The Gabonese Republic sits on the Atlantic coast of Central Africa. The nation is bordered by Equatorial Guinea on the northwest, Cameroon to the north, and the Republic of the Congo on the east and south. As of mid-year 2024, the population is estimated at 2.5 million people. The capital and largest city, Libreville, has a population of 700,000.
Africa’s “little Emirate”
Gabon is one of the richest countries in sub-Saharan Africa in terms of per-capita GDP. The nation’s wealth comes from large offshore oil reserves discovered in the 1970s. It is the fifth-largest oil producer in Africa also has the seventh-largest oil reserves on the continent. Oil has been the mainstay of the economy, accounting for 60% of the government’s revenue. In 2022, oil accounted for 51% of Gabon’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), up from 38.50% in 2021. This resource also accounts for 80% of Gabon’s exports. These reserves have allowed the nation to build a strong middle class and earn the moniker “central Africa’s little Emirate”.
Widespread poverty
Despite this designation, Gabon’s wealth is not evenly distributed, and poverty is widespread. In 2021, the UNDP Human Development Index ranked Gabon 112 out of 191 countries. World Bank has estimated that 30% of the population of 2.3 million people live below the poverty threshold of $5.50 per day.
Gabon also has the world’s largest manganese deposit and is the fourth largest producer of minerals. Other minerals found in Gabon include diamonds, zinc, lead, iron ore, uranium, phosphate, niobium, potash, and marble. However, Gabon’s reliance on resource extraction has not helped to “extract” many people from the grips of extreme poverty.
Government social programs
In an effort to assist the most destitute of society, the government has designed social programs based around education and income generating activities. However, non-contributory social assistance for the poor is still underfunded and poorly targeted. Income-generating activities, such as developing value chains for bananas, cassava, and peanuts, to benefit poor rural people have been initiated with limited success. The attempt at better aligning the education system with employment opportunities for the most vulnerable of society has also failed to make a great impact. While these programs and activities have been designed to target the most indigent, they have not significantly decreased the disparities between the classes.
The Bongos
Despite a flagging economy, rising costs of living and growing inequality, the middle class has managed to thrive. One family and their social circle, in particular, have amassed extraordinary wealth – the family of the former President, Ali Bongo.
The Bongo family established a dynasty, ruling Gabon for 56 years! Omar Bongo ruled from 1967 until his death in 2009, almost 42 years. His son, Ali, ruled from 2009 until the coup in 2023, just shy of 14 years. With the wealth gap fueling popular resentment, their vise-like hold on power ended in 2023 with a coup. The Bongos have amassed so much wealth a term has been named after them, the “Bongo system”.
The “Bongo system” describes corrupt and unscrupulous activities that led to the former President’s family owning at least 40 properties in France and funneling substantial wealth into offshore tax havens. The Bongo’s known wealth has been estimated to be the equivalent of $94.5 million dollars. The Bongos flaunted their status as one of Africa’s richest first families, maintaining fleets of luxury cars in a country with fewer miles of paved roads than of oil pipelines.
Currently, the country is ruled by General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema. Oligui, the coup leader, headed the republican guard and is a cousin of ousted former President Ali Bongo Ondimba.
Language
French is the official language of Gabon but approximately 40 indigenous languages are also spoken. Students learn both French and the “mother tongue”, Fang, in school. The majority of Gabon’s indigenous languages are Bantu in origin and estimated to be more than 2,000 years old.
History
Gabon has been inhabited for more than 400,000 years. According to UNESCO, people have lived in Gabon since the Paleolithic era (3 million to 12,000 years ago). The first inhabitants were the Pygmies who settled there during the late Stone Age. The oldest reference to the pygmy people dates back to 2276 B.C.
The term pygmy is derived from the Greek word “pygme” or “fist”. The term is generally applied to a member of any human group whose males are less than 59 inches in average height or approximately 4.5 Greek “fists”. This description references the days when a man’s fist was used as a unit of length. It is believed the tribe descended from the hunter-gatherers of the central African rainforest and were replaced by Bantu-speaking migrants during the Iron Age.
