by
JOHN G.

NATIONAL FLAG OF IVORY COAST:

LOCATION:

A BRIEF HISTORY OF IVORY COAST

            The French Europeans were the people who colonized the country of Ivory Coast. The French colonists treated the people living in Ivory Coast very mean and thought a great deal less of them.  The people of Ivory Coast usually didn’t have much to look forward to.

            The colonists hurt the people of Ivory Coast because a large group of them had forced labor.  The French considered the people of Ivory Coast more as if they were mules, not people the same as them. They didn’t have a chance to learn new things beyond what they were already being forced to do.  It was probably very hard to watch the children of all the families either work with the adults or even be split up from their families.

            Ivory Coast did not gain its independence until the 4^th of December in 1958.  In 1949, the people became violent and started to express their want for independence more and more for the next 9 years.  Finally, in 1959, they started to cooperate with the French and the French government declared that Ivory Coast was a free republic.

            In the 1980s they had a huge drought that made the economy of Ivory Coast decrease.  From the drought the over-cutting of wood in the outer parts of Ivory Coast made their debt increase greatly.

            A civil war broke out when a president named Henri Konan Bedeu’s power in the government was increased greatly.  He was very much for “pure Ivoiran pride”.  His influence on the pure Ivoirans was very well thought of.  Once he was out of the presidency the government made a document that said that only people that are pure Ivoiran could run for president, which knocked out nearly 40% of the population.  This disagreement continued until 2007, when both sides decided to share power in    government.

            I think that Ivory Coast would be very different today if the French colonists had not colonized there.  One thing is that there might be more of the older traditions followed throughout the whole country.  The way that they make their decisions might have been different if they had never been under French control.  Because the French lived in their land for so long, the people of Ivory Coast may follow more French ideas instead of their native customs and traditions.

Works Cited

Flag and map courtesy of Microsoft Clipart Gallery.

Countries of the World. http://www.infoplease.com/countrieshtml

Sheehan, Patricia. Ivory Coast.

Lonely Planet. http://www.lonelyplanet.com/worldguide/