Spanish Guinea (
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
: ''Guinea Española'') was a set of
insular and
continental
Continental may refer to:
Places
* Continent, the major landmasses of Earth
* Continental, Arizona, a small community in Pima County, Arizona, US
* Continental, Ohio, a small town in Putnam County, US
Arts and entertainment
* ''Continental'' ( ...
territories controlled by
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
from 1778 in the
Gulf of Guinea
The Gulf of Guinea is the northeasternmost part of the tropical Atlantic Ocean from Cape Lopez in Gabon, north and west to Cape Palmas in Liberia. The intersection of the Equator and Prime Meridian (zero degrees latitude and longitude) is in ...
and on the
Bight of Bonny
The Bight of Biafra (known as the Bight of Bonny in Nigeria) is a bight off the West African coast, in the easternmost part of the Gulf of Guinea.
Geography
The Bight of Biafra, or Mafra (named after the town Mafra in southern Portugal), betwee ...
, in
Central Africa
Central Africa is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries according to different definitions. Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo ...
. It gained independence in 1968 as
Equatorial Guinea.
History
18th—19th centuries
The Spanish colony in the
Guinea region
Guinea is a traditional name for the region of the African coast of West Africa which lies along the Gulf of Guinea. It is a naturally moist tropical forest or savanna that stretches along the coast and borders the Sahel belt in the north.
...
was established in 1778, by the
Treaty of El Pardo between the
Spanish Empire
The Spanish Empire ( es, link=no, Imperio español), also known as the Hispanic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Hispánica) or the Catholic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Católica) was a colonial empire governed by Spain and its prede ...
and the
Portuguese Empire
The Portuguese Empire ( pt, Império Português), also known as the Portuguese Overseas (''Ultramar Português'') or the Portuguese Colonial Empire (''Império Colonial Português''), was composed of the overseas colonies, factories, and the ...
. Between 1778 and 1810, Spain administered the territory of Equatorial Guinea via its colonial
Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata
The Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata ( es, Virreinato del Río de la Plata or es, Virreinato de las Provincias del Río de la Plata) meaning "River of the Silver", also called " Viceroyalty of the River Plate" in some scholarly writings, i ...
, based in
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
(in present-day
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
).
From 1827 to 1843, the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
had a base on
Bioko
Bioko (; historically Fernando Po; bvb, Ëtulá Ëria) is an island off the west coast of Africa and the northernmost part of Equatorial Guinea. Its population was 335,048 at the 2015 census and it covers an area of . The island is located of ...
to combat the continuing
Atlantic slave trade conducted by Spain and illegal traders. Based on an agreement with Spain in 1843, Britain moved its base to its own colony of
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierr ...
in West Africa. In 1844, on restoration of Spanish sovereignty, it became known as the "''Territorios Españoles del Golfo de Guinea''".
20th century
Spain had never undertaken colonial settlement of the large area in the
Bight of Biafra to which it had treaty rights. The French expanded their occupation at the expense of the area claimed by Spain. By the
treaty of Paris Treaty of Paris may refer to one of many treaties signed in Paris, France:
Treaties
1200s and 1300s
* Treaty of Paris (1229), which ended the Albigensian Crusade
* Treaty of Paris (1259), between Henry III of England and Louis IX of France
* Trea ...
in 1900, Spain was left with the continental enclave of
Río Muni
Río Muni (called ''Mbini'' in Fang) is the Continental Region (called ''Región Continental'' in Spanish) of Equatorial Guinea, and comprises the mainland geographical region, covering . The name is derived from the Muni River, along whic ...
, 26,000 km
2 of the 300,000 stretching east to the
Ubangi river
The Ubangi River (), also spelled Oubangui, is the largest right-bank tributary of the Congo River in the region of Central Africa. It begins at the confluence of the Mbomou (mean annual discharge 1,350 m3/s) and Uele Rivers (mean annual discharge ...
, which the Spaniards had previously claimed.
