French Equatorial Africa

French Equatorial Africa was a federation of French colonial possessions in central Africa that existed from 1910 to 1958, with its governor-general at Brazzaville. It brought together four territories: Gabon, the Middle Congo, Ubangi-Shari and Chad. In 1911 France ceded parts of the federation to German Kamerun after the Agadir crisis, recovering them after the First World War, when most of Cameroon itself became a French mandate outside the federation. The colony was notorious for the concession system, under which companies exploited rubber and ivory with forced labour; André Gide's Travels in the Congo, published in 1927, exposed the mutilations and killings that accompanied it and helped to discredit colonial rule in France. French authorities also moved against the slave-raiding Sultanate of Dar al Kuti, annexing it in 1912. In the 1920s André Matsoua founded a movement demanding French citizenship for Africans of the federation. During the Second World War the federation, except Gabon, rallied to Free France in August 1940; Gabon held out for Vichy until November, after which Brazzaville became the centre of Free French activity in Africa. In the 1958 referendum the territories chose autonomy within the French Community, and the federation was dissolved.