Central African Republic

The oldest monuments of the Central African Republic are the megaliths around Bouar in the west, where farmers raised standing stones weighing several tons. Conventionally placed in the late Neolithic, roughly between 3500 and 2700 BCE, the alignments — known locally as tazunu — imply organised labour and durable communities long before any written record of the region. They remain among the most significant prehistoric sites in Central Africa and sit on the country's tentative list for UNESCO World Heritage recognition.

Over the following millennia the region became a meeting ground of language families. Ubangian-speaking peoples settled along the Ubangi River, Central Sudanic groups moved in from the north and east, and Bantu-speakers spread from the south-west; ironworking is attested in the region from around the first millennium BCE. These overlapping migrations produced the dense ethnic mosaic — Gbaya, Banda, Ngbaka, Sara, Mandjia, Zande and Nzakara among others — that still defines the country.

Because the savannas of the centre lay between the forest and the Sahel, they were a corridor for trade in copper, salt, dried fish and textiles rather than the seat of a single great empire. That openness later left the scattered populations of the watershed acutely exposed to the mounted slave-raiders who would descend from the Sudanic kingdoms to the north.

Turning points

1. c. 3500–2700 BCECulture & Ideas

   The megaliths of Bouar are raised

   Farmers near Bouar in the west erected multi-ton standing stones (tazunu), among the most important prehistoric monuments in Central Africa and evidence of organised Neolithic communities.

   [1] [3] [4]

2. c. 1st millennium BCEPeoples & Migration

   Ironworking and migration

   Ubangian, Central Sudanic and Bantu-speaking peoples settled the watershed and ironworking spread, laying down the ethnic patchwork of Gbaya, Banda, Zande, Nzakara and others.

   ↗See the data

   [3] [1]

From the eighteenth century the Zande (Azande) people coalesced under the Avongara aristocracy and expanded across the south-east of the modern country into what is now South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Alongside them the Ngbandi-speaking Bandia clan, who adopted Zande and Nzakara language and custom, built kingdoms along the Ubangi River — most notably the Nzakara-Bandia state and the sultanate of Bangassou, consolidated around 1876–1890 under Sultan Bangassou, together with neighbouring Rafai and Zemio.

These states were caught between two predatory frontiers. From the north, the Sudanic sultanates of Wadai and Bagirmi, and their tributary Dar al-Kuti, mounted slaving expeditions (razzias) deep into the Banda and Nzakara country. The most devastating pressure came from the Sudanese warlord al-Zubayr (Rabih az-Zubayr) and his successors: from the 1870s their armies raided the upper Ubangi for captives, and in 1890 Rabih installed Muhammad al-Sanusi as ruler of Dar al-Kuti, who turned slave-raiding into the organising business of his fortified base at Ndélé.

The cumulative effect was catastrophic depopulation across the centre and east of the region. Whole districts were emptied of people carried north into slavery, and the survivors were left scattered and impoverished — a demographic wound that helped leave the territory, when Europeans arrived, both fragmented and sparsely settled.

Turning points

1. 18th centuryPolitics & Power

   Zande and Bandia kingdoms expand

   Under the Avongara nobility the Zande spread across the south-east, while the Bandia clan founded Ubangi River states including the Nzakara kingdom and the sultanate of Bangassou.

   [5] [6] [1]

2. 1830Politics & Power

   Dar al-Kuti founded under Wadai

   The sultanate of Dar al-Kuti was established as a tributary of Dar Runga and ultimately of Wadai, becoming a staging ground for slave raids into the Banda and Nzakara lands to the south.

   [7] [1]

3. 1890War & Rupture

   Al-Zubayr installs al-Sanusi at Dar al-Kuti

   The Sudanese warlord Rabih az-Zubayr (al-Zubayr) deposed Kobur and installed Muhammad al-Sanusi, who from his base at Ndélé intensified the razzias that depopulated much of the Ubangi region.

   ↗See the data

   [7] [8] [1]

France advanced into the region from the Congo in the late 1880s, founding a post at Bangui in 1889 and pressing inland against the slave-raiding sultanates and Zande states. The territory was organised as the colony of Ubangi-Shari (Oubangui-Chari), and resistance was broken piecemeal: Bangassou and Rafai were brought under protectorate in the 1890s, and Muhammad al-Sanusi of Dar al-Kuti was killed by French forces in 1911, with his successor crushed the following year.

