Editing Ivory Coast (section)

===Establishment of French rule===
Compared to neighbouring Ghana, Ivory Coast, though practising slavery and slave raiding, suffered little from the [[Atlantic slave trade|slave trade]].<ref name=":3">{{Harvnb|Warner|1988|pp=7–8}}.</ref> European slave and merchant ships preferred other areas along the coast.<ref name=":3" /> The earliest recorded European voyage to West Africa was made by the [[Portuguese Empire|Portuguese]] in 1482.{{Citation needed|date=September 2021}} The first West African French settlement, [[Saint-Louis, Senegal|Saint-Louis]], was founded in the mid-17th century in Senegal, while at about the same time, the Dutch ceded to the French a settlement at [[Gorée|Gorée Island]], off [[Dakar]].<ref name=":4">{{Harvnb|Warner|1988|p=8}}.</ref> A French [[Mission (station)|mission]] was established in 1687 at [[Assinie-Mafia|Assinie]] near the border with the [[Gold Coast (British colony)|Gold Coast]] (now Ghana).<ref name=":4" /> The Europeans suppressed the local practice of slavery at this time and forbade the trade to their merchants.{{Citation needed|date=September 2021}}

Assinie's survival was precarious, however; the French were not firmly established in Ivory Coast until the mid-19th century.<ref name=":4" /> In 1843–44, French Admiral [[Édouard Bouët-Willaumez|Louis Édouard Bouët-Willaumez]] signed treaties with the kings of the [[Grand-Bassam]] and Assinie regions, making their territories a French protectorate.<ref name=":9">{{Cite web|date=October 2003|title=Background Note: Cote d'Ivoire|url=http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2846.htm|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040229154948/http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2846.htm|archive-date=29 February 2004|publisher=[[U.S. Department of State]]}}{{PD-notice}}</ref> French explorers, missionaries, trading companies, and soldiers gradually extended the area under French control inland from the lagoon region.<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":9" /> Pacification was not accomplished until 1915.<ref name=":9" />

Activity along the coast stimulated European interest in the interior, especially along the two great rivers, the [[Senegal River|Senegal]] and the [[Niger River|Niger]].<ref name=":4" /> Concerted French exploration of West Africa began in the mid-19th century but moved slowly, based more on individual initiative than on government policy.<ref name=":4" /> In the 1840s, the French concluded a series of treaties with local West African chiefs that enabled the French to build fortified posts along the Gulf of Guinea to serve as permanent trading centres.<ref name=":4" /> The first posts in Ivory Coast included one at Assinie and another at Grand-Bassam, which became the colony's first capital.<ref name=":4" /> The treaties provided for French sovereignty within the posts and for trading privileges in exchange for fees or ''[[coutume]]s'' paid annually to the local chiefs for the use of the land.<ref name=":4" /> The arrangement was not entirely satisfactory to the French, because trade was limited and misunderstandings over treaty obligations often arose.<ref name=":4" /> Nevertheless, the French government maintained the treaties, hoping to expand trade.<ref name=":4" /> France also wanted to maintain a presence in the region to stem the increasing influence of the British along the Gulf of Guinea coast.<ref name=":4" />
[[File:Aouabou-Traité-1892.jpg|thumb|[[Louis-Gustave Binger]] of French West Africa in 1892 treaty signing with [[Famienkro]] leaders, in present-day N'zi-Comoé Region, Ivory Coast]]
The defeat of France in the [[Franco-Prussian War]] in 1871 and the subsequent annexation by Germany of the French province of [[Alsace–Lorraine]] initially caused the French government to abandon its colonial ambitions and withdraw its military garrisons from its West African trading posts, leaving them in the care of resident merchants.<ref name=":4" /> The trading post at Grand-Bassam was left in the care of a shipper from [[Marseille]], [[Arthur Verdier]], who in 1878 was named [[Resident minister|Resident]] of the Establishment of Ivory Coast.<ref name=":4" />

In 1886, to support its claims of effective occupation, France again assumed direct control of its West African coastal trading posts and embarked on an accelerated program of exploration in the interior.<ref>{{Harvnb|Warner|1988|p=9}}.</ref> In 1887, Lieutenant [[Louis-Gustave Binger]] began a two-year journey that traversed parts of Ivory Coast's interior. By the end of the journey, he had concluded four treaties establishing French protectorates in Ivory Coast.<ref name=":5">{{Harvnb|Warner|1988|p=10}}.</ref> Also in 1887, Verdier's agent, [[Marcel Treich-Laplène]], negotiated five additional agreements that extended French influence from the headwaters of the Niger River Basin through Ivory Coast.<ref name=":5" />