Editing Economy of Guinea-Bissau (section)

==Economic history==

===Early colonialism===
{{main|Portuguese Guinea}}
[[Image:Flag of the Casa da Guiné.svg|thumb|140px|left|The flag of the [[Company of Guinea|Guinea Company]], a Portuguese company that traded in several commodities and slaves around the Guinea coast from the 15th century.]]
From a European viewpoint, the economic history of the Guinea Coast is largely associated with slavery. Indeed, one of the alternative names for the region was the [[Slave Coast of West Africa|Slave Coast]]. When the Portuguese first sailed down the Atlantic coast of Africa in the 1430s, they were interested in [[gold]]. Ever since [[Musa I of Mali|Mansa Musa]], king of the [[Mali Empire]], made his pilgrimage to [[Mecca]] in 1325, with 500 slaves and 100 camels (each carrying gold) the region had become synonymous with such wealth. The trade from [[sub-Saharan Africa]] was controlled by the [[Caliphate|Islamic Empire]] which stretched along Africa's northern coast. Muslim trade routes across the [[Sahara]], which had existed for centuries, involved salt, [[kola nut|kola]], textiles, fish, grain and slaves.<ref>[[Bill Epstein|A.L. Epstein]], Urban Communities in Africa - Closed Systems and Open Minds, 1964</ref>

As the Portuguese extended their influence around the coast, [[Mauritania]], [[Senegambia]] (by 1445) and [[Guinea]], they created [[trading post]]s. Rather than becoming direct competitors to the Muslim merchants, the expanding market opportunities in Europe and the Mediterranean resulted in increased trade across the Sahara.<ref>B.W. Hodder, Some Comments on the Origins of Traditional Markets in Africa South of the Sahara - Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 1965 - JSTOR</ref> In addition, the Portuguese merchants gained access to the interior via the [[Sénégal River|Sénégal]] and [[Gambia River|Gambia]] rivers which bisected long-standing trans-Saharan routes.<ref name="ReferenceA">H. Miner, The City in Modern Africa - 1967</ref>

The Portuguese brought in [[copper]] ware, cloth, tools, wine and horses. Trade goods soon also included arms and ammunition. In exchange, the Portuguese received gold (transported from mines of the [[Akan people|Akan]] deposits), [[Black pepper|pepper]] (a trade which lasted until [[Vasco da Gama]] reached India in 1498) and [[ivory]].<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

There was a very small market for African slaves as domestic workers in Europe, and as workers on the sugar plantations of the Mediterranean. The Portuguese found they could make considerable amounts of gold transporting slaves from one trading post to another, along the Atlantic coast of Africa. Muslim merchants had a high demand for slaves, which were used as porters on the [[trans-Saharan route]]s, and for sale in the Islamic Empire. The Portuguese found Muslim merchants entrenched along the African coast as far as the [[Bight of Benin]].<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

Before the arrival of the Europeans, the [[African slave trade]], centuries old in Africa, was not yet the major feature of the coastal economy of Guinea. The expansion of trade occurs after the Portuguese reach this region in 1446, bringing great wealth to several local slave trading tribes. The Portuguese used slave labour to colonize and develop the previously uninhabited [[Cape Verde]] islands where they founded settlements and grew [[cotton]] and [[indigo]]. They then traded these goods, in the estuary of the [[Geba River]], for black slaves captured by other black peoples in local African wars and raids.

The slaves were sold in Europe and, from the 16th century, in the [[Americas]]. The [[Company of Guinea]] was a Portuguese governative institution whose task was to deal with the [[spice]]s and to fix the prices of the goods. It was called ''Casa da Guiné'', ''Casa da Guiné e Mina'' from 1482 to 1483 and ''Casa da Índia e da Guiné'' in 1499. The local African rulers in Guinea, who prosper greatly from the slave trade, have no interest in allowing the Europeans any further inland than the fortified coastal settlements where the trading takes place. The Portuguese presence in Guinea was therefore largely limited to the port of [[Bissau]].

===Colonial era===

As with the other Portuguese territories in mainland Africa ([[Portuguese Angola]] and [[Portuguese Mozambique]]), Portugal exercised control over the coastal areas of Portuguese Guinea when first laying claim to the whole region as a colony. For three decades there are costly and continuous campaigns to suppress the local African rulers. By 1915 this process was complete, enabling Portuguese colonial rule to progress in a relatively unruffled state - until the emergence of nationalist movements all over Africa in the 1950s.

For a brief period in the 1790s the British attempted to establish a rival foothold on an offshore island, at [[Bolama Island|Bolama]], but by the 19th century the Portuguese were sufficiently secure in Bissau to regard the neighbouring coastline as their own special territory. It was therefore natural for Portugal to lay claim to this region, soon to be known as Portuguese Guinea, when the European [[scramble for Africa]] began in the 1880s. Britain's interest in the region declined since the end of the British slave trade in 1807. After the abolition of slavery in the Portuguese overseas territories in the 1830s, the slave trade went into serious decline.

Portugal's main rivals were the French, their colonial neighbours along the coast on both sides - in [[Senegal]] and in the region which became [[French Guinea]]. The Portuguese presence in Guinea was not disputed by the French. The only point at issue was the precise line of the borders. This was established by agreement between the two colonial powers in two series of negotiations, in 1886 and 1902–5. Until the end of the 19th century, [[rubber]] was the main export.

