Everything about French Congo totally explained
French Congo was the original
French colony established in the present-day area of the
Republic of the Congo,
Gabon, and the
Central African Republic. It began in
1880 as a
protectorate, and its borders with
Cabinda,
Cameroons, and the
Congo Free State were established by treaties over the next decade. The plan to develop the colony was to grant massive concessions to some thirty French companies. These were granted huge swaths of land on the promise they'd be developed. This development was limited and amounted mostly to the extraction of
ivory,
rubber, and
timber. These operations often involved great brutality and the near enslavement of the locals. See also
List of concessionnaires of the French Congo for a list of these companies.
Even with these measures most of the companies lost money. Only about ten earned profits. Many of the companies vast holdings existed only on paper with virtually no presence on the ground in
Africa.
French Congo was temporarily divided between Gabon and Middle Congo in
1906, before being reunited as
French Equatorial Africa in
1910 in an attempt to copy the relative success of
French West Africa.
Postage stamps
The first
postage stamps for the colony were
overprints issued in
1891 on the generic issue for the
French colonies. They read "
Congo francais" followed by the value, either 5c, 10c, or 15c. In
1892 the omnibus
Navigation and Commerce issue included stamps inscribed "
CONGO FRANCAIS". A pictorial series followed, in
1900; its images included a
leopard,
Bakalois woman, and a
coconut grove, printed in pairs of colors, some rather garish. A couple of provisional
surcharges on the Navigation and Commerce stamps proved necessary in
1900, and two more were needed on the pictorials, in
1903.
The
watermarks of the pictorials of 1900 are unlike any other watermarks used in the French area; they're plant branches, with
thistle for the low values (up to 15c),
rose for middle values (up to 75c), and an
olive branch for the three franc values.
Further Information
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