[William Gervase Clarence-Smith, 1986 "Spanish Equatorial Guinea, 1898-1940", in ''The Cambridge History of Africa: From 1905 to 1940'' Ed. J. D. Fage, A. D. Roberts, & Roland Anthony Oliver. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press>]
Agricultural economy
Toward the end of the 19th century Spanish, Portuguese, German and
Fernandino planters started developing large
cacao plantation
''Theobroma cacao'', also called the cacao tree and the cocoa tree, is a small ( tall) evergreen tree in the family Malvaceae. Its seeds, cocoa beans, are used to make chocolate liquor, cocoa solids, cocoa butter and chocolate. The largest pro ...
s on the island of Fernando Po. With the indigenous Bubi population decimated by disease and forced labour, the island's economy came to depend on imported agricultural contract workers.
A labour treaty was signed with the Republic of
Liberia in 1914; the transport of up to 15,000 workers by sea was orchestrated by the German
Woermann-Linie
The Woermann-Linie was a German shipping company that operated from 1885 to 1942. History
It was founded on 15 June 1885 by Adolph Woermann and developed as one of the leading shipping companies between Europe and Africa. From 1899 the company ...
, the major shipping company. In 1930 an
International Labour Organization
The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is the first and o ...
(ILO) commission discovered that Liberian contract workers had ‘‘been recruited under conditions of criminal compulsion scarcely distinguishable from slave raiding and slave trading’’. The government prohibited recruiting of Liberian workers for Spanish Guinea.
The persisting labour shortage in the cacao, coffee and logging industries led to a booming trade in illegal canoe-based smuggling of
Igbo
Igbo may refer to:
* Igbo people, an ethnic group of Nigeria
* Igbo language, their language
* anything related to Igboland, a cultural region in Nigeria
See also
* Ibo (disambiguation)
* Igbo mythology
* Igbo music
* Igbo art
*
* Igbo-Ukwu, a ...
and
Ibibio Ibibio may refer to:
* Ibibio language
* Ibibio people
* Ibibio Sound Machine, an English electronic afro-funk band who sing in Ibibio
See also
* Ibiblio
ibiblio (formerly SunSITE.unc.edu and MetaLab.unc.edu) is a "collection of collections" ...
workers from the Eastern Provinces of Nigeria. The number of clandestine contract workers on the island of Fernando Po grew to 20,000 in 1942.
[Enrique Martino, “Clandestine Recruitment Networks in the Bight of Biafra: Fernando Pó’s Answer to the Labour Question, 1926–1945.” in ''International Review of Social History,'' 57, pp 39-72. http://www.opensourceguinea.org/2013/03/enrique-martino-clandestine-recruitment.html] A labour treaty was signed with the
British Crown in the same year. This led to a continuous stream of Nigerian workers going to Spanish Guinea. By 1968 at the time of independence, almost 100,000 ethnic Nigerians were living and working in Spanish Guinea.
Colony of Spanish Guinea
Between 1926 and 1959,
the Crown
The Crown is the state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, overseas territories, provinces, or states). Legally ill-defined, the term has different ...
united Bioko and Río Muni as the "colony of Spanish Guinea". The economy was based on the exploitation of the commodity crops of
cacao and
coffee
Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world.
Seeds of ...
, produced at large plantations, in addition to
logging concessions. Owners of these companies hired mostly immigrant contract labour from
Liberia,
Nigeria
Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...
, and
Cameroon
Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the C ...
.
Spain mounted military campaigns in the 1920s to subdue the indigenous
Fang people
__NOTOC__
The Fang people, also known as Fãn or Pahouin, are a Bantu ethnic group found in Equatorial Guinea, northern Gabon, and southern Cameroon. , as Liberia was trying to reduce recruiting of its workers. The Crown established garrisons of the
Colonial Guard throughout the enclave by 1926, and the whole colony was considered 'pacified' by 1929.
Río Muni had a small population, officially put at a little over 100,000 in the 1930s. Its people could easily escape over the borders into Cameroon or Gabon. Moreover, the timber companies needed growing amounts of labour, and the spread of coffee cultivation offered an alternative means of paying taxes.
The island of Fernando Po continued to suffer from labour shortages. The French only briefly permitted recruitment in Cameroon. Planters began to recruit
Igbo
Igbo may refer to:
* Igbo people, an ethnic group of Nigeria
* Igbo language, their language
* anything related to Igboland, a cultural region in Nigeria
See also
* Ibo (disambiguation)
* Igbo mythology
* Igbo music
* Igbo art
*
* Igbo-Ukwu, a ...
laborers, who were smuggled in canoes from
Calabar
Calabar (also referred to as Callabar, Calabari, Calbari and Kalabar) is the capital city of Cross River State, Nigeria. It was originally named Akwa Akpa, in the Efik language. The city is adjacent to the Calabar and Great Kwa rivers and c ...
