Spanish Guinea and Western Sahara
Late Spanish Africa: cocoa islands and desert colony
Spanish Guinea (Equatorial Guinea) and Spanish Sahara completed Spain's late African empire. Cocoa plantations and timber concessions on Bioko and Río Muni, and phosphate control in the Sahara, depended on coerced labor and denied indigenous sovereignty.
Damage
Spain extracted cocoa and timber from Equatorial Guinea and held Western Sahara as a phosphate desert colony.
Lives lost
Forced labor and repression deaths; Sahrawi displacement after colonial exit (order-of-magnitude)
Value lost
Cocoa, timber, and phosphate rents under Spanish colonial monopoly
Record Points
- Fernando Pó and Río Muni plantations relied on forced and contract labor regimes.
- Colonial administration privileged Spanish settlers and companies over Fang and Bubi societies.
- Spanish Sahara was organized around phosphate and strategic coastal control.
- Madrid quit both territories late, leaving unresolved sovereignty and extractive scars.
- Sahrawi claims and Equatoguinean post-colony violence trace to Spanish colonial structures.
Perpetrator(s)
Victims
Equatorial GuineaWestern Sahara