Guiné, Guinea

Guinea Guiné is an imprecise European term for western Africa in use since the fifteenth century. To the Portuguese, "Guiné" indicated a large part of coastal West Africa to the south of Cape Bojador. To other Europeans, "Guinea" defined all of western Africa from the Senegal River to the Orange River in South Africa, with a further division into Upper and Lower Guinea. Guinea-Bissau was the site of a Portuguese fort and trading factory, which supplied many enslaved Africans to Latin America. Guinea-Bissau and the former French colony of Guinea are now independent countries in West Africa. In 1958 the country gained independence from France, making it the first French African colony to gain independence and thus lose all French assistance. Guinea's population was an estimated 9,402,000 in 2005.

See alsoAfrica, Portuguese; Slave Trade.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chaliand, Gérard. Armed Struggle in Africa: With the Guerrillas in Portuguese Guinea, Trans. David Rattray and Robert Leonhardt. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969.

Curtin, Philip D. The Atlantic Slave Trade. Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1969.

Gifford, Prosser, and William Roger Louis, eds. Decolonization and African Independence. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998.

Klein, Martin A. Slavery and Colonial Rule in French West Africa. Cambridge, U.K.; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Miers, Suzanne, and Richard Roberts, eds. The End of Slavery in Africa. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988.

Serrão, Joel. "Guiné." In Pequeno dicionário de história de Portugal. Lisboa: Figueirinhas, 1987.

                                            Mary Karasch