French Conquest
European interest in Africa generally grew during the 19th century. By 1887, France, motivated by the search for wealth, had driven inland from its settlements on central Africa's west coast to claim the territory of Oubangui-Chari (present-day Central African Republic). It claimed this area as a zone of French influence, and within two years it occupied part of what is now southern Chad. In the early 1890s, French military expeditions sent to Chad encountered the forces of Rabih az-Zubayr, who had been conducting slave raids (razzias) in southern Chad throughout the 1890s and had sacked the settlements of Bornu, Baguirmi, and Ouaddai. After years of indecisive engagements, French forces finally defeated Rabih az-Zubayr at the battle of Kousséri in 1900.
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Famous quotes containing the words french and/or conquest:
“But as some silly young men returning from France affect a broken English, to be thought perfect in the French language; so his Lordship, I think, to seem a perfect understander of the unintelligible language of the Schoolmen, pretends an ignorance of his mother-tongue. He talks here of command and counsel as if he were no Englishman, nor knew any difference between their significations.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)
“The only fruit which even much living yields seems to be often only some trivial success,—the ability to do some slight thing better. We make conquest only of husks and shells for the most part,—at least apparently,—but sometimes these are cinnamon and spices, you know.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)