History of Gabon: Difference between revisions

Rainforest hunter-gatherers (often termed Pygmy groups, including the Babongo) are attested since the Upper Pleistocene (roughly 43,000-13,000 BC). Bantu-speaking communities were established in present-day Gabon by the Early Iron Age, at least by the 3rd-2nd centuries BC, with further expansion during the first millennium AD.
Portuguese explorers and traders arrived in the area in the late 15th century. The coast subsequently became a centre of the transatlantic slave trade with European slave traders arriving to the region in the 16th century. In 1839 and 1841, France established a protectorate over the coast. In 1849, captives released from a captured slave ship founded Libreville. In 1862–1887, France expanded its control including the interior of the state, and took full sovereignty. In 1910 Gabon became part of French Equatorial Africa and in 1960, Gabon became independent.

At the time of Gabon’s independence, two principal political parties existed: the Gabonese Democratic Bloc (BDG), led by Léon M’Ba, and the Gabonese Democratic and Social Union (UDSG), led by Jean-Hilaire Aubame. In the first post-independence election, held under a parliamentary system, neither party was able to win a majority; the leaders subsequently agreed against a two-party system and ran with a single list of candidates. In the February 1961 election, held under the new presidential system, M’Ba became president and Aubame became foreign minister. The single-party solution disintegrated in 1963, and there was a single-day bloodless coup in 1964. In March 1967, Leon M’Ba and Omar Bongo were elected president and vice president. M’Ba died later that year. Bongo declared Gabon a one-party state, dissolved the BDG and established the Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG). Sweeping political reforms in 1990 led to a new constitution, and the PDG garnered a large majority in the country’s first multi-party elections in 30 years. Despite discontent from opposition parties, Bongo remained president until his death in 2009.

Late Stone Age, Neolithic, and Early/Late Iron Age sequences are documented in the Lope–Okanda–Ogooue region and on the coast.

• Coastal Neolithic at Owendo (Libreville): lithics, pottery, shells, hearths dated to 5040 ± 130 BP.^[1]
• Lopé II (middle Ogooue): charcoal from Late Stone Age layers dates to 10320 ± 110 BP, 9170 ± 100 BP, and 6760 ± 120 BP; a much later pit with ceramics dates to 2370 ± 35 BP and 2210 ± 45 BP, indicating reoccupation by pottery-using groups long after the earlier occupations.^[2]
• Ceramic traditions and early ironworking:
  • Yindo pottery^[a] attested at Okanda I, Lope II, Toube I, Maboue I, Okanda V; highest date at Okanda I 3560 ± 75 BP.^[3]
  • After about AD 650, the earlier pit features disappear. Later radiocarbon dates indicate renewed occupations at several sites: Lope XV (AD 1046-1293), Lope V (AD 1215-1414), Otoumbi III (AD 1398-1442), and Lope X (AD 1623-1808).^[3]
• Ritual evidence (late precolonial): the Iroungou burial cave near Mouila yielded at least 28 individuals and 512 grave goods (iron currency hoes, bracelets, gongs, long spatulate rods), with radiocarbon placing use in the 14th-15th centuries AD.^[4]

Rainforest hunter-gatherers (often called Pygmy groups, including the Babongo, Baka, and Bakoya) are the earliest known inhabitants of the area, their presence has been attested since the Upper Pleistocene (roughly 43,000-13,000 BC).^[5] Archaeology in the Ogooue valley shows Late Stone Age sites long before farming, and genetics points to deep splits between foragers and farmers.^[6] Bantu-speaking communities appear by the Early Iron Age, at least the 3rd–2nd centuries BC, and expand through the first millennium AD.^[7][8]

The Bantu expansion is found in the middle Ogooue valley, where Late Stone Age occupations were replaced by Early Iron Age communities around 2400–2300 BP (c. 400–300 BC), notably at Lalara and Otoumbi.^[9][10] Paleoenvironmental studies identify a late Holocene episode of rainforest fragmentation around 2500–2000 BP (c. 550–50 BC) across Central Africa, including Gabon, which created savanna–forest mosaics conducive to such settlements.^[11] This timing and geography are consistent with broader models of Bantu expansion that emphasize movement along habitat corridors and slower spread through dense rainforest.^[12]

Early Iron Age metallurgy in Gabon is documented by smelting furnaces and slag at sites such as Oveng (Estuaire Province), confirming local iron production and its role in the west-Central African spread of Bantu speakers.^[13] Prior to coastal contact, lineage-based communities and flexible chiefly authority embedded in riverine exchange networks structured social and political life in equatorial Africa, a framework widely applied to precolonial Gabon, especially along the Ogooue corridor.

