Editing Ivory Coast (section)

===French colonial era===
[[File:Arrivée à Kong-1892.jpg|thumb|Arrival in [[Kong, Côte d'Ivoire|Kong]] of [[Louis-Gustave Binger]] in 1892]]
By the end of the 1880s, France had established control over the coastal regions, and in 1889 Britain recognised French sovereignty in the area.<ref name=":5" /> That same year, France named Treich-Laplène the titular governor of the territory.<ref name=":5" /> In 1893, Ivory Coast became a French colony, with its capital in Grand-Bassam, and Captain Binger was appointed governor.<ref name=":5" /> Agreements with Liberia in 1892 and with Britain in 1893 determined the eastern and western boundaries of the colony, but the northern boundary was not fixed until 1947 because of efforts by the French government to attach parts of Upper Volta (present-day [[Burkina Faso]]) and [[French Sudan]] (present-day Mali) to Ivory Coast for economic and administrative reasons.<ref name=":5" />

France's main goal was to stimulate the production of exports. Coffee, cocoa, and palm oil crops were soon planted along the coast. Ivory Coast stood out as the only West African country with a sizeable population of European settlers; elsewhere in West and Central Africa, Europeans who emigrated to the colonies were largely bureaucrats. As a result, French citizens owned one-third of the cocoa, coffee, and banana [[plantation]]s and adopted the local forced-labour system.{{Citation needed|date=September 2021}}

[[File:French West Africa 1913 map.png|thumb|left|Colonies of [[French West Africa]] {{Circa|1913}}]]
Throughout the early years of French rule, French military contingents were sent inland to establish new posts.<ref name=":5" /> The African population resisted French penetration and settlement, even in areas where treaties of protection had been in force.<ref name=":5" /> Among those offering the greatest resistance was [[Samori Ture]], who in the 1880s and 1890s was establishing the [[Wassoulou Empire]], which extended over large parts of present-day Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast.<ref name=":5" /> Ture's large, well-equipped army, which could manufacture and repair its own firearms, attracted strong support throughout the region.<ref name=":5" /> The French responded to Ture's expansion and conquest with military pressure.<ref name=":5" /> French campaigns against Ture, which were met with fierce resistance, intensified in the mid-1890s until he was captured in 1898 and his empire dissolved.<ref name=":5" />

France's imposition of a [[Poll tax|head tax]] in 1900 to support the colony's [[public works]] program provoked protests.<ref name=":6">{{Harvnb|Warner|1988|p=11}}.</ref> Many Ivorians saw the tax as a violation of the protectorate treaties because they felt that France was demanding the equivalent of a ''coutume'' from the local kings, rather than the reverse.<ref name=":6" /> Many, especially in the interior, also considered the tax a humiliating symbol of submission.<ref name=":6" /> In 1905, the French officially abolished [[Slavery in Africa|slavery]] in most of French West Africa.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.yale.edu/agrarianstudies/colloqpapers/16peterson.pdf|title=Slave Emancipation and the Expansion of Islam, 1905–1914|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130502161407/http://www.yale.edu/agrarianstudies/colloqpapers/16peterson.pdf |archive-date=2 May 2013|date= 2 May 2013|page=11 }}</ref> From 1904 to 1958, Ivory Coast was part of the Federation of [[French West Africa]].<ref name=":9" /> It was a colony and an overseas territory under the [[French Third Republic|Third Republic]].<ref name=":9" /> In World War I, France organized regiments from Ivory Coast to fight in France, and colony resources were rationed from 1917 to 1919.{{Citation needed|date=September 2021}} Until the period following [[World War II]], governmental affairs in French West Africa were administered from Paris.<ref name=":9" /> France's policy in West Africa was reflected mainly in its philosophy of "association", meaning that all Africans in Ivory Coast were officially French "subjects" but without rights to representation in Africa or France.<ref name=":9" />
[[File:Almamy Samory Touré.jpg|thumb|[[Samori Touré]], founder and leader of the [[Wassoulou Empire]] which resisted French rule in West Africa]]

[[French colonial empires#Second French colonial empire|French colonial policy]] incorporated concepts of [[cultural assimilation|assimilation]] and association.<ref name=":7">{{Harvnb|Warner|1988|p=12}}.</ref> Based on the assumed superiority of French culture, in practice the assimilation policy meant the extension of the French language, institutions, laws, and customs to the colonies.<ref name=":7" /> The policy of association also affirmed the superiority of the French in the colonies, but it entailed different institutions and systems of laws for the coloniser and the colonised.<ref name=":7" /> Under this policy, the Africans in Ivory Coast were allowed to preserve their own customs insofar as they were compatible with French interests.<ref name=":7" />

An indigenous elite trained in French administrative practice formed an intermediary group between French and Africans.<ref name=":7" /> After 1930, a small number of Westernized Ivorians were granted the right to apply for French citizenship.<ref name=":7" /> Most Ivorians, however, were classified as French subjects and were governed under the principle of association.<ref name=":7" /> As subjects of France, natives outside the civilised elite had no political rights.<ref name=":8">{{Harvnb|Warner|1988|p=14}}.</ref> They were drafted for work in mines, on plantations, as porters, and on public projects as part of their tax responsibility.<ref name=":8" /> They were expected to serve in the military and were subject to the ''[[indigénat]]'', a separate system of law.<ref name=":8" />

During World War II, the [[Vichy France|Vichy regime]] remained in control until 1943, when members of General [[Charles de Gaulle]]'s provisional government assumed control of all French West Africa.<ref name=":9" /> The [[Brazzaville Conference]] of 1944, the first Constituent Assembly of the [[French Fourth Republic|Fourth Republic]] in 1946, and France's gratitude for African loyalty during World War II, led to far-reaching governmental reforms in 1946.<ref name=":9" /> French citizenship was granted to all African "subjects", the right to organise politically was recognised, and various forms of forced labour were abolished.<ref name=":9" /> Between 1944 and 1946, many national conferences and constituent assemblies took place between France's government and provisional governments in Ivory Coast.{{Citation needed|date=September 2021}} Governmental reforms were established by late 1946, which granted French citizenship to all African "subjects" under the colonial control of the French.{{Citation needed|date=September 2021}}

Until 1958, governors appointed in Paris administered the colony of Ivory Coast, using a system of direct, centralised administration that left little room for Ivorian participation in policy-making.<ref name=":7" /> The French colonial administration also adopted divide-and-rule policies, applying ideas of assimilation only to the educated elite.<ref name=":7" /> The French were also interested in ensuring that the small but influential Ivorian elite was sufficiently satisfied with the ''status quo'' to refrain from developing [[anti-French sentiment]]s and calls for independence.<ref name=":7" /> Although strongly opposed to the practices of association, educated Ivorians believed that they would achieve equality in the French colonial system through assimilation rather than through complete independence from France.<ref name=":7" /> After the assimilation doctrine was implemented through the postwar reforms, though, Ivorian leaders realised that even assimilation implied the superiority of the French over the Ivorians and that discrimination and inequality would end only with independence.<ref name=":7" />