From 1899 the French government leased vast tracts of Ubangi-Shari to private concessionary companies — among them the Company of the Upper Ubangi Sultanates, granted some 140,000 square kilometres — giving them near-total power over the inhabitants. On the model of the neighbouring Congo Free State, company militias extracted wild rubber and ivory through forced labour, hostage-taking and violence. The French writer André Gide, travelling through the region, exposed some of these abuses in his Voyage au Congo (1927).

The forced-labour system reached its most lethal in conscription for the Congo–Ocean railway in the neighbouring colony, where thousands of workers recruited across French Equatorial Africa, including from Ubangi-Shari, died of disease, accident and exhaustion. The combined weight of taxation, rubber quotas and labour levies fell on a population already thinned by the slave trade.

Turning points

1. 1889Colonisation

   France founds Bangui

   French forces established a post at Bangui on the Ubangi River, the base from which they extended control over the territory that became the colony of Ubangi-Shari.

   ↗See the data

   [3] [1]

2. 1899–1927Economy & Trade

   Concessionary companies take over

   France leased huge tracts of Ubangi-Shari to private companies such as the Company of the Upper Ubangi Sultanates, whose militias exacted rubber and ivory through brutal forced labour.

   ↗See the data

   [9] [10] [11]

3. 12 January 1911War & Rupture

   Death of al-Sanusi of Dar al-Kuti

   French forces killed Muhammad al-Sanusi at Ndélé, ending the slave-raiding sultanate of Dar al-Kuti; his successor's resistance was suppressed by 1912.

   ↗See the data

   [7]

In 1910 Ubangi-Shari was incorporated into the federation of French Equatorial Africa, alongside Gabon, Middle Congo and Chad, governed from Brazzaville. Cotton cultivation was imposed alongside continued labour levies, and grievances boiled over in the Kongo-Wara rebellion of 1928–1931 — the 'War of the Hoe Handle' — when the Gbaya prophet Karinou (Karnou) drew hundreds of thousands of followers against forced labour and recruitment for the Congo–Ocean railway. The French killed Karinou in December 1928 and suppressed the revolt over the following three years at a cost of many thousands of lives.

After the Second World War colonial subjects gained limited political representation, and in 1946 a Roman Catholic priest, Barthélemy Boganda, was elected as Ubangi-Shari's first deputy to the French National Assembly. In 1949 he founded the Movement for the Social Evolution of Black Africa (MESAN), which became the vehicle of Central African nationalism. Boganda's ambition reached beyond his own territory: he envisioned a 'United States of Latin Africa' uniting the French Equatorial colonies and beyond.

On 1 December 1958 Boganda proclaimed the autonomous Central African Republic within the French Community, but he was killed in a plane crash on 29 March 1959, before independence. His relative David Dacko succeeded him, and on 13 August 1960 the Central African Republic became fully independent, with Dacko as its first president and Bangui as its capital.

Turning points

1. 1928–1931War & Rupture

   Kongo-Wara rebellion

   The Gbaya prophet Karinou led a mass revolt against forced labour and railway recruitment; the French killed him in December 1928 and crushed the uprising by 1931, with thousands dead.

   ↗See the data

   [12] [1]

2. 28 September 1949Politics & Power

   Boganda founds MESAN

   Barthélemy Boganda, the territory's first deputy to the French National Assembly, founded the Movement for the Social Evolution of Black Africa, the engine of Central African nationalism.

   [13] [14] [15]

3. 29 March 1959Politics & Power

   Death of Boganda

   Boganda, who had proclaimed the autonomous republic in December 1958 and championed a 'United States of Latin Africa', died in a plane crash months before independence; David Dacko succeeded him.

   [13] [14] [16]

4. 13 August 1960Independence

   Independence from France

   The Central African Republic became fully independent, with David Dacko as its first president and Bangui as its capital.

   ↗See the data

   [2] [17] [22]

On 1 January 1966 the army commander Jean-Bédel Bokassa overthrew his cousin David Dacko in the Saint-Sylvestre coup. He declared himself president for life in 1972 and, in December 1976, transformed the republic into the Central African Empire, crowning himself Emperor Bokassa I on 4 December 1977 in a coronation modelled on Napoleon's and estimated to have cost around US$20 million — roughly a third of the state's annual budget — while the country remained desperately poor.