Portuguese navigators reached the Gabon estuary in 1472 (Lopo Gonçalves and Rui de Sequeira) and labeled it the “Gabon River” from gabão, a hooded cloak whose shape the Komo River was thought to resemble.^[17] At this time, the southern coast was controlled by the Kingdom of Loango.^[18] The Portuguese settled on the offshore islands of São Tomé, Príncipe, and Fernando Pó, but were regular visitors to the coast.

Trade ran through African brokers under the ma Loango. Goods exchanged included ivory, copper, salt, raffia cloth, and, as the Atlantic trade expanded, captives.^[20] The Vili, merchants of the Kingdom of Loango, controlled access to ports and markets on the Loango Coast and set tolls and prices. Raffia cloth (libongo) functioned as currency and a key source of power. The Portuguese were integrated into these circuits, alongside Dutch, English, and French traders from the 17th century.^[21]

In the 17th–18th centuries, Dutch and then English and French competition reduced Portuguese advantage. Loango, Kakongo, and Ngoyo remained politically autonomous, and Europeans depended on African middlemen for supplies, including captives, ivory, and copper from the Mayombe.

Farther south and toward the Gabon estuary, Myene intermediaries (Mpongwe) and the Orungu linked Ogooue river routes to European shipping, extending Loango-era networks without Portuguese territorial control.^[22][23]

From Cape Lopez down to the mouth of the Congo River, navigation and exchange were shaped by a chain of lagoons and bays, notably Fernan Vaz/Nkomi, Sette-Cama, Iguela/Ngove east of Cape St. Catherine, the Banya lagoon at Mayumba, and Cayo at Pointe-Noire (Republic of the Congo). The coastal surf and bars forced most ships to anchor offshore, while the mangrove-backed littoral north of Mayumba contrasted with higher, drier shores farther south.

In 1838 and 1841, France established a protectorate over the coastal regions of Gabon by treaties with Gabonese coastal chiefs.

American missionaries from New England established a mission at the mouth of the Komo River in 1842. In 1849, the French authorities captured an illegal slave ship and freed the captives on board. The captives were released near the mission station, where they founded a settlement which was called Libreville (French for “free town”)

French explorers penetrated Gabon’s dense jungles between 1862 and 1887. The most famous, Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, used Gabonese bearers and guides in his search for the headwaters of the Congo River. France occupied Gabon in 1885, but did not administer it until 1903. Gabon’s first political party, the Jeunesse Gabonais, was founded around 1922.

In 1910 Gabon became one of the four territories of French Equatorial Africa. On 15 July 1960 France agreed to Gabon becoming fully independent.^[25] On 17 August 1960 Gabon became an independent country.

At the time of Gabon’s independence in 1960, two principal political parties existed: the Gabonese Democratic Bloc (BDG), led by Léon M’Ba, and the Gabonese Democratic and Social Union (UDSG), led by Jean-Hilaire Aubame. In the first post-independence election, held under a parliamentary system, neither party was able to win a majority. The BDG obtained support from three of the four independent legislative deputies, and M’Ba was named Prime Minister. Soon after concluding that Gabon had an insufficient number of people for a two-party system, the two party leaders agreed on a single list of candidates. In the February 1961 election, held under the new presidential system, M’Ba became president and Aubame became foreign minister.

This one-party system appeared to work until February 1963, when the larger BDG element forced the UDSG members to choose between a merger of the parties or resignation. The UDSG cabinet ministers resigned, and M’Ba called an election for February 1964 and a reduced number of National Assembly deputies (from 67 to 47). The UDSG failed to muster a list of candidates able to meet the requirements of the electoral decrees. When the BDG appeared likely to win the election by default, the Gabonese military toppled M’Ba in a bloodless coup on 18 February 1964. French troops re-established his government the next day. Elections were held in April 1964 with many opposition participants. BDG-supported candidates won 31 seats and the opposition 16. Late in 1966, the constitution was revised to provide for automatic succession of the vice president should the president die in office. In March 1967, Leon M’Ba and Omar Bongo (then known as Albert Bongo) were elected President and Vice President, with the BDG winning all 47 seats in the National Assembly. M’Ba died later that year, and Omar Bongo became president.

In March 1968 Bongo declared Gabon a one-party state by dissolving the BDG and establishing a new party: the Gabonese Democratic Party (Parti Démocratique Gabonais) (PDG). He invited all Gabonese, regardless of previous political affiliation, to participate. Bongo was elected President in February 1973; in April 1975, the office of vice president was abolished and replaced by the office of prime minister, who had no right to automatic succession. Bongo was re-elected president in December 1979 and November 1986 to 7-year terms. Using the PDG as a tool to submerge the regional and tribal rivalries that divided Gabonese politics in the past, Bongo sought to forge a single national movement in support of the government’s development policies.

