule. Atlantic governance involved the (often violent) seizure of substantial portions of the American and (in a much lesser scale) African lands, along with the transfer of people of European descent to settle the conquered lands. Local populations were often forced to labor for their new overlords and were gradually dispossessed of their lands and institutions, while sub-Saharan Africans were forcibly transported across the Atlantic to work as slaves. As a result of racial prejudice and power relations, they were assigned a subaltern status that deprived them from many civic and political rights, becoming a subaltern majority. This posed new problems that transformed templates brought by European colonizers, such as the patterns of government developed in the Iberian Reconquista and in the English domination of Ireland. All empires dealt with similar problems in the Atlantic: the need to establish its own authority, to defend the settlements, and to produce enough revenue to pay for it all. A high level of flexibility was needed at first because European authorities had little knowledge of Atlantic realities. Afterward, the slowness of communication and the need to obtain local cooperation to achieve any goal, from the conquest itself to defense and taxing local production, required collaboration, not only from colonists of European descent but also from Native Americans, sub-Saharan Africans, and the multiethnic populations that grew throughout the Early Modern era. Colonial governance should not be understood, therefore, as a top-down imposition from Europe to Africa and the Americas, but as a contested struggle between many opposing groups and factions. Recent historiography has been increasingly cognizant of temporal and spatial differences, but there is still need for a deeper engagement between different linguistic traditions. Atlantic expansion was a multinational endeavor, and so should be its study.

Introduction to Special Issue: France in Africa/ Africa(ns) in France

Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 26:2

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