Genetic research suggests that the Pygmies and Bantus were originally one population that began to diverge around 70,000 years ago. The Pygmies then split again 20,000 years ago into Eastern and Western groups.
The Bantu peoples
The Bantu-speaking Myene people migrated to the area in the 13th century and established coastal fishing communities. The Myene speak a cluster of languages.
The Bantu peoples are an ethnolinguistic group comprised of approximately 400 distinct sub-groups, including hunter-gatherers and trading nations, which originated in West Central Africa. The Bantus speak over 500 tribal dialects and are native to 24 countries across central, southeastern, and southern Africa.
The word Bantu comes from the Zulu word Abantu, which means “people”.
The Bantu people began to migrate from their homeland 4,000 to 5,000 years ago after learning to farm. They eventually settled throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. As of 2010, there were about 350 million Bantu speakers. This represents roughly 30% of Africa’s population and 5% of the world’s population. Some examples of Bantu communities include: the Shona of Zimbabwe, the Zulu of South Africa, the Luba of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Sukuma of Tanzania, and the Kikuyu of Kenya.
The Fang people
The Bantu were followed by the most prevalent tribe, the Fangs (Loango Empire) in the 16th century. The Fang are the largest ethnic group in Gabon and make up about a quarter of the population. They also have a presence in Cameroon, as well as Equatorial Guinea where they comprise 85% of the population.
Many Fang people are fluent in Spanish, French, German and English, a tradition of second language they developed during the colonial rules of the Spanish in Equatorial Guinea, the French in Gabon and the German & French in Cameroon. The Fang migrated en masse from the northwest in the 18th and 19th centuries.
They live in forest clearings in villages that are governed by male chiefs who are descendants of the village’s founder. Land is passed down indefinitely within the village.
The Fang are known for ancestor worship. Each family has a byeri, or reliquary box, that contains the bones of their ancestors. The relics of ancestors, especially skulls, are believed to possess great spiritual power. The Fang believe ancestors are the guardians of the living world, as well as the afterlife. It is also believed that the prosperity of a community depends on how they honor their ancestors. Ancestors are deemed dangerous if they aren’t honored regularly through rituals.
The Fang perform rituals that include prayers, libations, and sacrifices to the ancestors and rub the ancestor’s skull with powder and paint. The byeri is also used for therapeutic rituals and to initiate young males during the So festival.
The colonizers
The Portuguese
The Europeans arrived at the end of the 15th century. The Portuguese landed in 1472 and it is from their language that the name Gabon was derived. “Gabão” is the Portuguese word for cloak, which is roughly the shape of the estuary of the Komo River by Libreville, Gabon’s capitol.
At the arrival of the Portuguese, portions of southern Gabon were loosely linked to the state of Loango, which in turn formed a province of the vast Kongo kingdom (current) to the south. From the offshore islands of Sao Tome and Principe, the Portuguese established sugar plantations and developed trade with the mainland. Never one to miss an economic opportunity, the Dutch, French, Spanish, and English soon arrived like vultures to a kill. From the late 1500s, they also exchanged cloth, iron goods, firearms, and alcoholic beverages for hardwoods and ivory.
While the Portuguese arrived first, the French were the first colonizers, landing in 1875 then officially occupying Gabon in 1885.
The slave trade
This period also saw the beginnings of the trade in men in the late 1500s. As they did throughout the continent, the Europeans (Portuguese, followed by the Spaniards and English) quickly ushered in a period of widespread slavery.
The slave trade achieved extensive development between the 1760s and 1840s, as a result of heightened demand from Brazil and Cuba. Interior peoples sent “undesirables” from their own societies and captives from warfare to the coast. There they were collected in barracoons (temporary enclosures) to await the arrival of European ships.