Economic discontent and a desire for political liberalization provoked violent demonstrations and strikes by students and workers in early 1990. In response to worker grievances, Bongo negotiated on a sector-by-sector basis, making significant wage concessions. In addition, he promised to open up the PDG and to organize a national political conference in March–April 1990 to discuss Gabon’s future political system. The PDG and 74 political organizations attended the conference. Participants essentially divided into two loose coalitions, the ruling PDG and its allies, and the United Front of Opposition Associations and Parties, consisting of the breakaway Morena Fundamental and the Gabonese Progress Party.

The April 1990 conference approved sweeping political reforms, including creation of a national Senate, decentralization of the budgetary process, freedom of assembly and press, and cancellation of the exit visa requirement. In an attempt to guide the political system’s transformation to multiparty democracy, Bongo resigned as PDG chairman and created a transitional government headed by a new Prime Minister, Casimir Oyé-Mba. The Gabonese Social Democratic Grouping (RSDG), as the resulting government was called, was smaller than the previous government and included representatives from several opposition parties in its cabinet. The RSDG drafted a provisional constitution in May 1990 that provided a basic bill of rights and an independent judiciary but retained strong executive powers for the president. After further review by a constitutional committee and the National Assembly, this document came into force in March 1991. Under the 1991 constitution, in the event of the president’s death, the Prime Minister, the National Assembly president, and the defence minister were to share power until a new election could be held.

Opposition to the PDG continued, however, and in September 1990, two coup d’état attempts were uncovered and aborted. Despite anti-government demonstrations after the untimely death of an opposition leader, the first multiparty National Assembly elections in almost 30 years took place in September–October 1990, with the PDG garnering a large majority.

Following President Bongo’s re-election in December 1993 with 51% of the vote, opposition candidates refused to validate the election results. Serious civil disturbances led to an agreement between the government and opposition factions to work toward a political settlement. These talks led to the Paris Accords in November 1994, under which several opposition figures were included in a government of national unity, and constitutional reforms were approved in a referendum in 1995. This arrangement soon broke down, however, and the 1996 and 1997 legislative and municipal elections provided the background for renewed partisan politics. The PDG won a landslide victory in the legislative election, but several major cities, including Libreville, elected opposition mayors during the 1997 local election.

President Bongo coasted to easy re-elections in December 1998 and November 2005, with large majorities of the vote against a divided opposition. While Bongo’s major opponents rejected the outcome as fraudulent, some international observers characterized the results as representative despite any perceived irregularities. Legislative elections held in 2001–2002, which were boycotted by a number of smaller opposition parties and were widely criticized for their administrative weaknesses, produced a National Assembly almost completely dominated by the PDG and allied independents.

Omar Bongo died at a Spanish hospital on 8 June 2009.^[26]

His son Ali Bongo Ondimba was elected president in the August 2009 presidential election.^[27] He was re-elected in August 2016, in elections marred by numerous irregularities, arrests, human rights violations and post-election violence.^[28][29]

On 24 October 2018, Ali Bongo Ondimbao was hospitalized in Riyadh for an undisclosed illness. On 29 November 2018 Bongo was transferred to a military hospital in Rabat to continue recovery.^[30] On 9 December 2018 it was reported by Gabon’s Vice President Moussavou that Bongo suffered a stroke in Riyadh and has since left the hospital in Rabat and is currently recovering at a private residence in Rabat.^[31] Since 24 October 2018 Bongo has not been seen in public and due to lack of evidence that he is either alive or dead many have speculated if he is truly alive or not.^[32] On 1 January 2019 Bongo gave his first public address via a video posted to social media since falling ill in October 2018 putting to rest any rumours he was dead.^[33]

On 7 January 2019, soldiers in Gabon launched an unsuccessful coup d’etat attempt.^[34]

On May 11, 2021, a Commonwealth delegation visited Gabon as Ali Bongo visited London to meet with the secretary general of the organization, which brings together 54 English-speaking countries. President Bongo expressed Gabon’s willingness to join the Commonwealth.^[35][36] In June 2022, Gabon joined the Commonwealth as its 55th member.^[37]

In August 2023, following the announcement that Ali Bongo had won a third term in the general election, military officers announced that they had taken power in a coup d’état and cancelled the election results. They also dissolved state institutions including the Judiciary, Parliament and the constitutional assembly.^[38][39] On 31 August 2023, army officers who seized power, ending the Bongo family’s 55-year hold on power, named Gen Brice Oligui Nguema as the country’s transitional leader.^[40] On 4 September 2023, General Nguema was sworn in as interim president of Gabon.^[41] In April 2025, Brice Oligui Nguema won presidential election with more than 90% of the vote, becoming the 4th President of Gabon.^[42]

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