===As an overseas province===
In 1951, when the Portuguese government overhauled the entire colonial system, all Portugal's colonies, including Portuguese Guinea, were renamed Overseas Provinces (''Províncias Ultramarinas''). New infrastructures were built for education, health, agriculture, transportation, commerce, services, and administration.

[[Cashew]], [[peanut]], [[rice]], [[timber]], [[livestock]] and fish were the main economic productions. The port of Bissau was one of the main employers and a very important source of taxes for the province's authorities.

====Independence war====
The fight for independence began in 1956, when [[Amílcar Cabral]] founded the ''[[Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde]]'' ({{langx|pt|African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde}}), the PAIGC. In 1961, when a purely political campaign for independence had made predictably little progress, the PAIGC adopted [[guerrilla]] tactics. Although heavily outnumbered by Portuguese troops (approximately 30,000 Portuguese to some 10,000 guerrillas), the PAIGe had the great advantage of safe havens over the border in [[Senegal]] and [[Guinea]], both recently independent of French rule.

Several communist countries supported the guerrillas with weapons and military training. The conflict in [[Portuguese Guinea]] involving the PAIGC guerrillas and the [[Portuguese Army]] was the most intense and damaging of all [[Portuguese Colonial War]]. Thus, during the 1960s and early 1970s, Portuguese development plans promoting strong economic growth and effective socioeconomic policies, like those applied by the Portuguese in the other two theaters of war ([[Portuguese Angola]] and [[Portuguese Mozambique]]), were not possible. In 1972 Cabral set up a government in exile in [[Conakry]], the capital of neighbouring [[Guinea]]. It was there, in 1973, that he was assassinated outside his house - just a year before a [[Carnation Revolution|left-wing military coup in Portugal]] dramatically altered the political situation.

By 1973 the PAIGC controlled most of the interior of the country, while the coastal and estuary towns, including the main population and economic centres, remained under Portuguese control. The village of [[Madina do Boé]] in the southeasternmost area of the territory, close to the border with neighbouring [[Guinea]], was the location where PAIGC guerrillas declared the independence of Guinea-Bissau on September 24, 1973. The war in the colonies was increasingly unpopular in Portugal itself, as the people got weary of war and balked at its ever-rising expense. Following the [[Carnation Revolution|coup d'état in Portugal in 1974]], the new [[Movimento das Forças Armadas|left-wing revolutionary government of Portugal]] began to negotiate with the PAIGC and decided to offer independence to all the overseas territories.

===After independence===
As his brother [[Amílcar Cabral]] had been assassinated in 1973, [[Luís Cabral]] became the first president of independent Guinea-Bissau in the time after independence was granted on September 10, 1974. Already as the President of Guinea-Bissau, Luís Cabral tried to impose a [[planned economy]] in the country, and supported a [[socialist]] model that left the economy of Guinea-Bissau itself ruined. Similarly, the repression imposed on the population by his authoritarian single-party regime,<ref>[http://www.ipri.pt/artigos/artigo.php?ida=104 Widening trajectories: Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde since independence, Norrie MacQueen] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150423212017/http://www.ipri.pt/artigos/artigo.php?ida=104 |date=April 23, 2015 }}</ref> and severe food shortages, also left marks. 

Luís Cabral served from 1974 to 1980, when a military ''[[coup d'état]]'' led by [[João Bernardo "Nino" Vieira]] deposed him. Despite having always denied it, Luís Cabral was accused of being responsible for the death of a large number of black Guinea-Bissauan soldiers who had fought along with the [[Portuguese Army]] against the PAIGC guerrillas during the [[Portuguese Colonial War]].<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=O313hgXUedsC&pg=PA237&dq=lu%C3%ADs+cabral+guinea A history of postcolonial Lusophone Africa], A history of postcolonial Lusophone Africa, [[Patrick Chabal]], Edition: C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2002, {{ISBN|1-85065-594-4}}, {{ISBN|978-1-85065-594-7}}</ref> After the military coup, in 1980 PAIGC admitted in its official newspaper "Nó Pintcha" (dated November 29, 1980) that many were executed and buried in unmarked collective graves in the woods of Cumerá, Portogole and Mansabá. All these events did not help the new country to reach the level of prosperity, economic growth and development the new rulers had promised to its population.

In 1985 the first Chinese oversees fishing fleet to go abroad was sent to Guinea-Bissau, 13 trawlers from the [[China National Fisheries Corporation]].<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Urbina |first1=Ian |title=THE CRIMES BEHIND THE SEAFOOD YOU EAT |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/16/the-crimes-behind-the-seafood-you-eat |magazine=The New Yorker |publisher=newyorker.com |access-date=18 November 2023}}</ref>

In May 1997 Guinea-Bissau joined the francophone West African Monetary Union. Consequently, [[National Bank of Guinea-Bissau]] was converted as a national branch of [[Central Bank of West African States]], and the national currency [[Guinea Bissau peso]] was replaced by [[West African CFA franc]].<ref name="histdict">{{cite book |last1=Mendy |first1=Peter Michael Karibe |last2=Lobban |first2=Richard |title=Historical dictionary of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau |date=2013 |publisher=Scarecrow Press |location=Lanham (Md.) |isbn=978-0-8108-8027-6 |edition=4th}}</ref>