User:Aleksander Ramirez/French colonial empire

First French Colonial Empire (17th century to 1814)

Africa (new content)

See also: Françafrique

See also: Category:French colonisation in Africa

Although initial French colonization primarily occurred in the Americas and in Asia, the French did establish a few colonies and trading posts on the African continent. Initial French colonization in Africa began in modern-day Senegal, Madagascar, and along the Mascarene Islands. Initial French colonial projects, partially administered by the French East India Company, prioritized plantation economies and slave labor. These economies were based on monoculture agriculture and forced African labor. Poor living conditions, famines, and disease made enslaved labor conditions particularly lethal across French colonies. French presence in Senegal began in 1626, although formal colonies and trading posts were not established until 1659 with the founding of Saint-Louis, and 1677 with the founding of Gorée. Additionally, the first settlement of Madagascar began in 1642 with the establishment of Fort Dauphin.

Initial French Colonial expansion in Senegal and Madagascar was primarily motivated by desires to secure access to natural resources including gum arabic, groundnuts (or peanuts) and other raw materials. In addition they were further motivated by desires throughout the 17th and 19th century to secure access to and to control the slave trade. Through an emphasis on controlling sea-ports, the French sought to forcibly extract enslaved people to send them abroad for profit.

Colonial development prioritized export oriented production while local industry remained very underdeveloped. There was high development of production for export oriented production, notably of ground nuts in Senegal. In additional coastal areas, the French set up slave plantations. Initial French development prioritized the building of roads to connect natural resources to harbors and ports.

Additional initial French settlements were established on the Mascarene Islands which include Reunion Island, Mauritius, and Rodrigues. Reunion Island was first settled in 1642 and was administered by the French East India Company starting in 1665.

After initial settlement by the Netherlands, France took control of Mauritius which it renamed the Island of France in 1721. Furthermore, France took control of Rodrigues in 1735 and Seychelles in 1756.

On Reunion Island (Bourbon Island), the French East India Company first introduced the slave trade in the 1730s. The French East India Company additionally introduced coffee and sought to create a plantation economy centered around forced labor.

Characteristic of plantation colonies, the French colonists were a minority on Reunion Island. In 1763 there were only 4,000 French colonists while there were over 18,000 African enslaved people. The majority of enslaved people on Reunion Island worked on coffee plantations. They primarily came from Madagascar, Mozambique, and Senegal.

The economy of the Mauritius (Island of France) was similarly based on an exploitative plantation system dependent on forced African labor. The monoculture plantations farmed sugar cane, cotton, indigo, rice, and wheat. Around 2,000 colonists and enslaved people from Reunion Island migrated to Mauritius.

Conditions for enslaved people on the Mascarene Island plantations were very poor. Enslaved labor was highly lethal because of poor living conditions and famines. After a series of crop failures from 1725-1737, as much as 10% of the islands’ enslaved populations died due to famine and disease.

Causes, goals, and justifications for French colonization (reorganization plus new content)

Civilising mission

Racism and notions of white supremacy were integral to justifying the concept of the civilizing mission. French colonialists viewed non-European societies as uncivilized, and their colonial subjects as needing European re-education. Racial darwinists like Arthur de Gobineau, justified this ideology by falsely claiming that people of color were biologically inferior to white people.

Collapse of the First French Colonial Empire (reorganization)

Conflict with Britain

Further information: France in the Seven Years' War and France in the American Revolutionary War

Haitian Revolution

See also: Haitian Revolution

French Second Colonial Empire (post-1830)

Africa (new content and reorganization)

Algeria

See also: French Algeria and Algeria

French colonization of Algeria was not achieved peacefully but instead began with a lethal military conquest and the forceful dissolution of existing Algerian structures of government. The period of colonization in Algeria began with the invasion of Algiers in 1830 and concluded with a successful Algerian War of independence in 1862. The French colonization of Algeria was defined by its lethality for indigenous Algerians, the dissolution of the Algerian government, and the creation of oppressive and segregationist structures which systematically discriminate against Black Algerians.

