Historyedit

Pre-European contactedit

The deep history of what is now Guinea-Bissau is poorly understood by historians. The earliest inhabitants were the Jola, Papel, Manjak, Balanta, and Biafada peoples.

Later the Mandinka and Fulani migrated into the region, in the 13th and 15th centuries, respectively. They pushed the earlier inhabitants towards the coast and onto the Bijagos islands.

The Balanta and Jola had weak or non-existent institutions of kingship but emphasised decentralization, with power invested in heads of villages and families. The Mandinka, Fula, Papel, Manjak, and Biafada chiefs were vassals to kings. The customs, rites, and ceremonies varied, but nobles commanded all the major positions, including the judicial system. Social stratification was seen in the clothing and accessories of the people, in housing materials, and in transportation options.

Trade was widespread between ethnic groups. Items traded included pepper and kola nuts from the southern forests; kola nuts, iron, and iron utensils from the savannah-forest zone; salt and dried fish from the coast; and Mandinka cotton cloth.

Kingdom of Bissauedit

According to oral tradition, the Kingdom of Bissau was founded by the son of the king of Quinara (Guinala), who moved to the area with his pregnant sister, six wives, and subjects of his father's kingdom. Relations between the kingdom and the Portuguese colonisers were initially warm, but deteriorated over time.

The kingdom strongly defended its sovereignty against the Portuguese 'Pacification Campaigns', defeating them in 1891, 1894, and 1904. However, in 1915 the Portuguese under the command of Officer Teixeira Pinto and warlord Abdul Injai fully absorbed the kingdom.

Biafada kingdomsedit

The Biafada people inhabited the area around the Rio Grande de Buba in three kingdoms: Biguba, Guinala, and Bissege. The former two were important ports with significant lançado communities. They were subjects of the Mandinka mansa of Kaabu.

The Bijagosedit

In the Bijagos Islands, people of different ethnic origins tended to settle in separate settlements. Great cultural diversity developed in the archipelago.

Bijago society was warlike. Men were dedicated to boatbuilding and raiding the mainland, attacking the coastal peoples as well as other islands. They believed that at sea they had no king. Women cultivated the land, constructed houses, and gathered and prepared foods. They could choose their husbands, and warriors with the best reputations ranked at the top of respected status. Successful warriors could have many wives and boats, and were entitled to 1/3 of the spoils that warriors gained who used their boats in any expedition.

Bijago night raids on coastal settlements had significant effects on the societies attacked. Portuguese traders on the mainland tried to stop the raids, as they hurt the local economy. But the islanders also sold considerable numbers of villagers captured in raids as slaves to the Europeans. With colonisation underway in other parts of Africa and the Americas, demand for workers was high and the Europeans sometimes pushed for more captives to be taken.

The Bijagos were mostly safe from enslavement, as they were out of reach of mainland slave raiders. Europeans avoided having them as slaves. Portuguese sources say the children made good slaves but not the adults, who were likely to commit suicide, lead rebellions aboard slave ships, or escape once reaching the New World.

Kaabuedit

Kaabu was established first as a province of Mali through the conquest in the 13th century of the Senegambia by Tiramakhan Traore, a general under Sundiata Keita. By the 14th century much of Guinea Bissau was under the administration of Mali. It was ruled by a farim kaabu (commander of Kaabu).

Mali declined gradually, beginning in the 14th century. By the early 16th century, the expanding power of Koli Tenguella cut off formerly secure Mali

Kaabu became an independent federation of kingdoms. The ruling classes were composed of elite warriors known as the Nyancho (Ñaanco) who traced their patrilineal lineage to Tiramakhan Traore. The Nyancho were a warrior culture, reputed to be excellent cavalry men and raiders. The Kaabu Mansaba was seated in Kansala, today known as Gabu, in the eastern Geba region.

The slave trade dominated the economy, and the warrior classes grew rich with imported cloth, beads, metalware, and firearms. Trade networks with Arabs and others to North Africa were dominant up to the 14th century. In the 15th century, coastal trade with the Europeans began to increase. In the 17th and 18th centuries an estimated 700 slaves were exported annually from the region, many of them from Kaabu.

In the late 18th century, the rise of the Imamate of Futa Jallon to the east posed a powerful challenge to the animist Kaabu. During the first half of the 19th century, civil war erupted as local Fula people sought independence. This long-running conflict was marked by the 1867 Battle of Kansala; the Fuladu effectively defeated the Kaabu and dominated the area thereafter. But some smaller Mandinka kingdoms survived until their absorption into Portuguese colonies.

European contactedit

15th–16th centuriesedit

The first Europeans to reach Guinea-Bissau were the Venetian explorer Alvise Cadamosto in 1455, Portuguese explorer Diogo Gomes in 1456, Portuguese explorer Duarte Pacheco Pareira in the 1480s, and Flemish explorer Eustache de la Fosse in 1479–1480.

Although the Portuguese authorities initially discouraged European settlement on the mainland, this prohibition was ignored by lançados and tangomãos, who largely assimilated into indigenous culture and customs. They ignored Portuguese trade regulations that banned entering the region or trading without a royal licence, shipping out of unauthorised ports, or assimilating into the native community.