His rule grew steadily more violent. In April 1979 protests against compulsory school uniforms produced by a company tied to his family ended in the killing of scores of schoolchildren and students detained in Bangui, an atrocity in which Bokassa was widely implicated. Having lost French backing, he was overthrown on 20–21 September 1979 by a French military operation (Barracuda) that restored Dacko; Bokassa fled into exile and was later tried and convicted in absentia and then in person.

Stability did not follow. General André Kolingba seized power from Dacko in 1981; multiparty elections in 1993 brought Ange-Félix Patassé to office; and in 2003 the army chief François Bozizé overthrew Patassé after a long insurgency. Each transition was shadowed by mutinies, foreign intervention and a state too weak to hold its territory.

Turning points

1. 1 January 1966Politics & Power

   Bokassa seizes power

   Army commander Jean-Bédel Bokassa overthrew President David Dacko in the Saint-Sylvestre coup, beginning more than a decade of personal rule.

   [18] [1]

2. 4 December 1977Politics & Power

   Coronation of Emperor Bokassa I

   Having declared the Central African Empire in 1976, Bokassa crowned himself emperor in a lavish ceremony costing about US$20 million while the country remained among the world's poorest.

   [18] [19]

3. April 1979Politics & Power

   Killing of schoolchildren

   Protests against compulsory school uniforms ended in the massacre of scores of detained children and students in Bangui, an atrocity widely linked to Bokassa that hastened the end of his rule.

   [18] [19]

4. 20–21 September 1979War & Rupture

   France overthrows Bokassa

   A French military operation (Barracuda) deposed Bokassa and restored David Dacko; Bokassa fled into exile and was later tried and convicted.

   ↗See the data

   [18] [19]

5. 15 March 2003Politics & Power

   Bozizé seizes power

   After coups by André Kolingba (1981) and an elected interlude under Ange-Félix Patassé, army chief François Bozizé overthrew Patassé, continuing the cycle of armed takeovers.

   [3] [1]

Late in 2012 a mainly Muslim rebel alliance, Séléka, took up arms in the north, accusing President Bozizé of breaking earlier peace deals. On 24 March 2013 Séléka captured Bangui and Bozizé fled; its leader Michel Djotodia became the country's first Muslim head of state. Séléka abuses against civilians provoked the rise of the largely Christian and animist anti-balaka militias, and through late 2013 the country descended into reciprocal sectarian massacres, with attacks in Bangui in December 2013 killing more than a thousand people.

Under international pressure Djotodia resigned in January 2014 and Catherine Samba-Panza was chosen interim president. France deployed Operation Sangaris and the African Union a stabilisation force, and in April 2014 the UN Security Council authorised the peacekeeping mission MINUSCA, which took over in September 2014. Elections in early 2016 brought Faustin-Archange Touadéra to the presidency, but armed groups still controlled much of the interior.

A peace agreement signed in Khartoum in February 2019 brought only partial calm; a rebel coalition (the CPC) launched a major offensive around the December 2020 elections. From 2018 the government increasingly relied on Russian paramilitaries of the Wagner Group, alongside MINUSCA, to push back the rebels and hold the capital. The result is a fragile, externally propped peace over a state that has never fully recovered from the slave trade, colonial extraction and decades of coups.

Turning points

1. 24 March 2013War & Rupture

   Séléka captures Bangui

   The Séléka rebel coalition seized the capital and ousted President Bozizé; its leader Michel Djotodia declared himself president, the country's first Muslim head of state.

   ↗See the data

   [20] [1]

2. December 2013War & Rupture

   Sectarian civil war erupts

   Reprisals between Séléka and the anti-balaka militias spiralled into sectarian massacres; attacks in Bangui in early December 2013 killed more than a thousand civilians.

   ↗See the data

   [20] [1]

3. April–September 2014War & Rupture

   UN establishes MINUSCA

   After French and African Union deployments, the UN Security Council authorised the MINUSCA peacekeeping mission in April 2014; it assumed responsibility in September, alongside interim president Catherine Samba-Panza.

   ↗See the data

   [20] [21]

4. 6 February 2019Politics & Power

   Khartoum peace agreement

   President Touadéra's government and fourteen armed groups signed a peace accord in Khartoum, but implementation was partial and fighting soon resumed.

   [20]

5. 2020–2021War & Rupture

   CPC offensive and Wagner

   A rebel coalition (the CPC) attacked around the December 2020 elections; the government, increasingly backed by Russian Wagner Group mercenaries deployed from 2018, pushed it back with MINUSCA's help.

   ↗See the data

   [20] [22]