An area adjacent to an established colony that is predominately nomadic and of a different race should probably be left alone. That is not what the French did, and Mauritania is still paying the price. 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.
This stamp issue honored the French Colonial Pavilion at the 1937 Paris International Exhibition. As such it showed view of local life in Mauritania. As such, it was a break from previous colonial issues that were by and for a colony’s French administrators. These types of stamps became very common in the colonies post war up to the time most achieved independence around 1960.
Todays stamp is issue A5, a 3 Centimes stamp issued by the colony of Mauritania in 1938. It was a 34 stamp issue in various denominations. This stamp featured a view of a Mauri camel rider. There was also a souvineer sheet coming out of this issue. As a colonial offering it was around for many years after the exhibition. Including a version that omitted the RF on the stamps as it was issued by the Vichy regime after France fell in World War II. Since these were not actually available in the colony, some collectors consider them inauthentic. This stamp, with the RF present and accounted for, is worth 25 cents according to the Scott Catalog.
Mauritania has a much shorter history than most colonies. It is bordered on the south by the Senegal River and along the river are black Africans that are ethnically, racially and lifestyle wise more with the people of Senegal. As you move north, the area becomes more desert like and the people are more Arabic and Nomadic. Blacks in this area were slaves of the Arabs. The practice among the nomads was not banned until a preposterously late 1980. The Nomads affiliated with rival sheiks most of whom pledged their loyalty to Morocco to the north.
The French involvement was mainly at a few trading posts that profited by selling arms to the various tribes. A French colonial leader tried to pacify the nomadic area but was quickly assassinated and the area was never truly under French control.
World War II saw a large African contribution to the Free French efforts. The Free French armed forces were over half African. As that war wound down, the Africans expected to quickly receive more self government leading toward independence. For Mauritania, independence came in 1960. There was a new capital, Nouakchott that was half way between the African southerners and Arab Nomads up North. The first Prime Minister Moktar Daddah was an Arab and the countries first college graduate, with a French law degree.
Readers can guess what happened next. Daddah banned all other political parties and became President for life. He also turned on his own ethnicity by fighting Morocco on their Saharan desert land claims. He did not fight them well and with the economy tanking he was deposed in a coup and spent the rest of his days in Paris. I wonder when Paris, London, and New York City will tire of hosting these failed losers with their suitcases of grubby, bloody cash.
Well my drink is empty and I wonder why it never occurred to France to give the river valley to Senegal and the desert to Morocco and be done with this fake country. That would have cost Daddah his job, but that would have been more feature than fault. Come again for another story to be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.