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The Formation of the Government General of French West Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

C. W. Newbury
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Extract

French colonial history, during the last twenty years of the nineteenth century, was marked by two significant developments—a steady devolution of executive power from Paris to administrators abroad, and the creation of the Ministry for the Colonies in 1894. The basic reason for these changes was simply pressure of work. As communications with an expanding empire improved, the tendency to over-centralize the management of colonial affairs placed an excessive burden on the colonial section of the Ministry for the Navy. The appointment of an Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies who was responsible to a variety of ministers in the 1880's had provided no solution to the volume of business brought from Africa and Asia by the cable and the mail-steamer. Indeed, the example of Algeria where officials had been closely bound to government departments in Paris since 1871 had showed that the formulation of coherent colonial policy under these conditions was too often frustrated by divided responsibilities and changing politicians. Towards the zenith of French expansion, therefore, a single ministry took charge of all, territories except North Africa; and its first task was to apply to other areas the framework of federal administration set up in Indo-China some eight years previously. No longer were the colonies dependent for directives on a sub-department of the French Navy that had founded and protected them. The heterogeneous posts and annexed territories were grouped, as far as pacification and diplomatic conventions would permit, under governors-general who were at once military pro-consuls of empire and civil representatives of republican presidents.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , January 1960 , pp. 111 - 128
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1960

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References

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21 The General Council was a body of officials and traders elected from the coastal towns of Senegal since 1879. It had certain restrictive powers over the Senegal budget—including the expense of subsidies to the Soudan. The revenues of the Senegal local budget were set at some 4,000,000 fr. for 1895, about 3,000,000 of which were from customs. Chautemps thought the Soudan should have at least 150,000 fr. of this. The Soudan's own budget for 1895 was set at 890,500 fr. in revenues and 885,927 fr. in expenses, excluding credits from France for the Kayes-Bamako railway. Rolland, op. cit. 79–80Google Scholar; Ministère de la France d'Outre-Mer; Afrique/Correspondance Générale/I, Chautemps to Chaudié, II Oct. 1895.

22 Haut Commissariat, Conseil Supérieur de l'A.O.F., procés-verbaux/5/E/I. Present were Chaudié, Boilève, Mouttet (Director of the Interior, Senegal), Girard (Attorney-General), Linder (Head of Administrative Services, Senegal) and Delavau (Deputy Colonial Commissioner) as secretary.

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26 Ibid. Chaudié to Chautemps, 5 Nov. 1895.

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33 Haut Commissariat, Affaires Administratives/18/G/2, Chaudié to Binger, 23 March 1899.Google Scholar

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37 Ibid. De Trentinian, ‘Réformes nécessaires dans nos possessions de l'Afrique Occidentale. Nécessité de l'Organisation d'un Gouvernement Général de l'Afrique Occidentale’, 1899.

38 De Trentinian cited figures to show that between 1892 and 1896 France's share of the total trade of the French West African possessions was only 36,000,000 fr. (or 47 per cent), while Great Britain's share of total trade in her West African colonies was 52,000,000 fr. (or 51 per cent). Eight million francs of the French imports, he noted, were destined for the French army; and many imported items, valued as French imports, were of British origin—notably cloth.Google Scholar

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48 Ibid. Doumergue to Roume, 28 Nov. 1902.

49 Haut Commissariat, Conseil de Gouvernement de l'A.O.F., procès-verbaux/5/E/r, 3 and 4, sessions 15 Oct., 19 Dec. 1902, 6 June, 17 Nov. 1903. Present were: Roume, Houry (Commander-in-Chief, French West Africa), Picatier (Director of Public Works), Carpot and Cros (members of the Senegal General Council), Schneider (member of the Ivory Coast Administrative Council), Bruneau (President of the Court of Appeal, Senegal), the Lieutenant-Governors of the four colonies, the Kayes delegate and Malan, Roume's Secretary-General.Google Scholar

50 Ibid. Senegal's loan of 2,654,662 fr. in 1892 and Guinea's loan of 11,648,052 fr. in 1899 and 1901 were recontracted by the Government General for repayment. The loan of 65,000,000 fr. was divided into two parts—40,000,000 fr. of credits issued in 1903, and the remainder in 1905, at 3 per cent interest. The immediate projects for which these credits were to be used were: land reclamation at Saint-Louis, Dakar, Rufisque and port construction (17,050,000 fr.); the Dakar-Saint-Louis-Kayes railway (500,000 fr.); navigation on the Senegal and Niger (5,000,000 fr.); the Guinea railway (17,000,000 fr.); ports and railway in the Ivory Coast (10,000,000 fr.).

51 Decree, 18 Oct. 1904, l'Annuaire de l'A.O.F., 1912, 26–8.Google Scholar

52 Haut Commissariat, Affaires Administratives/18/G/4, Roume, ‘Circulaire relative à l'application du décret du 18 Octobre 1904’, 24 Jan. 1905.Google Scholar

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56 Haut Cominissariat, Statistiques/22/G/19 and 20. Early demographic data on West Africa are, however, notoriously unreliable.Google Scholar