The French military invasion of Algeria began in 1830 with a naval blockade around Algeria followed by the landing of 37,000 French soldiers in Algeria. The French captured the strategic port of Algiers in 1830. Algerian armed resistance was mounted against the French invasion. Estimates indicate that 100,000 French soldiers were deployed in the conquest of Algeria. At the time of the French invasion, there were 3,000,000 Algerian people, and an estimated 500,000 Algerians were killed during the conquest.

An additional 500,000 died in 1866-1868 from a famine provoked by the French when they confiscated the farmers of many Algerians. The famines were partially caused by a French campaign of “scorched earth” where they attempted to quell Algerian resistance by razing farms and villages.

Morocco

See also: Morocco, French protectorate in Morocco, and French conquest of Morocco

The French Colonial Empire established a protectorate in Morocco between the years of 1912 to 1956. France’s general approach to governing the protectorate of Morocco was a policy of in-direct rule where they co-opted existing governance systems to control the protectorate. Specifically, the Moroccan elite and Sultan were both left in control while being strongly influenced by the French government.

French colonialism in Morocco was discriminatory against indigenous Africans and highly detrimental to the Moroccan economy. Indigenous Moroccans were treated as third class citizens and discriminated against in all aspects of colonial life. Infrastructure was discriminatory in colonial Morocco. The French colonial government built 36.5 kilometers of sewers in the new neighborhoods created to accommodate new French settlers while only 4.3 kilometers of sewers were built in indigenous Moroccan communities. Additionally, land in Morocco was far more expensive for Moroccans than for French settlers. For example, while the average Moroccan had a plot of land 50 times smaller than their French settler counterparts, Moroccans were forced to pay 24% more per hectare. Moroccans were additionally prohibited from buying land from French settlers.

Colonial Morocco’s economy was designed to benefit French businesses at the detriment of Moroccan laborers. Morocco was forced to import all of its goods from France despite higher costs. Additionally, improvements to agriculture and irrigation systems in Morocco exclusively benefited colonial agriculturalists while leaving Moroccan farms at a technological disadvantage. It is estimated that French colonial policies resulted in 95% of Morocco’s trade deficit by 1950.

Zaian War

See also: Zaian War

Between the years of 1914 to 1921 the Zaian Confederation of Berber Tribes, primarily from the Atlas Mountain region of Morocco, staged an armed resistance against French colonial control. The outbreak of World War One prevented the French from committing fully to the conflict, and thus the French forces suffered high losses. For example, at the Battle of El Herri in 1914, 600 French soldiers were killed. The fighting was primarily characterized by Guerrilla warfare. The Zaian forces additionally received military and economic support from the Central Powers.  

Rif War

Main article: Rif War

Tunisia

See also: Tunisia, French protectorate of Tunisia, and French conquest of Tunisia

The French protectorate of Tunisia lasted from 1881 to 1956. The protectorate was initially established after the successful invasion of Tunisia in 1881. The groundwork for occupation was laid on April 24, 1881, when the French deployed 35,000 troops from Algeria to invade several Tunisian cities.

As in Morocco, the French governed indirectly and preserved the existing government structure. The bey remained an absolute monarch, Tunisian ministers were still appointed, although they were both subject to French authority. Over time, the French gradually weakened the existing structures of power and centralized power into a French colonial administration.

French West Africa

See also: French West Africa and West Africa

French West Africa was a confederation of eight other French colonial territories including French Mauritania, French Senegal, French Guinea, French Ivory Coast, French Niger, French Upper Volta, French Dahomey, French Togoland, and French Sudan.

French Equatorial Africa

See also: French Equatorial Africa and Equatorial Africa

French Equatorial Africa was a confederation of French colonial possessions in the Sahel and Congo River regions of Africa. Colonies included in French Equatorial Africa include French Gabon, French Congo, Ubangui-Shari, and French Chad.

Cameroon

See also: Cameroon and French Cameroon

Cameroon was initially colonized by the German Empire in 1884. However, after World War One, the colony was partition by France and Britain. The French colony lasted from 1916 to until self-rule was achieved in 1960.