After 1520 trade and settlements increased on the mainland, populated by Portuguese and native traders, as well as some Spanish, Genoese, English, French, and Dutch. The main ports were Cacheu, Bissau, and Guinala. Each river also had such trading centers as Toubaboudougou at their fall lines, the furthest navigable point. These posts traded directly with the peoples of the interior for resources such as gum arabic, ivory, hides, civet, dyes, enslaved Africans, and gold. Local African rulers generally refused to allow Europeans into the interior, to ensure their own control of trade routes and goods.

Disputes became increasingly frequent and serious in the late 1500s as the foreign traders sought to influence the host societies to their benefit. Meanwhile, the Portuguese monopoly, always leaky, was being increasingly challenged. In 1580 the Iberian Union unified the crowns of Portugal and Spain. Spain's enemies launched attacks on Portuguese possessions in Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde. French, Dutch, and English ships increasingly came to trade with the natives and the independent-minded lançados.

17th–18th centuriesedit

In the early 17th century the government attempted to force all Guinean trade to go through Santiago, and to promote trade and settlement on the mainland, while restricting the sale of weapons to the locals. These efforts were largely unsuccessful.

With the end of the Iberian Union in 1640, King João IV attempted to restrict the Spanish trade in Guinea that had flourished for the previous 60 years. Afro-Portuguese traders and colonists, however, were not in a position to deny the free trade that the African kings demanded, as they had come to rely on European products and goods as necessities.

The Portuguese were never able to maintain the monopoly they wanted; the economic interests of the native leaders and Afro-European traders and merchants never aligned with theirs. During this period the power of the Mali Empire in the region was dissipating. The farim of Kaabu, the king of Kassa, and other local rulers began to assert their independence.

In the early 1700s the Portuguese abandoned Bissau and retreated to Cacheu after the captain-major was captured and killed by the local king. They did not return until the 1750s. Meanwhile, the Cacheu and Cape Verde Company shut down in 1706.

For a brief period in the 1790s, the British tried to establish a foothold on Bolama Island.

Slave tradeedit

Guinea-Bissau was among the first regions whose people engaged in the [[Atlantic slave trade. For centuries its warriors had sent captives as slaves to North Africa. While it did not produce the same number of enslaved people to export to the Americas as other regions, the effects were still significant.

In Cape Verde, Guinean slaves were instrumental in developing the labor intensive plantation economy: they cultivated and processed , growing indigo and cotton, and also wove the 'panos cloth that became a standard currency in West Africa. During the 17th and 18th centuries, thousands of captive Africans were taken from the region every year by Portuguese, French, and British companies. An average of 3000 persons were shipped every year from Guinala alone. Many of these captives were taken during the Fula jihads and, specifically, the wars between the Imamate of Futa Jallon and Kaabu.

Wars were increasingly waged for the sole purpose of capturing slaves to sell to the Europeans in exchange for imported goods. They resembled man-hunts more than conflicts over territory or political power. The nobles and kings benefited, while the common people bore the brunt of the raiding and insecurity. If a noble was captured, they were likely to be released, as the captors, whoever they were, would generally accept a ransom in exchange for freeing them. The relationship between kings and European traders was a partnership, with the two regularly making deals on how the trade was to be conducted, defining who could be enslaved and who could not, and the prices of the slaves. Contemporary chroniclers questioned multiple kings on their part in the slave trade, and noted that they recognised the trade as evil but participated because otherwise the Europeans would not buy a ny other goods from them.

Beginning in the late 18th century, European countries gradually began slowing and/or abolishing the slave trade. Portugal abandoned slavery in 1869 and Brazil in 1888, but a system of contract labor replaced it that was only barely better for the workers.

Colonialismedit

Up until the late 1800s, Portuguese control of their 'colony' outside of their forts and trading posts was a fiction. Guinea-Bissau became the scene of increased European colonial competition beginning in the 1860s. The dispute over the status of Bolama was resolved in Portugal's favor through the mediation of U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant in 1870, but French encroachment on Portuguese claims continued. In 1886 the Casamance region of what is now Senegal was ceded to them.

Struggle for Independenceedit

The African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) was founded in 1956 under the leadership of Amílcar Cabral. Initially committed to peaceful methods, the 1959 Pidjiguiti massacre pushed the party towards more militarized tactics, leaning heavily on the political mobilization of the peasantry in the countryside. After years of planning and preparing from their base in Conakry, the PAIGC launched the Guinea-Bissau War of Independence on 23 January 1963.

Unlike guerrilla movements in other Portuguese colonies, the PAIGC rapidly extended its control over large portions of the territory. Aided by the jungle-like terrain, it had easy access to borders with neighbouring allies and large quantities of arms from Cuba, China, the Soviet Union, and left-leaning African countries. The PAIGC even managed to acquire a significant anti-aircraft capability in order to defend itself against aerial attack. By 1973, the PAIGC was in control of many parts of Guinea, although the movement suffered a setback in January 1973 when its founder and leader Amilcar Cabral was assassinated. After Cabral's death, party leadership fell to Aristides Pereira, who would later become the first president of the Republic of Cape Verde.