, Nigeria.
Fernando Po was developed after the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
as one of Africa's most productive agricultural areas.
Decolonisation
The post-war political history of Spanish Guinea had three fairly distinct phases. From 1946 to 1959, it had the status of a "province", having been raised from "colony", after the
Portuguese Empire
The Portuguese Empire ( pt, Império Português), also known as the Portuguese Overseas (''Ultramar Português'') or the Portuguese Colonial Empire (''Império Colonial Português''), was composed of the overseas colonies, factories, and the ...
made overtures to take it over. From 1960 to 1968, Spain tried a system of partial decolonisation to keep the province within the Spanish territorial system, which failed due to continued anti-colonial activity by Guineans. On 12 October 1968, Spain conceded the independence of the
Republic of Equatorial Guinea
Equatorial Guinea ( es, Guinea Ecuatorial; french: Guinée équatoriale; pt, Guiné Equatorial), officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea ( es, link=no, República de Guinea Ecuatorial, french: link=no, République de Guinée équatoria ...
.
Francisco Macías Nguema
Francisco Macías Nguema ( Africanised to Masie Nguema Biyogo Ñegue Ndong; 1 January 1924 – 29 September 1979), often mononymously referred to as Macías, was an Equatoguinean politician who served as the first President of Equatorial Guinea ...
was
elected as president.
[Campos, Alicia. "The decolonization of Equatorial Guinea: the relevance of the international factor", ''Journal of African History'' (2003): 95–116.]
Colonial demographics
The population of the Colony of Spanish Guinea was stratified (before slavery was abolished). The system was somewhat similar to the one operating in the French, English and Portuguese colonies in the rest of Africa:
[''Anuario del ]Instituto Cervantes
Instituto Cervantes (the Cervantes Institute) is a worldwide nonprofit organization created by the Spanish government in 1991. It is named after Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616), the author of ''Don Quixote'' and perhaps the most important figur ...
(2005). Panorama de la literatura en español en Guinea Ecuatorial'', Justo Bolekia Boleká
Introducción histórica
/ref>
#Peninsulares
In the context of the Spanish Empire, a ''peninsular'' (, pl. ''peninsulares'') was a Spaniard born in Spain residing in the New World, Spanish East Indies, or Spanish Guinea. Nowadays, the word ''peninsulares'' makes reference to Peninsular ...
— White Spanish population, whose immigration was regulated by the Spanish government.
#Emancipados
Emancipado () was a term used for an African-descended social-political demographic within the population of Spanish Guinea (modern day Equatorial Guinea) that existed in the early to mid 1900s. This segment of the native population had become as ...
— Black African
Black is a Racialization, racialized classification of people, usually a Politics, political and Human skin color, skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have ...
population, assimilated into the Peninsulares' culture via Spanish Catholic educations. Some were descended from freed Cuban slaves, repatriated to Africa after emancipation and abolition of slavery by the Spanish Royal Orders of 13 September 1845 (voluntary), and of 20 June 1861 (deported). The latter group included ''mestizos
(; ; fem. ) is a term used for racial classification to refer to a person of mixed European and Indigenous American ancestry. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to people who are culturally European even though thei ...
'' (indigenous-European) and ''mulattoes
(, ) is a racial classification to refer to people of mixed African and European ancestry. Its use is considered outdated and offensive in several languages, including English and Dutch, whereas in languages such as Spanish and Portuguese ...
'' (African-European), mixed-race descendants who had been acknowledged by a white Peninsular father.[''Espacio, Tiempo y Forma'', Serie V, Hª Contemporánea, t. 11, 1998, págs. 113-138]
"Penología e indigenismo en la antigua Guinea española"
, Pedro María Belmonte Medina
# Fernandinos — Creole peoples
Creole peoples are ethnic groups formed during the European colonial era, from the mass displacement of peoples brought into sustained contact with others from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds, who converged onto a colonial ter ...
