The colonies of France in Africa were just not that profitable. The slave trade was over as far as colonials and the easy gold was no longer easy to find. Palm oil trade had many intermediaries and much competition from neighbor trade post. The obvious question is then why not just leave? So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
These early French colonial offerings do not appeal as much to me as the equivalent British colonies. They are better than the Portuguese who usually just show the King or De Gamma’s ship, or the Germans that often just show the Kaiser’s yacht. The French stamps usually show a native scene, here fording a river. How the British did them better was to show them as part of a greater whole with a common purpose. The British were sometimes kidding themselves as to whether that was really happening, but the other colonials often didn’t even bother.
Todays stamp is issue A6, a one Cent stamp issued by the French colony of Guinea in 1913. It was part of a whopping 42 stamp issue in various denominations that lasted for many years. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents unused. The folks on the stamp weren’t fording the river to get to the post office. There is an imperforate version of this stamp worth $75.
The west African coast was littered with trading posts. Most started as Portuguese, but the end of the slave trade saw most of theirs abandoned. The word Guinea comes from the Portuguese word for black people. There are now three independant, black run countries in Africa with that name so it had real staying power. The three, now two, Guyanas in South America come from the same root word. The English, French, and Germans began to have some luck with the palm oil trade. Palm oil was an ingredient in soap, so at that level of development, the natives had no need for it themselves. Diola tribal merchants brought the palm oil to the coastal trade stations including Conakry that became the capital of the colony and later the independent country. These outposts also had to function as forts as there were often native raids from the nearby Fouta Jallon highlands that contained warlike, nomadic, and Islamic Fulani tribe.
To avoid war between Europeans, A congress in Berlin in 1884 mapped out Africa as to which country had rights in which area. The tragedy of it was the spheres of influence extended far beyond existing trading posts. France had been in an anti colonial mood after reverses in the French colony in Indo-China. If the trading posts continued to not create wealth the posts would likely have been abandoned as with the Portuguese. The colony up to then was not even called Guinea but Southern Rivers showing that they were just trading posts at the mouth of rivers. Instead the French sent expeditions inland to bypass the Diola merchants and conquer Fouta Jallon. The last Imamate of Fouta Jallon leader, Boko Biro was defeated by the French at the Battle of Poredaka in 1896. Boko Biro escaped but was then captured by a Fulani rival and beheaded. Apparently no love for the loser.
Needless to say all this did not make the colony more profitable. In the late 1950s, the French tried to find a face saving way out and offered the African colonies a vote on staying in the French community with ever more self rule. Guinea was the only country that voted for the clean break and the French duly left. Interestingly, with France gone the trading post cities did not die with natives returning to the highlands. Even has the first President for life styled himself Touré’ after an earlier African anti colonial. There is no meaningful trade any more but the country relies on food aid which is more easily accessible on the coastal cities. Conakry had 60,000 people when independence came in 1958, the city now has more than two million. That is an estimate, how would you count?
Well my drink is empty. So sad. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.