grew 90 percent of the cocoa and 80 percent of the coffee produced in the colony.
Forty thousand Ivoirians fought for the French army during World War II. Between 1940 and 1942 the colony, along with the rest of French West Africa, chose to remain under the Vichy government. Racist legislation, economic discrimination against African planters, increased forced labour, and a depression caused by Britain’s naval blockade created enormous discontent. Educated Africans thus welcomed the subsequent Free French regime. In 1944 Félix Houphouët-Boigny and Auguste Denise formed the African Farmers Union (SAA), which, with the support of the colony’s governor, André Latrille, secured equal treatment for African planters. Houphouët-Boigny’s all-African slate swept local elections in 1945. The following year, with Côte d’Ivoire part of the French Union, he was elected to the French Assembly, where he spearheaded the law to abolish forced labour throughout the empire. The present borders were set in 1947, when the north reverted to the country of Upper Volta.
Côte d’Ivoire since independence
In 1946 Houphouët-Boigny helped found the African Democratic Rally (RDA), a western Africa–based umbrella organization that sought equality for Africans; the Ivoirian branch was the Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI). Though at first harshly repressed, the RDA achieved many of its goals. In 1960 Houphouët-Boigny, who had been a cabinet minister in two French governments, was elected president of the newly independent Côte d’Ivoire. He ruled until his death, in 1993 during his seventh term in office. Despite reported coup attempts in 1963 and 1973, Houphouët-Boigny had a remarkable ability to reconcile opponents, which sustained the country’s peaceful and prosperous relations with France and with its neighbours throughout most of his rule. However, political unrest and strained foreign relations were increasingly evident from the late 1980s. Côte d’Ivoire’s first multiparty elections were held in 1990, and Houphouët-Boigny managed to defeat challenger Laurent Gbagbo of the Ivoirian Popular Front (FPI) in a presidential election that was unsuccessfully appealed to the Supreme Court. Upon his death in 1993, Houphouët-Boigny was succeeded by the president of the National Assembly, Henri Konan Bédié, who was, like his predecessor, a member of the Baule ethnic group and the PDCI.
People of Cote D’Ivoire
There are more than 60 ethnic groups in Côte d’Ivoire. Traditionally, the groups were independent from each other, but, over time, internal migration and extensive intermarriage greatly reduced group identity with a particular cultural tradition in any given locality. Each of these groups has ethnic affiliations with larger groups living outside the borders of the country. Thus, the Baule, as well as other peoples living east of the Bandama River, are affiliated with the Akan in Ghana, as are the lagoon fishermen farther south. The forest people west of the Bandama are connected to the Kru peoples of Liberia. In the interior the Kru group is subdivided into small groupings scattered over large areas of the forest.
The savanna peoples may be divided into two main groups. The Mande group, which is particularly strong in Mali, is represented by the Malinke farmers and by the Dyula traders. The Gur group, represented by the Senufo, Lobi, and Bobo, are widely scattered over the northeastern region and also live in neighbouring states.
All African languages represented in Côte d’Ivoire belong to one of three subgroups of the Niger-Congo family: Kwa in the south, Mande in the northwest, and Gur in the northeast. A trade language, known as Dyula-Taboussi and akin to the Mande Bambara, is spoken throughout the country by Muslim traders, and français de Moussa is a pidgin French widely spoken in Abidjan. The official language is French.
Islam is followed by about two-fifths of the population, found primarily in the northwest and in Abidjan. About two-fifths of the population is Christian, mostly Roman Catholic or Evangelical. Also present in the country are