1472-1781 History of Central Africa 1885-1918





Spanish Guinea, 1781-1885



After Portugal, in the Treaty of el Pardo 1778, ceded to Spain her rights over Annobon, Fernando Poo and the Guinea coast between the Niger and Ogove rivers, Spain dispatched an expedition lead by the Conde de Argelejos. He died after having proclaimed Fernando Poo Spanish territory. In 1817 Britain and Spain signed an agreement on ending the slave trade. In 1827 the English, without formal Spanish consent, moved the headquarters of the Mixed Commission for the Suppression of Slave Traffic from Sierra Leone to Fernando Poo (Port Clarence). Britain leased Port Clarence (modern Malabo, on Fernando Poo) from Spain in order to establish a base for the British Navy, conducting patrols to subdue slave trade. In 1839-1841 the Spanish declined a British offer to buy the islands. In 1843 Britain ended the lease; Juan Jose de Lerena y Bary took again possession of the island for Spain. Port Clarence was renamed Santa Isabel (present Malabo) and became the capital of the colony. Actually, British governors (Beecroft) continued until Chacon became the first Spanish governor in 1858. From 1862 the Spanish administration on Cuba deported negroes to Fernando Poo, which served as a Penal Colony. In 1869 an advisory council, the Junta de Autoridades, was established; a government council followed in 1872. In 1875-1877 Manuel Iradier y Bulfy undertook an expedition to the Rio Muni area. The colony was placed under the (Spanish) Overseas Ministry.

An 1884 report of the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce describes the situation of Fernando Poo as follows : "Spain does not own any colonies on this coast but this island of a size of 2,071 square km as well as the small islands of Grand and Small Eloby and Corisco, located in Corisco Bay, and a small stretch on the coast of that bay. There are no Spanish merchants in all these places; there is no trade between Spain and any of these islands, neither with any point on the coast nearby or distant. A Spanish governor and a few colonial officials reside on Fernando Poo. The country is of no profit to Spain, causing only costs. A few cocoa plantations, which have been cultivated in earlier years, are run down, because the Spanish owners, after the abolition of slavery, to not know how to profitably manage them by employing free negroes."
When European powers decided over the partition of Africa at the Berlin Conference in 1885, Spain maintained her claim on the Rio Muni region on the Guinean coast.






EXTERNAL
FILES 		Equatorial Guinea, History of, from Infoplease
DOCUMENTS 1884 Report of the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce on German trade on Africa's west coast and on market conditions there; paragraph on Fernando Poo, from Deutsche Reichstagsakten, posted by Bayrische Staatsbibliothek; scan, in German, Fraktur font
REFERENCE Max Liniger-Goumaz, Historical Dictionary of Equatorial Guinea, Metuchen : Scarecrow 1988, 238 pp.
Richard Burton, Benin - Nun - Bonny River to Fernando Po (1863), pp.242-295 in : R.E. Burton, Wanderings in West Africa, Vol.2 New York : Dover 1991, KMLA Lib.Sign. 916.604 B974w
Article : Spain : Colonies, in : Statesman's Yearbook 1878 pp.418-420 [G]



This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted in 2001, last revised on April 8th 2007

Click here to go Home
Click here to go to Information about KMLA, WHKMLA, the author and webmaster
Click here to go to Statistics