, multi-ethnic or multi-race populations, often speaking the local Pidgin English of Spanish Guinea's island of Fernando Po (now known as Bioko
Bioko (; historically Fernando Po; bvb, Ëtulá Ëria) is an island off the west coast of Africa and the northernmost part of Equatorial Guinea. Its population was 335,048 at the 2015 census and it covers an area of . The island is located of ...
).
#"Individuals of colour" under patronage — included the majority of the indigenous Black African
Black is a Racialization, racialized classification of people, usually a Politics, political and Human skin color, skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have ...
people, and those mestizos−mulattoes who were not acknowledged by white fathers and were being deported from the Americas. Of the indigenous ethnic groups in Guinea, most were Bubi
BuBi (officially: MOL BuBi) is a bicycle sharing network in Budapest, Hungary. Its name is a playful contraction Budapest and Bicikli (bicycle in Hungarian), meaning "bubble" in an endearing manner. As of May 2019 the network consists of 143 dock ...
and Bantu peoples
The Bantu peoples, or Bantu, are an ethnolinguistic grouping of approximately 400 distinct ethnic groups who speak Bantu languages. They are native to 24 countries spread over a vast area from Central Africa to Southeast Africa and into Souther ...
such as the Fang of Rio Muni.
#Others — primarily Nigerian
Nigerians or the Nigerian people are citizens of Nigeria or people with ancestry from Nigeria. The name Nigeria was taken from the Niger River running through the country. This name was allegedly coined in the late 19th century by British jour ...
, Cameroonian, Han Chinese
The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctiv ...
, and Indian people
Indians or Indian people are the Indian nationality law, citizens and nationals of India. In 2022, the population of India stood at over 1.4 billion people, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most p ...
s who were hired as contract laborers under types of indentures.
See also
* Dominican Spanish
*Afro-Dominicans
Afro-Dominicans (also referred to as African-Dominicans or Black Dominicans) are Dominicans of predominant Black African ancestry. They are a minority in the country representing 7.8% of the Dominican Republic's population according to a censu ...
*White Dominicans
White Dominicans ( es, "Dominicanos blancos") are Dominican people of predominant or full European descent. They are 17.8% of the Dominican Republic's population, according to a 2021 survey by the United Nations Population Fund. The majority of ...
*Dominican Americans
Dominican Americans ( es, domínico-americanos, ) are Americans who trace their ancestry to the Dominican Republic. The word may refer to someone born in the United States of Dominican descent or to someone who has migrated to the United Stat ...
*Washington Heights, Manhattan
Washington Heights is a neighborhood in the uppermost part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is named for Fort Washington, a fortification constructed at the highest natural point on Manhattan by Continental Army troops to defen ...
*Alfonso XII
Alfonso XII (Alfonso Francisco de Asís Fernando Pío Juan María de la Concepción Gregorio Pelayo; 28 November 185725 November 1885), also known as El Pacificador or the Peacemaker, was King of Spain from 29 December 1874 to his death in 1885 ...
*Royal Palace of Madrid
The Royal Palace of Madrid ( es, Palacio Real de Madrid) is the official residence of the Spanish royal family at the city of Madrid, although now used only for state ceremonies.
The palace has of floor space and contains 3,418 rooms. It is the ...
*Spanish immigration to Cuba
Spanish immigration to Cuba began in 1492, when the Spanish first landed on the island, and continues to the present day. The first sighting of a Spanish boat approaching the island was on 27 October 1492, probably at Bariay on the eastern point o ...
* Captaincy General of Cuba
*Spanish Sahara
Spanish Sahara ( es, Sahara Español; ar, الصحراء الإسبانية, As-Sahrā'a Al-Isbānīyah), officially the Spanish Possessions in the Sahara from 1884 to 1958 then Province of the Sahara between 1958 and 1976, was the name used f ...
*Spanish protectorate in Morocco
The Spanish protectorate in Morocco ; es, Protectorado español de Marruecos, links=no, was established on 27 November 1912 by a treaty between France and Spain that converted the Spanish sphere of influence in Morocco into a formal protect ...
References
{{coord, 1, 35, N, 10, 21, E, region:GQ_type:country_source:dewiki, display=title
Spanish Africa
Former colonies in Africa
Former Spanish colonies
History of Equatorial Guinea
History of Central Africa
Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata
States and territories established in 1778
States and territories disestablished in 1968
Guinea, Spanish
Equatorial Guinea–Spain relations