Madagascar

See also: Madagascar and French Madagascar

French colonialism in Madagascar began in 1896 when France established a protectorate by force and ended in the 1960s with the beginning of self-rule. Under French control, the colony of Madagascar included the dependencies of Seychelles, Île de France (Mauritius), Comoros, Mayotte, Réunion, Kerguelen, Île Saint-Paul, Amsterdam Island, Crozet Islands, Bassas da India, Europa Island, Juan de Nova Island, Glorioso Islands, and Tromelin.

France in Indochina (1858–1870)

See also: French conquest of Vietnam

Napoleon III also acted to increase the French presence in Indochina. An important factor in his decision was the belief that France risked becoming a second-rate power by not expanding its influence in East Asia. Deeper down was the sense that France owed the world a civilizing mission.

French missionaries had been active in Vietnam since the 17th century, when the Jesuit priest Alexandre de Rhodes opened a mission there. In 1858 the Vietnamese emperor of the Nguyen dynasty felt threatened by the French influence and tried to expel the missionaries. Napoleon III sent a naval force of fourteen gunships, carrying three thousand French and three thousand Filipino troops provided by Spain, under Charles Rigault de Genouilly, to compel the government to accept the missionaries and to stop the persecution of Catholics. In September 1858 the expeditionary force captured and occupied the port of Da Nang, and then in February 1859 moved south and captured Saigon. The Vietnamese ruler was compelled to cede three provinces to France, and to offer protection to the Catholics. The French troops departed for a time to take part in the expedition to China, but in 1862, when the agreements were not fully followed by the Vietnamese emperor, they returned. The Emperor was forced to open treaty ports in Annam and Tonkin, and all of Cochinchina became a French territory in 1864.

In 1863, the ruler of Cambodia, King Norodom, who had been placed in power by the government of Thailand, rebelled against his sponsors and sought the protection of France. The Thai king granted authority over Cambodia to France, in exchange for two provinces of Laos, which were ceded by Cambodia to Thailand. In 1867, Cambodia formally became a protectorate of France.

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  Capture of Saigon by Charles Rigault de Genouilly on 18 February 1859, painted by Antoine Morel-Fatio
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  Napoleon III receiving the Siamese embassy at the palace of Fontainebleau in 1864

Summary of additional colonialism in Asia

It was only after its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 and the founding of the Third Republic (1871–1940) that most of France's later colonial possessions were acquired. From their base in Cochinchina, the French took over Tonkin (in modern northern Vietnam) and Annam (in modern central Vietnam) in 1884–1885. These, together with Cambodia and Cochinchina, formed French Indochina in 1887 (to which Laos was added in 1893 and Guangzhouwanin 1900).

In 1849, the French Concession in Shanghai was established, and in 1860, the French Concession in Tientsin (now called Tianjin) was set up. Both concessions lasted until 1946. The French also had smaller concessions in Guangzhou and Hankou (now part of Wuhan).

The Third Anglo-Burmese War, in which Britain conquered and annexed the hitherto independent Upper Burma, was in part motivated by British apprehension at France advancing and gaining possession of territories near to Burma.

Pacific Islands

Franco-Tahitian War (1842–1847)

Main article: Franco-Tahitian War

Queen Pōmare IV in 1860. Tahiti was made a French protectorate in 1842, and annexed as a colony of France in 1880.

In 1838, the French naval commander Abel Aubert du Petit-Thouars responded to complaints of the mistreatment of French Catholic missionary in the Kingdom of Tahiti ruled by Queen Pōmare IV. Dupetit Thouars forced the native government to pay an indemnity and sign a treaty of friendship with France respecting the rights of French subjects in the islands including any future Catholic missionaries. Four years later, claiming the Tahitians had violated the treaty, a French protectorate was forcibly installed and the queen made to sign a request for French protection.

