The French first showed up on Ivory Coast shores in 1637 when missionaries landed near the Gold Coast border, in an area that is now part of Ghana.
Today the Ivory Coast has one of the best soccer teams on the continent – as seen above. But in 1843 France began extending its conquest over Cote d’Ivoire. In 1893 France officially took over and the Ivory Coast became one of its colonies.
Between 1895 and 1958 Ivory Coast was part of an eight-territory French African coalition known as the Federation of French West Africa, complete with its own currency.
Prior to 1960 eight West African countries were considered French territories and although some of the names remained the same before and after independence — Guinea, Niger and Senegal for instance — other went through transformations. Under French jurisdiction, Benin was named Dahomey, Mali was known as French Sudan and present-day Burkina Faso was called the Upper Volta. Just one country’s names remain relatively interchangeable in English language publications today.
Although it is now officially known as Cote d’Ivoire, weirdly under French jurisdiction it was called the Ivory Coast. Today, at least in English language publications, both names are used.
Unlike the independence struggles of former British colonies, transition from France to local government was not bloody in Cote d’Ivoire. Félix Houphouët-Boigny, the country’s first president, presided until his death in 1993. He was almost arrested in 1950 after anti-colonial violence broke out in the territory he governed. He managed to leave his home moments before police arrive and was never taken into custody.
The son of a Baoulé chief and a cocoa farmer, Félix Houphouët-Boigny became known as Cote d’Ivoire’s “father of independence.” He created the country’s first agricultural trade union for African cocoa farmers in 1944, rising to prominence after uniting local cocoa farmers to recruit migrant workers to help on their farms in an effort to stop colonial policy favoring French plantation owners. The French abolished forced labor soon after.
Houphouët-Boigny was appointed to the French Parliament in Paris in the 1950s. Here he was able to establish a strong relationship with the French government. He was the first African to become a minister in a European government. As such he was able to help negotiate the 1956 Overseas Reform Act, which transferred a number of powers from Paris to elected territorial governments, like that in Cote d’Ivoire. By 1958 the country was an autonomous member of the French Community and by 1960 it had peacefully declared independence. Not surprisingly Houphouët-Boigny became the first president.
The country’s national anthem is the creative work of Mathieu Ekra, Joachim Bony and Pierre Marie Coty with the music itself composed by Coty and Pierre Michel Pango. The song is entitled “L’Abidjanaise,” meaning Song of Abidjan, and was adopted in 1960.
Aug. 7 is a national holiday in Cote d’Ivoire, packed with cultural activities, parties, military parades and processions in the capital city. The locally produced palm wine, bangui, makes a star appearance at these fetes as does the national staple of ripe bananas fried in palm oil.