Independence (1973)edit

Independence was unilaterally declared on 24 September 1973, which is now celebrated as the country's Independence Day, a public holiday. The country was formally recognized as independent on 10 September 1974. Nicolae Ceaușescu's Romania was the first country to formally recognise Guinea-Bissau and the first to sign agreements with the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde.

Upon the nation's independence, it declared Esta É a Nossa Pátria Bem Amada as its national anthem. Until 1996, this was shared with Cape Verde, which later adopted its own official national anthem Cântico da Liberdade.

Luís Cabral, brother of Amílcar and co-founder of PAIGC, was appointed the first president of Guinea-Bissau. Independence had begun under the best of auspices. The Bissau-Guinean diaspora had returned to the country en masse. A system of access to school for all had been created. Books were free and schools seemed to have a sufficient number of teachers. The education of girls, previously neglected, was encouraged and a new school calendar, more adapted to the rural world, was adopted.

In 1980, economic conditions deteriorated significantly, leading to general discontent with the government in power. On 14 November 1980, João Bernardo Vieira, known as "Nino Vieira," overthrew President Luís Cabral. The constitution was suspended and a nine-member military council of the revolution, chaired by Vieira, was established. Since then, the country has moved toward a liberal economy. Budget cuts have been made at the expense of the social sector and education.

The country was controlled by a revolutionary council until 1984. The first multi-party elections were held in 1994. An army uprising in May 1998 led to the Guinea-Bissau Civil War and the president's ousting in June 1999. Elections were held again in 2000, and Kumba Ialá was elected president.

XXI Century: Quest for Stabilityedit

In September 2003, a military coup was conducted. The military arrested Ialá on the charge of being "unable to solve the problems". After being delayed several times, legislative elections were held in March 2004. A mutiny in October 2004 over pay arrears resulted in the death of the head of the armed forces.

In June 2005, presidential elections were held for the first time since the coup that deposed Ialá. Ialá returned as the candidate for the PRS, claiming to be the legitimate president of the country, but the election was won by former president João Bernardo Vieira, deposed in the 1999 coup. Vieira beat Malam Bacai Sanhá in a run-off election. Sanhá initially refused to concede, claiming that tampering and electoral fraud occurred in two constituencies including the capital, Bissau. Foreign monitors described the elections as "calm and organized", despite some reports of arms entering the country prior to the election and few "disturbances during campaigning", including attacks on government offices by unidentified gunmen.

Three years later, Sanhá's PAIGC won a strong parliamentary majority, with 67 of 100 seats, in the parliamentary election held in November 2008. In November 2008, President Vieira's official residence was attacked by members of the armed forces, killing a guard but leaving the president unharmed.

On 2 March 2009, however, Vieira was assassinated by what preliminary reports indicated to be a group of soldiers avenging the death of the head of joint chiefs of staff, General Batista Tagme Na Wai, who had been killed in an explosion the day before. Vieira's death did not trigger widespread violence, but there were signs of turmoil in the country, according to the advocacy group Swisspeace. Military leaders in the country pledged to respect the constitutional order of succession. National Assembly Speaker Raimundo Pereira was appointed as an interim president until a nationwide election on 28 June 2009. It was won by Malam Bacai Sanhá, against Kumba Ialá as the presidential candidate of the PRS.

On 9 January 2012, President Sanhá died of complications from diabetes, and Pereira was again appointed as an interim president. On the evening of 12 April 2012, members of the country's military staged a coup d'état and arrested the interim president and a leading presidential candidate. Former vice chief of staff, General Mamadu Ture Kuruma, assumed control of the country in the transitional period and started negotiations with opposition parties.

The 2014 general election saw José Mário Vaz elected President of Guinea-Bissau. Vaz became the first elected president to complete his five-year mandate. At the same time, he was eliminated in the first round of the 2019 presidential elections, ultimately seeing Umaro Sissoco Embaló emerge as the victor. Embaló, the first president to be elected without the backing of the PAIGC, took office in February 2020.

On 1 February 2022, there was an attempted coup d'état to overthrow President Umaro Sissoco Embaló. On 2 February 2022, state radio announced that four assailants and two members of the presidential guard had been killed in the incident. The African Union and ECOWAS both condemned the coup. Six days after the attempted coup d'état, on 7 February 2022, there was an attack on the building of Rádio Capital FM, a radio station critical of the Bissau-Guinean government; this was the second time the radio station suffered an attack of this nature in less than two years. A journalist working for the station recalled, while wishing to stay anonymous, that one of their colleagues had recognized one of the cars carrying the attackers as belonging to the presidency.

In 2022, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky met with Embaló in a press conference. Embaló became the first African ruler to visit Ukraine after the beginning of the war.

From 30 November to 1 December 2023 there was reportedly an attempted coup in the capital, Bissau, leading Embaló to order the dissolution of the opposition-controlled parliament.