Burkina Faso is a landlocked country which borders Ghana, Mali, the Ivory Coast, Togo, Benin and Niger. It is a country of history, fight and liberty amidst pain.
Located in the west of the continent, Burkina Faso, as with other African nations, is little known in international fields owing to European metropolis politics which have prevented their independent protection for centuries as a result of slave systems and colonial rule.
Foreign presence has not only meant the exploitation of native labour and the looting of substantial natural resources, but also the intention to destroy century’s worth of accumulated riches and cultural inheritance.
Burkina Faso was not originally known by this genuine African name which in the indigenous language means ‘Republic of Incorruptible Men’ or ‘Land of Honourable Men’; the current name only came about after the country gained independence.
In colonial times, the country was known as the Republic of Upper Volta due to the main river’s three tributaries: Black Volta, Red Volta and White Volta.
These converge to the south of the country in the region of Ghana, to form the river Volta.
The population is divided into two big ethnic groups: the Voltaic, integrated with the Mossi, whose language is spoken by the majority of inhabitants and is the largest group, in conjunction with the Gruashis or Gurunsi, the Bobo and the Lobi.
The other big group is the Mande, together with the Samo, Marka, Busansi, Senufo, Dyola or Dioula, whose language is used in local trade.
Other smaller groups include the Hausa, Fulani, Tuareg and Bella.
Its history
The first we know of the country dates back to the eleventh century, and then to the thirteenth century when the Mossi tribe permanently settled in the region and consolidated their social structure; this settlement appears to have come from the east of what is currently Niger, and is made up of several states which stood out for their powerful political, social and military organisations.
In the 15th century Portuguese mariners were the first Europeans to arrive in the region.
The Portuguese established a trade exchange with the native population and settled in the coastal areas of nations bordering the Gulf of Guinea and other Atlantic coasts.
In that same century, Portugal started the slave trade for its new colony Brazil.
In the 19th century, France had become one of the most important colonial powers in Africa; the extension of its conquered territories was comparable only to that of the United Kingdom, its one great rival in robbery and ransacking of the continent.
These colonial empires were characterised by their disdain for the native population, brutally repressing all before them despite protest of the abuses by the victims; in these acts of cruelty, France did not differ from any other European country.
When France’s military conquest of Western Africa took place at the end of the 19th century, Gallic colonialism had reached a stage of maximum expansion.
France’s presence
In Burkina Faso, the two most important Empires which occupied the country were the Mossi Empire, governed by the Moro-Naba of Ouagadougou, and the Yatenga Empire.
A French military mission obtained a protectorate over the Yatenga Empire in 1895. Gallic forces then carried out an offensive against the Moro-Naba resistance which culminated in their establishment of the protectorate of Ouagadougou in 1896.
The protectorate was an administrative law put in place to legitimise the ransacking and exploitation widely used by France and the United Kingdom.
In 1904 it was officially declared the French West Africa, initially made up of five countries, including Upper Senegal, which in 1919 was declared a colony of Upper Volta.
The rest of the region of Upper Senegal was then renamed the French Sudan (and today Mali). The colony of Upper Volta was abolished in 1932 and included the territory between the Ivory Coast, the French Sudan and Niger.
Following the Second Word War (1939-1945), in 1947, the Voltaic region, and thus the colony of Upper Volta, was reinstated.
By way of universal conflict, voices emerged in Africa in which each of the nations claimed independence of the protections and colonial rule.
In Burkina Faso, as in the remaining nations, a long period started in which independent claims were strengthened.
The most obstinate forces to the liberation of the colonies increasingly manoeuvred delay in the cities.
But such monstrosities were bound for failure; it was not possible to maintain a colonial system as if the times had not changed.
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