The Orungu clans at Cape Lopez organized a kingdom whose power rested on control of the slave trade through the mouth of the Ogooué River. The Mpongwe clans of the estuary were already important traders and profited greatly from the slave trade, as did the Vili of Loango whose activities extended throughout southern Gabon.
The Fang refused to participate
While many groups in Gabon participated in the slave trade, the Fang were a notable exception. The Fang, who were migrating southward from Cameroon into the forests north of the Ogooué, refused to participate in the trade of their brethren or engage in warfare to obtain them. Despite this, the slave trade endured for 350 years.
The Brits
The Industrial Revolution in Britain is generally considered to have taken place between 1760 and 1840. This period introduced a new incentive for trading in Africa: goods for raw materials, specifically timber and rubber from Gabon. For European countries, securing trading privileges in as many areas as possible was a priority. By 1800, the British had already become the leading traders in manufactures throughout the Gulf of Guinea. Added incentive for the European foray into Gabon was a newfound desire to end the slave trade, as well as missionary zeal to “convert and civilize Africans”.
You may be wondering what caused the change of heart regarding the sale of men. The struggle to end the transatlantic slave trade and slavery was achieved by African resistance, economic factors, and humanitarian campaigns. The most prominent abolitionists in Britain were great publicists and pressured the British parliament to abolish the practice. Opinion in Europe was also changing and moral, religious and humanitarian arguments against the slave trade found increasing support. A vigorous campaign for abolition began in Britain in 1783 and also developed in North America and the Caribbean.
Abolished yet not abandoned
Britain and other countries abolished the slave trade from 1807 forward yet illegal trading continued for another 60 years. About a quarter of all Africans who were enslaved between 1500 and 1870 were transported across the Atlantic in the years after 1807. Much of this illegal trade was to the sugar plantations of Cuba and Brazil.
From 1815 to 1865, the British Royal Navy undertook antislavery patrols off the West African coast, seizing hundreds of vessels. Britain was forced to pay compensation for seized ships and to encourage other countries, such as Spain and Portugal, to abolish slaving. After 1815, the French sought to compete more actively in the commercial sphere and joined Britain in combating the slave trade.
Although humanitarian considerations were important let’s not downplay the economic interests that were also at stake. Cuba and Brazil were competitors to British West Indian sugar production. This competition meant the slave trade was no longer as profitable as it used to be. The penalties exacted for getting caught slaving began to outweigh the potential profits, especially for Liverpool merchants exploring the developing palm oil trade with West Africa.
The official end
To these ends, French admiral, Édouard Bouët-Willaumez, negotiated treaties with the heads of two Mpongwe rulers. In 1839, he established a treaty with Antchoué Komé Rapontcombo and in 1841, he established one with Anguilè Ré-Dowé. Under the terms of the agreements, both rulers agreed to end the slave trade and to accept French sovereignty over their lands.
Rapontcombo came to be known as King Denis by the French and Anguilè Ré-Dowé came to be called King Louis.
The French
In 1839, the French established the first permanent European settlement in the region. Gabon became part of French Equatorial Africa, along with Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, and Chad.
Libreville
The area around the current capital, Libreville, had been inhabited by the Mpongwe people for some 2,000 years. It is likely they began to become more concentrated in the region in the 16th century in order to take advantage of trading opportunities with visiting Europeans. The Mpongwe gradually became the middlemen between the coast and the interior peoples such as the Bakèlè and Séké. From about the 1770s, the Mpongwe also became involved in the slave trade. By the 1830s, Mpongwe trade consisted of slaves, dyewood, ebony, rubber, ivory, and gum copal in exchange for cloth, iron, firearms, and liquor.
In the 1840s, the Mpongwe consisted of 6,000-7,000 free people and 6,000 slaves, spread across two dozen clans. There was significant inter-clan rivalry and it was this infighting that allowed the French to establish a foothold. While Kings Denis and Louis entered into agreements with the French in 1839 and 1841 respectively, King R’Ogouarowe (known as King Glass) submitted only after a bombardment by the French in 1845.
