Geography and Natural Resources
This country is in Western Africa, bordering the Bight of Biafra, between Cameroon and Gabon. Guinea has a area of 28,051 sq km, which is slightly smaller than Maryland. Its terrain: coastal plains rise to interior hills; islands off of the coast are volcanic. All of the valuable resources that France found out to be quite valuable was petroleum, natural gas, timber, gold, bauxite, diamonds, tantalum, sand , and clay. Guinea is one of the smallest African country's composed of a "mainland" on the continent Africa, and five populated islands off of the coast. Most of the year, the climate consists of high temperatures and heavy rainfall; this is because of its position near the equator. There are violent windstorms and flash floods throughout the country.
Daily Life
The ethnic groups that make up Guinea are Bioko, Rio Muni , and Europeans. The main religions that inhabit the area are nominally Christian and predominantly Roman Catholic, this is because of the French influence on the colony. After so many years of drilling a different kind of religion into the people's brains, their own religion finally rose into the spotlight. It is bordered by bordered by Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Mali, Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. The involvement with France lead the colony in a state of downfall; poverty was widespread and manifest. Rubbish was so abundantly strewn about because of the lack of maintenance. During the French rule, tens of thousands of Guineans were consequently tortured, executed or vanquished because of not wanting to assimilate with France's culture. Women wear the traditional colorful cloth while they farm and work at home, while the men wear traditional clothing and hunt/fight for the village. People lived in huts like these below...
Imperialism Strikes
France wanted this territory because of its rich deposits of natural resources. Some of the rich deposits were, petroleum, natural gas, timber, gold, bauxite, diamonds, tantalum, sand , and clay It also had a great location for trade, instead of being extremely far away like India for Britain. This way, they had to sail around but it took them a lot quicker to trade goods overseas. They locked up the women while the men went out on slave missions and they weren't allowed to see each other for months at a time. The economical boom went down drastically because of the short work force and the smaller production amount. France lightened up on their policies because they weren't making nearly as much money as they had been and there weren't any threatening revolts.