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Chad
Territorial coalition transfer from French Equatorial Africa.
- Independence
- August 11, 1960
- Before
- French Chad
- Metropole
- France
- Leader
- François Tombalbaye
- Transition
- Negotiated
- Movement
- Parti Progressiste Tchadien (PPT-RDA)
“In a few minutes, our people will have won the right to self-determination, the right to choose its own path, the right to take its place in the concert of nations, equal in dignity to the greatest. (Dans quelques minutes, notre peuple aura gagné le droit de disposer de lui-même, le droit de choisir lui-même sa propre voie, le droit de figurer parmi le concert des nations, égal en dignité aux plus grandes.)”
— François Tombalbaye, August 11, 1960
Conquest of the Chad Basin
French columns defeated the warlord Rabih az-Zubayr at Kousséri on 22 April 1900 and set up a military territory around Lake Chad. The territory was joined to Ubangi-Shari in 1906 and became a separate colony within French Equatorial Africa only in 1920. On 26 August 1940 Governor Félix Éboué took Chad over to de Gaulle's Free French. It was the first French colony to do so, and it became a base for Allied campaigns in the Sahara and North Africa.
A Divided Colony
French rule concentrated schools, missions and forced cotton cultivation in the south. The Muslim centre and north received little investment, and the far north remained under military administration. In February 1947 Gabriel Lisette founded the PPT, Chad's first African political party. Its support came largely from southerners. Under the Loi Cadre the PPT came to dominate the territorial government, and southern trade unionist François Tombalbaye rose within it.
Tombalbaye Takes Control
Lisette's government lost a vote of no confidence in February 1959. On 26 March 1959 Tombalbaye replaced him as prime minister. Days before independence, Tombalbaye expelled Lisette from the PPT and declared him a non-citizen while he was abroad, which barred him from returning. Chad became independent on 11 August 1960 with Tombalbaye as head of government. In January 1962 the PPT was made the sole legal party, which shut northern and Muslim politicians out of power.
Chronology
- April 22, 1900 — Battle of Kousséri; French military territory established
- August 26, 1940 — Chad rallies to Free France under Félix Éboué
- February 1947 — Gabriel Lisette founds the PPT
- March 26, 1959 — Tombalbaye becomes prime minister
- August 11, 1960 — Independence
- November 1965 — Tax riots in Mangalmé (Guéra) spark rebellion
- June 22, 1966 — FROLINAT founded at the Nyala congress in Sudan (19–22 June)
Aftermath
The FROLINAT rebellion grew into a long civil war with repeated French military interventions. Tombalbaye was killed in a military coup on 13 April 1975. Libya moved troops into the Aouzou Strip in 1972–73, and fighting between Chad and Libya continued until an OAU-brokered ceasefire on 11 September 1987. The International Court of Justice awarded the strip to Chad on 3 February 1994.
Legacy
Colonial rule developed the south and neglected the north, and after independence a single southern-led party ruled alone. Together these laid the ground for decades of civil war, with foreign powers repeatedly intervening in Chadian politics.