The arrival of missionaries
American Protestant missionaries arrived in northern Gabon to open a school in May 1842. The area they selected happened to be the land of King Glass, which was also the center of British, American, and German commercial activity. In response to all this activity and to protect their “interests”, the French established Fort d’Aumale within the territory of King Louis in 1843.
To level the playing field, in 1844, France brought in Roman Catholic missionaries to promote French cultural influence among the Mpongwe and neighboring peoples.
The combination of slave trade suppression and the Europeans establishing direct contact with the interior greatly reduced Mpongwe fortunes. The Kingdom of Orungu, which had become dependent upon the profits of the slave trade, quickly fell in the 1870s once trade had ended. Missionary schools, however, provided some respite as they became the conduit for young people to obtain employment with the colonial government.
The founding of Libreville
In 1846, the French navy captured a slave ship en route to Brazil. The ship, named the L’Eliza, was captured near Loango with 260 Africans aboard. The captives were freed and taken to the Island of Goree in Senegal. After an intervention from Paris, 52 of the 260 returned to Gabon. In 1849, French Governor Louis-Edouard Bouët-Willaumez founded Libreville as a settlement for the slaves freed from the ship. Libreville was combined with Fort-d’Aumale, which was built in 1843, and formed the nucleus of the capital city.
Libreville is French for “free town”. The name was selected as a tribute to the capital of Sierra Leone and as a nod to the status of the new residents.
As you can see, the city served several purposes before becoming the chief port of the colony of French Equatorial Africa. By the time of Gabonese independence in 1960, the city was a trading post and minor administrative center with a population of 32,000. Since 1960, Libreville has grown rapidly and now is home to one-third of the national population.
Increasing French control
During the 1850s and ’60s, the French gradually extended their control along the coast and sent explorers into the interior.
French explorer Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza first encountered Africa in 1872 while sailing on an anti-slavery mission near Gabon. In 1874, de Brazza made two trips into the interior, up the Gabon and Ogooué Rivers. After returning home , de Brazza convinced the French government to allow him to explore further and he led his first mission to the Gabon-Congo area. The mission, which lasted from 1875-1878, was deemed a success. Hungry for more, the French government authorized a second mission to the Congo Basin from 1879 to 1882. The second mission was aimed at ensuring that explorer Henry M. Stanley didn’t claim the entire area for Leopold II of Belgium.
In 1866, the French established the colony of French Congo, which included both Gabon and the Congo. Pierre de Brazza was appointed governor and founded the city of Brazzaville in the current Republic of Congo. In 1888, the Congo was separated from Gabon, and the remaining area was renamed Gabon-Congo.
Ravaged by smallpox thanks to the colonizers
One unforeseen consequence of interacting with the colonizers was the introduction of smallpox. By 1884, the population had been decimated with only 3,000 Mpongwe left. The Fang were now the pre-eminent tribe yet they began to migrate northward. As they shifted northward, many Mpongwe converted to urban life. By the early 20th century, the Mpongwe had become leaders in both the French colony and independent Gabon.
French Equatorial Africa
In 1910, Gabon became one of the four colonies within the federation of French Equatorial Africa. The federation consisted of the region now known as Gabon, Congo, Central African Republic and Chad. It existed from 1910 to 1958 and its administration was based in Brazzaville, Congo. French occupation of the interior of Gabon brought little opposition, but interference with trade, the levying of taxes and forced labor incited considerable resistance from 1898 through 1914.
March to Independence
In the period between the two world wars, a pro-French but anti-colonial elite began to grow in France. From their ranks came most of the politicians who held office during the Fourth French Republic (1946–58). It was during this period that Gabon became an overseas territory with its own assembly and representation in the French Parliament. By 1958, Gabon had become an autonomous republic within the French Community. Next step were cooperation agreements with France resulting in the nation achieving its independence on Aug. 17, 1960.
Up Next: Gabon
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