French West Africa (French: Afrique occidentale française, AOF) was a federation of eight French colonial territories in Africa: Mauritania, Senegal, French Sudan (now Mali), French Guinea (now Guinea), Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), Dahomey (now Benin) and Niger. It was formed from individual coastal colonies which the French had first seized as trading posts in the 17th and 18th centuries. As the French pursued the...
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French West Africa (French: Afrique occidentale française, AOF) was a federation of eight French colonial territories in Africa: Mauritania, Senegal, French Sudan (now Mali), French Guinea (now Guinea), Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), Dahomey (now Benin) and Niger. It was formed from individual coastal colonies which the French had first seized as trading posts in the 17th and 18th centuries. As the French pursued their part in the Scramble for Africa in the 1880s and 1890s, they conquered large inland areas, and at first ruled them as either part of the Senegal colony, or as independent entities, usually governed by French Army officers, and dubbed "Military Territories". In the late 1890s, the French government began to rein-in the territorial expansion of its officers on the ground, and transferred all the territories west of Gabon to a single Governor based in Senegal, reporting directly to the Minister of Overseas Affairs. The first Governor General...
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