Queen Pōmare left her kingdom and exiled herself to Raiatea in protest against the French and tried to enlist the help of Queen Victoria. The Franco-Tahitian War broke out between the Tahitian people and the French from 1844 to 1847 as France attempted to consolidate their rule and extend their rule into the Leeward Islands where Queen Pōmare sought refuge with her relatives. The British remained officially neutral during the war but diplomatic tensions existed between the French and British. The French succeeded in subduing the guerilla forces on Tahiti but failed to hold the other islands. In February 1847, Queen Pōmare IV returned from her self-imposed exile and acquiesced to rule under the protectorate. Although victorious, the French were not able to annex the islands due to diplomatic pressure from Great Britain, so Tahiti and its dependency Moorea continued to be ruled under the protectorate. A clause to the war settlement, known as the Jarnac Convention or the Anglo-French Convention of 1847, was signed by France and Great Britain, in which the two powers agreed to respect the independence of Queen Pōmare's allies in Leeward Islands. The French continued the guise of protection until the 1880s when they formally annexed Tahiti with the abdication of King Pōmare V on 29 June 1880. The Leeward Islands were annexed through the Leewards War which ended in 1897. These conflicts and the annexation of other Pacific islands formed French Oceania.

New Caledonia becomes a French possession (1853–54)

On 24 September 1853, Admiral Febvrier Despointes took formal possession of New Caledonia and Port-de-France (Nouméa) was founded 25 June 1854. A few dozen free settlers settled on the west coast in the following years, but New Caledonia became a penal colony and, from the 1860s until the end of the transportations in 1897, about 22,000 criminals and political prisoners were sent to New Caledonia.

Leeward Islands (1880–1897)

Main article: Annexation of the Leeward Islands

The captured rebels of Raiatea, 1897

In contravention of the Jarnac Convention of 1847, the French placed the Leeward Islands under a provisional protectorate by falsely convincing the ruling chiefs that the German Empire planned to take over their island kingdoms. After years of diplomatic negotiation, Britain and France agreed to abrogate the convention in 1887 and the French formally annexed all the Leeward Islands without official treaties of cession from the islands' sovereign governments. From 1888 to 1897, the natives of the kingdom of Raiatea and Tahaa led by a minor chief, Teraupo'o, fought off French rule and the annexation of the Leeward Islands. Anti-French factions in the kingdom of Huahine also attempted to fight off the French under Queen Teuhe while the kingdom of Bora Bora remained neutral but hostile to the French. The conflict ended in 1897 with the capture and exile of rebel leaders to New Caledonia and more than one hundred rebels to the Marquesas. These conflicts and the annexation of other Pacific islands formed French Polynesia.

A summary of additional colonialism in the Pacific Islands

At this time, the French also established colonies in the South Pacific, including New Caledonia, the various island groups which make up French Polynesia (including the Society Islands, the Marquesas, the Gambier Islands, the Austral Islands and the Tuamotus), and established joint control of the New Hebrides with Britain.

Middle East

Intervention in Syria and Lebanon (1860–1861)

The French expedition in Syria led by General Beaufort d'Hautpoul, landing in Beyrouth on 16 August 1860

In the spring of 1860, a war broke out in Lebanon, then part of the Ottoman Empire, between the quasi-Muslim Druze population and the Maronite Christians. The Ottoman authorities in Lebanon could not stop the violence, and it spread into neighboring Syria, with the massacre of many Christians. In Damascus, the Emir Abd-el-Kadr protected the Christians there against the Muslim rioters. Napoleon III felt obliged to intervene on behalf of the Christians, despite the opposition of London, which feared it would lead to a wider French presence in the Middle East. After long and difficult negotiations to obtain the approval of the British government, Napoleon III sent a French contingent of seven thousand men for a period of six months. The troops arrived in Beirut in August 1860, and took positions in the mountains between the Christian and Muslim communities. Napoleon III organized an international conference in Paris, where the country was placed under the rule of a Christian governor named by the Ottoman Sultan, which restored a fragile peace. The French troops departed in June 1861, after just under one year. The French intervention alarmed the British, but was highly popular with the powerful Catholic political faction in France, which had been alarmed by Louis Napoleon's dispute with the Pope over his territories in Italy.

Post-Imperial/Colonial French interventions

Intervention in Chadian Civil War

See full article here

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