Tag: Ivory Coast Stamp

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French Occidental Africa 1906, General Faidherbe can’t give Maurel & Prom what they want

If a coastal trading post is successful as was Saint Louis in modern day Senegal, there will be a push from the trading houses to push inland. This potentially cuts out the middleman. General Faidherbe imagined a French African Empire stretching from the west coast of Africa to the Red Sea in the east. Therefore he did his best for the French trading house Maurel & Prom. 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.

Todays stamp is from one of the periods where wildly spread out colonies were jointly administered. Hence a French General whose activities were in Senegal on a stamp meant for the Ivory Coast. Around the time of independence there was a pan African hope that many of the nations could come together in large groupings as the French had done. It had not worked for France and the Africans themselves could not pull it off.

Todays stamp is issue A2, a 2 Centimes stamp issued for the French colony of Ivory Coast when it was part of French Occidental Africa in 1906. It was part of a 15 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $2 whether used or unused. There are versions of this stamp issue where the Cote de Ivorie printing is doubled or omitted due to printing mistakes. This pushes the value up to $400.

The Saint Louis trading post in Senegal was quite successful. We covered a Senegal stamp telling the story of the bridge to Saint Louis herehttps://the-philatelist.com/2018/12/20/senegal-1935-a-bridge-connecting-a-trading-post-becomes-a-symbol-of-a-city/  . By this period, the slave trade was over but there was still lucrative trading in cattle and peanuts raised by Africans and then sold in Saint Louis to the trading house Maurel & Prom. The trading was going on with both the Serer people of the African Empire of Sine and with nomadic Arabs from further north.

The trading house had the idea to push French inland. General Fadeherbe lead the expedition of about 300 French. He had taken a 15 year old native girl named Sidibe who bore him a son and taught General Fadeherbe the local dialects. Moving inland brought conflict with the Empire of Sine. The Sine Army was defeated at the Battle of Logandeme in a few minutes. General Fadeherbe burned nearby villages as a warning and took over major areas. The King of Sine pleaded and threatened in an attempt to not lose the contested area. To loose the area would cut off access to British arms markets in Gambia, their only source of weapons. The King threatened to kill all white people in Senegal and all cattle headed to market in Saint Louis. The French kept the land.

The Sine Empire did manage to make the French pay a heavy price. No they did not kill all the white people but they destroyed many of the peanut fields, killed much cattle, and harassed French outposts. This of course ate enough of the profits that the expedition failed in it’s profit motive. France eventually began paying tribute to the Sine King in order to be left alone. This arrangement was in affect till 1969 when independent Senegal pulled recognition of the title.

The French defeat in the Franco-Prussian war saw many French Generals killed, captured or dismissed. A call went out for colonial officers to return to France. He took with him his son but left behind Sidibe. Once home the 40 year old General was promoted and married his 18 year old niece by his deceased older brother. She helped raise his son and bore him 4 more children. The General did not have as much luck with Prussia as with Sine and his army was destroyed at the Battle of St. Quentin. He retired from the Army and became a politician and author. Maurel & Prom still exist but now mainly do oil exploration.

Well my drink is empty and I have nobody to toast, the trading house was greedy, the General’s expedition foolhardy, and the Sine wanted to kill all the white people, of which I am one. Perhaps just this once I will toast myself for finishing another article. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Ivory Coast 1974, Felix the irresistible force thinks he has been stolen from too much

The Ivory Coast charted a different course than many in Africa by staying close to colonial power France. The President for life marketed himself and changed his name to the irresistible force in charge of the ivory miracle. It was true that people weren’t having much luck resisting, but by the end he had stolen too much and the people had enough. Ironic for a man that had came to prominence by penning an article complaining about what he perceived as French thievery. 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.

President Felix Houphouet-Boigny marketed his rule as the ivory miracle. The simple portrait bulk postage stamp makes a pretty good case for it. Bulk postage implies a functioning country. As with bulk postage throughout the world, mint versions of this stamp are worth more than twice the used form as most really were mailed. Ivory Coast is no longer so functional regarding the post. The last bulk mail issue was from 1994 and the last stamp recognized as legitimate is from 2015.

