Editing Equatorial Guinea (section)

=== Early 20th century (1900–1945) ===
{{Main|Spanish Guinea}}
[[File:Eq Guinea 1900 ES.PNG|thumb|Borders after the agreement of 1900 on the land that would become [[Spanish Guinea]], until the independence of 1968]]

Spain had not occupied the large area in the [[Bight of Biafra]] to which it had right by [[treaty]], and the French had expanded their occupation at the expense of the territory claimed by Spain. Madrid only partly backed the explorations of men like [[Manuel Iradier]] who had signed treaties in the interior as far as Gabon and Cameroon, leaving much of the land out of "effective occupation" as demanded by the terms of the 1885 [[Berlin Conference]]. Minimal government backing for mainland annexation came as a result of public opinion and a need for labour on Fernando Pó.<ref>Fegley, Randall (1989). ''Equatorial Guinea: An African Tragedy'', p. 18. Peter Lang, New York. {{ISBN|0-8204-0977-4}}</ref>

The eventual [[Treaty of Paris (1900)|treaty of Paris]] in 1900 left Spain with the continental [[enclave and exclave|enclave]] of Río Muni, only 26,000&nbsp;km{{sup|2}} out of the 300,000km{{sup|2}} stretching east to the [[Ubangi River|Ubangi river]] which the Spaniards had initially claimed.<ref name=Clarence-Smith>Clarence-Smith, William Gervase (1986) [http://es.scribd.com/doc/63545279/The-Cambridge-History-of-Africa-Volume-7-From-1905-to-1940-0521225051-1986 "Spanish Equatorial Guinea, 1898–1940"] in ''The Cambridge History of Africa: From 1905 to 1940'' Ed. J. D. Fage, A. D. Roberts, & Roland Anthony Oliver. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140220142411/http://es.scribd.com/doc/63545279/The-Cambridge-History-of-Africa-Volume-7-From-1905-to-1940-0521225051-1986 |date=20 February 2014 }}</ref> The humiliation of the Franco-Spanish negotiations, combined with the disaster in Cuba led to the head of the Spanish negotiating team, [[Pedro Gover y Tovar]], committing suicide on the voyage home on 21 October 1901.<ref name=autogenerated2>Fegley, Randall (1989). ''Equatorial Guinea: An African Tragedy'', p. 19. Peter Lang, New York. {{ISBN|0-8204-0977-4}}</ref> Iradier himself died in despair in 1911; decades later, the port of [[Cogo, Equatorial Guinea|Cogo]] was renamed Puerto Iradier in his honour.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}}

Land regulations issued in 1904–1905 favoured Spaniards, and most of the later big planters arrived from Spain after that.{{citation needed|date=November 2022}} An agreement was made with Liberia in 1914 to import cheap labor. Due to malpractice however, the Liberian government eventually ended the treaty after revelations about the state of Liberian workers on Fernando Pó in the Christy Report which brought down the country's president [[Charles D. B. King]] in 1930.{{citation needed|date=November 2022}}

[[File:Corisco-Saliendo de misa-1910.jpg|thumb|[[Corisco]] in 1910]]By the late nineteenth century, the Bubi were protected from the demands of the planters by Spanish [[Claretians|Claretian]] missionaries, who were very influential in the colony and eventually organised the Bubi into little mission theocracies reminiscent of the famous [[Jesuit]] [[Reducciones|reductions]] in [[Paraguay]]. Catholic penetration was furthered by two small insurrections in 1898 and 1910 protesting [[conscription]] of [[Forced labor|forced labour]] for the plantations. The Bubi were disarmed in 1917, and left dependent on the missionaries.<ref name="Clarence-Smith" /> Serious labour shortages were temporarily solved by a massive influx of refugees from German [[Kamerun]], along with thousands of white German soldiers who stayed on the island for several years.<ref name=autogenerated2 />

Between 1926 and 1959, Bioko and Río Muni were united as the colony of [[Spanish Guinea]]. The economy was based on large [[cocoa bean|cacao]] and [[coffee]] plantations and [[logging]] concessions and the workforce was mostly immigrant [[contract labour]] from [[Liberia]], [[Nigeria]], and [[Cameroun]].<ref>{{cite journal|author=Martino, Enrique|title=Clandestine Recruitment Networks in the Bight of Biafra: Fernando Pó's Answer to the Labour Question, 1926–1945|journal=International Review of Social History|volume=57|pages=39–72|url=http://www.opensourceguinea.org/2013/03/enrique-martino-clandestine-recruitment.html|doi=10.1017/s0020859012000417|year=2012|doi-access=free|access-date=22 September 2013|archive-date=24 October 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191024192516/http://www.opensourceguinea.org/2013/03/enrique-martino-clandestine-recruitment.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Between 1914 and 1930, an estimated 10,000 Liberians went to Fernando Po under a labour treaty that was stopped altogether in 1930.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Cambridge History of Africa, Volume 7|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1986|editor-last=Roberts|editor-first=A. D.|page=540}}</ref> With Liberian workers no longer available, planters of Fernando Po turned to Río Muni. Campaigns were mounted to subdue the [[Fang people]] in the 1920s, at the time that Liberia was beginning to cut back on recruitment. There were garrisons of the colonial guard throughout the enclave by 1926, and the whole colony was considered 'pacified' by 1929.<ref>{{Cite journal|doi=10.1080/14636204.2013.790703|title=La última selva de España: Antropófagos, misioneros y guardias civiles. Crónica de la conquista de los Fang de la Guinea Española, 1914–1930|journal=Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies|volume=13|issue=3|page=315|year=2012|last1=Castillo-Rodríguez|first1=S.|s2cid=145077430}}</ref>

[[File:Iberia- vuelo inaugural a Bata (Guinea) (1941) (5811105541).jpg|thumb|right|Inaugural flight with [[Iberia (airline)|Iberia]] from [[Madrid]] to [[Bata, Equatorial Guinea|Bata]], 1941]]

The [[Spanish Civil War]] had a major impact on the colony. A group of 150 Spanish whites, including the Governor-General and Vice-Governor-General of Río Muni, created a socialist party called the Popular Front in the enclave which served to oppose the interests of the Fernando Pó plantation owners. When the War broke out [[Francisco Franco]] ordered Nationalist forces based in the Canaries to ensure control over Equatorial Guinea. In September 1936, Nationalist forces backed by Falangists from Fernando Pó took control of Río Muni, which under Governor-General Luiz Sanchez Guerra Saez and his deputy Porcel had backed the Republican government. By November, the Popular Front and its supporters had been defeated and Equatorial Guinea secured for Franco. The commander in charge of the occupation, Juan Fontán Lobé, was appointed Governor-General by Franco and began to exert more Spanish control over the enclave interior.<ref>Fegley, Randall (1989). ''Equatorial Guinea: An African Tragedy''. New York: Peter Lang. pp. 20–21. {{ISBN|0-8204-0977-4}}.</ref>

Río Muni officially had a little over 100,000 people in the 1930s; escape into [[Cameroun]] or [[Gabon]] was easy. Fernando Pó thus continued to suffer from labour shortages. The French only briefly permitted recruitment in Cameroun, and the main source of labour came to be [[Igbo people|Igbo]] smuggled in canoes from [[Calabar]] in [[Nigeria]]. This resolution led to Fernando Pó becoming one of Africa's most productive agricultural areas after the [[Second World War]].<ref name="Clarence-Smith" />