Vast federation of eight French colonies across western Africa.
French West Africa (Afrique occidentale française) began dissolving after the September 1958 French Community referendum, when Guinea voted no and became independent on 2 October 1958; the remaining seven territories became independent states in 1960: Senegal, Mali (formerly French Sudan), Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso (formerly Upper Volta), Benin (formerly Dahomey), Niger, and Mauritania.
The atlas holds 4 border frames for French West Africa — the shape you scrub through changes in 1895 · 1917 · 1925 · 1934.
On the governance and ideology of the French West African federation.
Broad modern African history for the wider West African colonial context.
Set during the real 1947-48 Dakar-Niger railway workers' strike across French Sudan and Senegal, a strong fit within colonial French West Africa's span (1895-1958).