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Spanish Territories on the Gulf of Guinea Territorios Españoles del Golfo de Guinea (Spanish) | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1778–1968 | |||||||||||||
| Anthem: Marcha Real (1844–1873, 1874–1931, 1942–1968) Himno de Riego (1873–1874, 1931–1942) | |||||||||||||
 Location of Spanish Guinea in Africa | |||||||||||||
| Status | Dependencies of Spain (1858–1926) Colony of Spain (1926–1956) Province ofSpain (1956–1968) | ||||||||||||
| Capital | Santa Isabel | ||||||||||||
| Common languages | Spanish (official) Annobonese Creole Pichinglis Fang | ||||||||||||
| Religion | Catholicism | ||||||||||||
| Monarch andCaudillo | |||||||||||||
• 1858–1868 (first) | Isabella II | ||||||||||||
• 1936–1968 (last) | Francisco Franco | ||||||||||||
| Governor-General | |||||||||||||
• 1858–1859 (first) | Carlos Chacon y Michelina | ||||||||||||
• 1966–1968 (last) | Víctor Suances y Díaz del Río | ||||||||||||
| Historical era | |||||||||||||
| 11 March 1778 | |||||||||||||
• Spanish evacuate Fernando Po | 1780 | ||||||||||||
• Spanish sovereignty reasserted over Fernando Po | 1844 | ||||||||||||
• Protectorate established overRío Muni | 1885 | ||||||||||||
• Definitive territorial delimitation by theTreaty of Paris | 1900 | ||||||||||||
• Administrative union of the various colonies | 1926 | ||||||||||||
| 12 October 1968 | |||||||||||||
| Currency | Spanish peseta | ||||||||||||
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| Today part of | Equatorial Guinea | ||||||||||||
Spanish Guinea (Spanish:Guinea Española) was a set ofinsular andcontinental territories controlled bySpain from 1778 in theGulf of Guinea and on theBight of Bonny, inCentral Africa. It gained independence in 1968 asEquatorial Guinea.
From the resumption of Spanish sovereignty in 1843 to 1904 the colony went by various names in official documents. The name of the colony in an 1868 Royal decree that outlined the administration of the colony was theSpanish Possessions on the Gulf of Guinea.[1] The other name commonly used was the nameColony ofFernando Poo and Dependencies.[2] In a royal decree in 1904 the official name becameSpanish Territories on the Gulf of Guinea as many of the administrative inefficiencies in the previous decrees were rectified.[3] This was reaffirmed in a 1935 decree. In 1956 the colony became the Province of the Gulf of Guinea, a province of Spain.
The Spanish colony in theGuinea region was established in 1778, by theTreaty of El Pardo between theSpanish Empire and thePortuguese Empire. Between 1778 and 1810, Spain administered the territory of Equatorial Guinea via its colonialViceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, based inBuenos Aires (in present-dayArgentina).[4]
From 1827 to 1843, theUnited Kingdom had a base onBioko to combat the continuingAtlantic slave trade conducted by Spain and illegal traders.[5] Based on an agreement with Spain in 1843, Britain moved its base to its own colony ofSierra Leone in West Africa. In 1844, on restoration of Spanish rule, it became known as the "Territorios Españoles del Golfo de Guinea".
Spain had never undertaken colonial settlement of the large area in theBight of Biafra to which it had treaty rights. The French expanded their occupation at the expense of the area claimed by Spain. By thetreaty of Paris in 1900, Spain was left with the continental enclave ofRío Muni, 26,000 km2 of the 300,000 stretching east to theUbangi river, which the Spaniards had previously claimed.[6]
_Golfo_de_Guinea.jpg)
Toward the end of the 19th century Spanish, Portuguese, German andFernandino planters started developing largecacao plantations on the island of Fernando Po.[7] 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 ofLiberia in 1914; the transport of up to 15,000 workers by sea was orchestrated by the GermanWoermann-Linie, the major shipping company.[8] In 1930 anInternational Labour Organization (ILO) commission discovered that Liberian contract workers had "been recruited under conditions of criminal compulsion scarcely distinguishable from slave raiding and slave trading".[9] 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 ofIgbo andIbibio 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.[10] A labour treaty was signed with theBritish 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.[11]
Part ofa series on the |
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| History of Equatorial Guinea |
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| Chronological |
Between 1926 and 1959,the Crown united Bioko and Río Muni as the "colony of Spanish Guinea". The economy was based on the exploitation of the commodity crops ofcacao andcoffee, produced at large plantations, in addition tologging concessions. Owners of these companies hired mostly immigrant contract labour fromLiberia,Nigeria, andCameroon.[10] Spain mounted military campaigns in the 1920s to subdue the indigenousFang people, as Liberia was trying to reduce recruiting of its workers. The Crown established garrisons of theColonial Guard throughout the enclave by 1926, and the whole colony was considered 'pacified' by 1929.[12]
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 recruitIgbo laborers, who were smuggled in canoes fromCalabar, Nigeria.Fernando Po was developed after theSecond World War as one of Africa's most productive agricultural areas.[6]
_(1941)_(5811105541).jpg)
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 thePortuguese Empire 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 theRepublic of Equatorial Guinea.Francisco Macías Nguema waselected as president.[13]
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:[14]
