Spanish Africa

Spanish Africa is one of the Colonies in Africa which is located South of the Maharajahnate of Morocco and West of Italian Sudan and South Germany. The Colony is a colony of Spain that is the 2nd largest colony in Africa following South Germany itself.

## History

### Origins

In 1778, Queen Maria I of Portugal and King Charles III of Spain signed the Treaty of El Pardo which ceded Bioko, adjacent islets, and commercial rights to the Bight of Biafra between the Niger and Ogoue rivers to Spain. Brigadier Felipe José, Count of Arjelejos sailed from Uruguay to formally take possession of Bioko from Portugal, landing on the island on 21 October 1778. After sailing for Annobón to take possession, the Count died of disease caught on Bioko and the fever-ridden crew mutinied. The crew landed on São Tomé instead where they were imprisoned by the Portuguese authorities after having lost over 80% of their men to sickness. As a result of this disaster, Spain was thereafter hesitant to invest heavily in their new possession. However, despite the setback Spaniards began to use the island as a base for slave trading on the nearby mainland. Between 1778 and 1810, the territory of what became Equatorial Guinea was administered by the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, based in Buenos Aires.

Unwilling to invest heavily in the development of Fernando Pó, from 1827 to 1843, the Spanish leased a base at Malabo on Bioko to the United Kingdom which they had sought as part of their efforts to suppress the transatlantic slave trade. Without Spanish permission, the British moved the headquarters of the Mixed Commission for the Suppression of Slave Traffic to Fernando Pó in 1827, before moving it back to Sierra Leone under an agreement with Spain in 1843. Spain's decision to abolish slavery in 1817 at British insistence damaged the colony's perceived value to the authorities and so leasing naval bases was an effective revenue earner from an otherwise unprofitable possession. An agreement by Spain to sell their African colony to the British was cancelled in 1841 due to metropolitan public opinion and opposition by Spanish Congress.

In 1844, the British returned the island to Spanish control and the area became known as the "Territorios Españoles del Golfo de Guinea." Due to epidemics Spain did not invest much in the colony, and in 1862 an outbreak of yellow fever killed many of the whites that had settled on the island. Despite this, plantations continued to be established by private citizens through the second half of the 19th century.

The plantations of Fernando Pó were mostly run by a black Creole elite, later known as Fernandinos. The British settled some 2,000 Sierra Leoneans and freed slaves there during their rule, and a trickle of immigration from West Africa and the West Indies continued after the British left. A number of freed Angolan slaves, Portuguese-African creoles and immigrants from Nigeria and Liberia also began to be settled in the colony where they quickly began to join the new group. To the local mix were added Cubans, Filipinos, Catalans, Jews and Spaniards of various colours, many of who had deported to Africa for political or other crimes, as well as some settlers backed by the government.

By 1870 the prognosis of whites that lived on the island was much improved after recommendations that they live in the highlands, and by 1884 much of the minimal administrative machinery and key plantations had moved to Basile hundreds of meters above sea level. Henry Morton Stanley had labeled Fernando Pó "a jewel which Spain did not polish" for refusing to enact such a policy. Despite the improved survival chances of Europeans living on the island, Mary Kingsley, who was staying on the island still described Fernando Pó as 'a more uncomfortable form of execution' for Spaniards appointed there.

There was also a trickle of immigration from the neighboring Portuguese islands, escaped slaves, and prospective planters. Although a few of the Fernandinos were Catholic and Spanish-speaking, about nine-tenths of them were Protestant and English-speaking on the eve of the First World War, and pidgin English was the *lingua franca* of the island. The Sierra Leoneans were particularly well placed as planters while labor recruitment on the Windward coast continued, for they kept family and other connections there and could easily arrange a supply of labor. The Fernandinos proved to become effective traders and middlemen between the natives and Europeans. A freed slave from the West Indies by way of Sierra Leone named William Pratt established the cocoa crop on Fernando Pó, forever altering the destiny of the colony.

Spain had not occupied the large area in the Bight of Biafra to which it had right by treaty, and the French had busily 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. More important events such as the conflict in Cuba and the eventual Spanish–American War kept Madrid busy at an inopportune moment. Minimal government backing for mainland annexation came as a result of public opinion and a need for labour on Fernando Pó.

The eventual treaty of Paris in 1900 left Spain with the continental enclave of Rio Muni, a mere 26,000 km2 out of the 300,000 stretching east to the Ubangi river which the Spaniards had initially claimed. The tiny enclave was far smaller than what the Spaniards had considered themselves rightfully entitled to under their claims and the Treaty of El Pardo. 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. Iradier himself died in despair in 1911, and it would be decades before his achievements would be recognized by Spanish popular opinion when the port of Cogo was renamed Puerto Iradier in his honour.

### World War I

Spain extended the Colony into the former French West Africa territory they annexed after Spain, Germany and Italy's invasion of France. After World War I they created a colonial administration and divided the Country into three administrative sub-divisions ruled by regional lords and Native Vassals who answered to the Colonial Administration.

## Government

The Government of Spanish Africa is a Colonial Administration ruled by a Governor-General who answers to the King. The Governor-General rules the Colony with a Viceroy and Prime Minister who run the Council of Governor's Deputies which consists of the cabinets of the Governor-General, Viceroy and Prime Minister with Regional Lords who rule over the Sub-Divisions of the Colony. The Colony's capital is Praia which is located in the Cape Verde region of the Colony.

### Native Princely States

The Native Princely States are the Native Kingdoms that are vassals of the Spanish. They are kept, restored and put in power to give Native Representation in the Colony so the Spanish don't look "racist like the British Royal Family or the French Republicans" and to prevent rebellions against them by the natives. The Princely States are mostly located in the region of the colony formerly known as French West Africa.

#### **List of Princely States**

* Sultanate of Agadez
* Sultanate of Damagraram.
* Imperial State of Dosso.
* Sokoto Caliphate
* Emirate of Trarza
* Kingdom of Dahomey
* Asante Empire
* Kingdom of Koya
* Toucouler Empire
* All of the Mossi Kingdoms
* Imamate of Futa Jallon
* Kaatra Khanate
* Kano Empire

## Military

### Army

The Army consists of 200 Infantry Divisions, 120 Calvary Divisions, 110 Mechanized Infantry Divisions, 200 Native Infantry Divisions, 100 Artillery Batteries, 99 Gun Cars and 88 Tanks.

### Navy

The Navy Consists of 100 Submarines and 90 Destroyers with 60 Battlecruisers.

### Air Force

The Air Force consists of 300 Warplanes manufactured by Germany and piloted by 300 Pilots trained by Germany.

## Foreign Relations

* Colonial Relations with Spanish Empire.