Tag: Mauritania stamp

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.

Here we have a new country in the first few years of independence. There was reason to hope, there was a new capital, a new industry was coming online, they had taken the name of an ancient empire, and like an ancient empire they had additional territorial ambitions. 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.

I do like the delicate French style coloring of this stamp. The Barbary sheep is still numerous in Mauritania and the Maghreb. It’s natural predators are the Barbary Lion and Barbary Leopard which are extinct or near extinct. So it’s main threat now is man. I joked above about how the sheep feel about the country’s change. Perhaps there is room to worry, a group of Barbary Sheep is called an anger.

Todays stamp is issue A13, a three Franc stamp issued by the Islamic Republic of Mauritania in 1961. It was a 15 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used with what appears to be an actual postal cancellation.

This area on the West African coast south of Morocco took the name of the old Carthage/Roman era empire, see https://the-philatelist.com/2020/10/29/algeria-1952-french-algeria-remembers-cherchell-when-it-was-a-roman-mauretanian-empire-under-juba-ii-and-cleopatra/ . There is no overlap in territory or tribe with the old entity. During the French colonial period the area went undeveloped as it was viewed as a buffer between Arab Morocco and the more important French African colony of Senegal. The area’s population was mainly nomadic Arab tribesmen.

In the runup to independence, work was done on nation building. A new capital named Nouakchott was laid out and constructed assuming 15,000 people. A large iron ore deposit was discovered and infastructure was put in place to mine it and get it exported. Moktar Daddah, the first Mauritanian to hold a University degree, was chosen by the French as the leader in the hope he could hold together a coalition of the ethnic groups.

Not everything went smoothly but there was a flurry of progress. Daddah did indeed hold together his coalition by banning political opposition. The iron ore mine came on stream in 1962. In addition to French aid, China and Saudi Arabia stepped up with aid. Spain was nearing the end of it’s time in the Spanish Sahara and Daddah worked out a plan to divide it with Morocco.

The problems soon began to mount. The new southern capital attracted many Africans willing to live the city life. Thus the nomadic Arab tribesman resented the powers of the government as they seemed foreign. The mine required 3000 expatriates to run it. The salaries that were paid to the expatriates so dwarfed local wages that the mine attracted the ire of the counties leftists. Attempting to occupy territory in the Spanish Sahara brought conflict with the well armed POLISARIO, that wanted to turn the area into another independent country, see https://the-philatelist.com/2018/08/02/saharaui-semi-nation-on-the-other-side-of-the-wall-of-course-with-stamps/   .

Daddah worked hard to keep things moving forward. He nationalized the mine and replaced the Franc with a local currency. He announced an effort toward more Islamic national institutions to placate the Nomadic Arab tribesmen.

Daddah had a long run but it was not meant to be. Coronels from the Army, tired of the northern war, mutinyed and forced Daddah from office and into jail. Daddah eventually was able to depart for Paris where he had earlier studied. If he had held out longer, perhaps the country would have turned enough to what he was trying to build. The country is now much less nomadic with the capital, remember it was designed for 15,000, now having over a million people. Even the best of leaders would have struggled with that level of growth.

Well my drink is empty and so I will have to wait till tomorrow when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.