Todays stamp is issue A111, a 25 African Franc stamp issued by the Ivory Coast in 1974. It was a five stamp issue in various denominations issued over several years. In the late 1980s there were new versions reflecting then new currency devaluations. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

The President eventually known as Felix Houphouet-Boigny was born either in 1901 or 1907 depending on who you ask in Yamoussoukro during the time the Ivory Coast was a French colony. His birth name was Dia (magician) Houphouet and he was in the line to be a tribal chief in the Akoues tribe. He became chief at a young age but was represented by a regency. As per colonial policy, tribal chiefs were offered education in French local schools. During this time he trained as a medic and converted  to Catholicism, Christened name Felix. Felix worked as a medic and organized a club for indigenous medical personnel. The French authorities considered the club  a labor union and transferred him to a French hospital in a smaller town. He then penned an essay in a socialist newspaper saying that the French had stolen too much from the African man as regards to agriculture in the Ivory Coast. When the French figured out Felix wrote the article, they offered him a job as a colonial tax collector to buy him off. Soon Felix was rich.

After the war Felix won a seat in the French Parliament in Paris representing the colony. The Africans quickly aligned with the French communist party as it was the only party in favor of ending the colonies. Felix assured the French he was not a communist as he was too rich to be one. He instead began to advocate a gradual process toward independence unlike most African leaders of the time. France however was ready to leave and Felix became the first President of independent Ivory Coast. In the runup he added Boigny (the irresistible force) to his name. As he consolidated his power for a long rule he initially had some resistance. He had rival Jean-Baptiste Mockey exiled for using a form of voodoo involving black cats against him. Creepy, I can see why he had to go. He shrunk the military to avoid coups and let the French continue to run the economy that mainly involved coffee and cocoa, not ivory.

In the 1980s the world price for coffee and cocoa dropped and the country took on a great deal of debt to buy peace by continuing to pay farmers the old prices. Felix desperately begged Europe to pay him above market prices and then failed again when he halted exports to try to raise the market price. Felix was still spending lavishly moving the administrative capital to his hometown and building there a giant Catholic Basilica in the bush and an airport that could handle the Concorde SST. When Felix died in 1993, his fortune was estimated at $7 billion. His children argued how much of the fortune belongs to them versus the state. It did and still does support a peace prize in his name that is handed out annually through the UN. Perhaps odd for a leader that supported armed opposition to African governments in Angola Benin, Burkini Faso, Ghana, Liberia, and Nigeria. Felix is still fairly well remembered in the Ivory Coast, benefiting in retrospect for what came later.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the Concorde supersonic airliner. If I was the leader of a place not doing so well with so much money waiting for me in Switzerland, I sure would want a Concorde at the airport ready to zip me away. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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The trains or the people

Welcome readers to todays offering from The Philatelist. 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. We have an interesting story to tell about economic choices.

The stamp today is from post independence French West Africa. The French influence was quite great in the countries themselves. In terms of the stamps however, compared to the British Commonwealth there was less influence from the former home country. The stamps usually do have some of the vibe of the cold war period nonaligned movement. This stamp is a little bit of an exception to that by showing an old railway car from the French period.

The stamp today is issue A198, a 100 franc stamp issued in the Ivory Coast on May 17th, 1980. It is part of a four stamp issue that displays the train line in the Ivory Coast over time. This stamp shows a passenger car from 1908. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 60 cents cancelled.

Ivory Coast is a former French colony on the coast of the Atlantic ocean near the Equator in the tropics. Despite the name, the main industries are cocoa beans, rubber, and oil production. There is also a fair amount of trade that passes through the Ivory Coast on the way to land locked countries to the north such as Burkini Faso. These areas were all formally part of French West Africa and during the colonial period a train line was built from  the port of Abidjan up through Ivory Coast into Burkini Faso.

All of this has left the country in a better state economically that many other African nations. The Government has used the growing GDP to fund large development projects such as a train extension to a new mining area and a new subway system in Abidjan. The problems come in with the rapid population growth and the additional migration of people of foreign countries has left a situation with many seemingly left behind economically from the growth. The instability from this causes periodic uprisings that then choke off economic activity.

Trouble like this flared up again in 2017. The military took to the streets demanding back pay that was owed. Shots were fired near commercial port facilities. this lead to outside companies quickly leaving. The government quickly paid the back pay due the military and they returned to barracks. However the civil service than went on strike demanding the back pay it felt it was owed. It remains to be seen what effect this will have on development goals. Not meeting those goals will leave more people behind and around we go. What is the answer to this? A liberal might suggest more public sector employment and a big push in family planning. Perhaps the more conservative might suggest a wall and better project management. In my opinion they both are correct.

Well, my drink is empty and so it is time to open up the conversation in the below comment section. What is the correct tradeoff between todays needs and a better future? Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.