French Somaliland

It was established in 1896 after the Issa[2] and Afar each signed a treaty with the French. The March 11, 1862, agreement the Afar sultan, Raieta Dini Ahmet, signed in Paris was a treaty where the Afars sold the territory of Obock for 10,000 thalaris, around 55,000 francs. Later on, that treaty was used by the captain of the Fleuriot de Langle to colonize the south of the Bay of Tadjoura. On March 26, 1885 the French signed another treaty with the Issa where the latter would become a protectorate under the French, no monetary exchange occurred and the somalis did not sign away any of their rights to the land, the agreement was to protect their land from outsiders with the help of the French. However, after the French sailors of the vessel Le Pingouin were mysteriously killed in Ambado in 1886, the French blamed first the British, then the Somalis and further used that incident to lay claim to the entire southern territory.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]

An attempt by Nikolay Ivanovitch Achinov, a Russian adventurer, to establish a settlement at Sagallo in 1889 was promptly thwarted by French forces after just one month.

Coast of the Somalis and dependencies

Map showing the new borders of French Somaliland following the cession of territory to Italian Eritrea in 1935

The construction of the Imperial Ethiopian Railway west into Ethiopia turned the port of Djibouti into a boomtown of 15,000[12] at a time when Harar was the only city in Ethiopia to exceed that.[13]

Although the population fell after the completion of the line to Dire Dawa and the original company failed and required a government bail-out, the rail link allowed the territory to quickly supersede the caravan-based trade carried on at Zeila[14] (then in the British area of Somaliland) and become the premier port for coffee and other goods leaving southern Ethiopia and the Ogaden through Harar.

The railway continued to operate following the Italian conquest of Ethiopia but, following the tumult of the Second World War, the area became an overseas territory of France in 1946. In 1967, French Somaliland was renamed the French Territory of the Afars and the Issas and, in 1977, it became the independent country of Djibouti.

• List of governors of French Somaliland
• List of French possessions and colonies
• French colonial empire

• Imbert-Vier, Simon (2008). Frontières et limites à Djibouti durant la période coloniale (1884–1977) (PhD thesis). Université de Provence–Aix-Marseille I.