Sourou-Migan Apithy - Early Life

Early Life

Born April 8, 1913 in Porto-Novo, Apithy was a descendant of a Goun royal family though was not born into privilege himself. His middle name, Migan, signified familial ties with chief ministers of old Dahomeyan kingdoms. He began his education at local mission schools and gained a bias for Roman Catholicism, for which he would later be insulted. Apithy would later become assistant teacher at his school. To further his education, Apithy travelled to Paris in 1933. After legal and economic studies at the Free School of Political Sciences, the National School of Economic and Social Organization, and at the Improvement Center in Business Administration of the Paris Chamber of Commerce, Apithy gained his diploma in accounting.

He also served as counsel in Paris and Dakar appeal courts. Married, he fathered two children. Having voluntarily enlisted in the army, Apithy saw combat from 1939 to 1940 as an artillery officer. He would not return to Dahomey until 1945. Shortly after his return Francis Aupiais, a well-liked Roman Catholic pastor, encouraged Apithy to pursue a career in politics. It began in July, when the latter was a participant in the Monnerville Commission.

Running as a Socialist candidate, Apithy was elected to represent Togo and Dahomey at the French Constituent Assembly in 1945, receiving 6,600 votes out of a total of 9,057. Voters in the election had to be Frecnch citizens or Dahomeyans whom the French government deemed responsible. His nomination as a candidate for the Assembly was a strategic move on the part of the Europeans; they wished to elect a black person to appease their colonists, while they still held full power. Nonetheless, Apithy did pass some legislation at the Assembly, including the February 1946 formation of a secondary school in Porto Novo. Apithy was said to have ended slavery in Dahomey, although in fact he was not involved with the abolition bill. He was named a member of the Commission on Overseas Territories and debated on the political situation of the overseas departments and territories of France. In 1946, he was reelected to his post with 8,096 ballots of 9.069 cast, and was soon appointed attorney general of Dahomey.

Thereafter Apithy was named to several political posts, all while a member of Dahomey's only political party, the Union Progressiste Dahomeenne (UPD). He was the choice for vice president of the Rassemblement Democratique Africain (RDA), though left the organization shortly afterwards when facing Catholic opposition. The year 1946 also marked his entry into the Territorial Assembly of Dahomey, becoming one of its inaugural 30 representatives.

In the November 1946 legislative elections, Apithy ran under the ticket of Section Française de l'Internationale Ouvrière (SFIO) for the French National Assembly. Winning 32,977 votes out of 33,605 cast, he captured Dahomey's sole seat allotted at the Assembly. His only opponent, Emile Poisson, left the race the day before the election.