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Ivory Coast
Index
Captain Louis Binger.
Engraving from Louis Gustave Binger, Du Niger au Golfe de
Guinée ,1892.
Maurice Treich-Laplène.
Engraving from Louis Gustave Binger, Du Niger au Golfe de
Guinée ,1892.
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
sanction of the French administrators. Those rulers who
refused to
submit to French directives were deposed and replaced with
more
cooperative ones.
With the consolidation of French power in West Africa
at the
end of the nineteenth century, French officials
increasingly
assumed direct administrative powers, and they reduced
local rulers
to the level of low-ranking civil servants. In 1895 France
grouped
the French West African colonies of Côte d'Ivoire, Dahomey
(present-day Benin), Guinea, Niger, French Sudan
(present-day
Mali), Senegal, Upper Volta, and Mauritania together and
subordinated their governors to the governor of Senegal,
who became
governor general. A series of additional decrees in 1904
defined
the structure of this political unit and organized it into
French
West Africa
(Afrique Occidentale Française--AOF; see Glossary).
France divided the individual colonies into districts
known as
cercles, each of which was governed by a district
commander
(commandant du cercle) who, because of poor
communications
between the cercles and the colonial governors,
exercised
his responsibilities with relative autonomy. Within a
cercle, 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
indigénat (see Glossary),
a separate system of law.
Data as of November 1988
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