History of Central Africa Gabon
1889-1910





Gabon, 1843-1889



Gabon, i.e. the Ogooue River estuary, was discovered by the Portuguese in ca. 1470 and for centuries visited by European traders wanting to pick up African slaves.
In 1848, France abolished slavery. In 1849, the French renamed a trading station established in 1843 LIBREVILLE and elevated it to a city for the resettlement of freed African slaves. The French established a PROTECTORATE over the region; PAUL B. DE CHAILLU, A.M.A. AYMES and PIERRE SAVORGNAN DE BRAZZA explored the Ogooue River; the latter founded FRANCEVILLE in 1880.
Catholic mission had begun at Libreville in 1848, Libreville elevated to the see of a bishop, responsible for the Two Guineas, much of central Africa.
At the BERLIN CONFERENCE of 1885, the French Protectorate over Gabon was internationally recognized. In 1889 it was merged with and administrated from the French Congo respectively Brazzaville.






EXTERNAL
FILES 		Pierre Paul Francois Camille Savorgnan de Brazza, from Infoplease
Gabon, History of, from Infoplease
Libreville, from Infoplease
Article Gaboon, from Catholic Encyclopedia 1917 edition
Biography of Paul de Chaillu, from worldHistory.com, from EB 1911
DOCUMENTS Map of Africa 1890, from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Am. edition, 1890, from Perry Castaneda Library, Utexas
Map of Africa 1892, from Gardiner's Atlas of English History
Map of Central Africa 1895 from Annales de Geographie IV, from Perry Castaneda Library, UTexas, has borders between Congo and Kamerun 1884 Report of the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce on German trade on Africa's west coast and on market conditions there; paragraph on Gaboon, from Deutsche Reichstagsakten, posted by Bayrische Staatsbibliothek; scan, in German, Fraktur font
Paul du Chaillu : Travels in Africa, 1868-1870, from Modern History Sourcebook
REFERENCE David E. Gardinier, Historical Dictionary of Gabon, Metuchen N.J. : Scarecrow 1981 [G]



This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted in 2001, last revised on November 6th 2004

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