Pre-Colonial Gabon
Prehistoric remains testify to extremely ancient human activity on the land that is currently part of Gabon. The oldest traces of worked stone in the Central African rain forest belt were found in the region of La Lopé. On the Elarmekora site, near Otoumbi, archaeologists have discovered stones cut by human hands that are 400,000 years old. Axes and arrowheads dating from the Stone Age, approximately 10,000 years BC, have also been found in Moyen-Ogooué and in southern Gabon.
Pygmies were the first known inhabitants of Gabon's forests. They settled here in 5000 BC, living from hunting, fishing and gathering. Then, 750 years ago, began the migration phases of the main ethnic groups who came to settle and remain in Gabon today. Bantu ethnic groups arrived in the area from several directions to escape enemies or find new land. In the process they displaced other groups in the region, among them the pygmies who now inhabit the jungle in the country’s far east.
The Bantu people were initially the major wave of migration forming the cocoon of the first population of Gabon. Originating from a small core group emerging in North Africa, Bantu is not the name of an ethnic group, but of a group of languages. Leaving the Sahelian zone c. 5000 BC, they slowly descended towards the south, intermixing with the peoples they encountered on the way.
Arriving in the region of the Estuary in the 11th century, the Mpongwe of the Myènè branch slowly settled there up until the 8th century. From the 16th century onwards, a wide variety of ethnic groups began to arrive in Gabon, first of all along the Ivindo valley (Bakélé, Simba, Mitsogho, Okandé and Bakota), then from the south (Eshira, Bapunu, Balumbu then M'Bédé, Bandjabi, Bat-sangui and Aduma, etc.). The Fang arrived in the 19th century.
Pre-colonial Gabonese society was characterized by extended clans living in villages dispersed throughout the savannah and rainforest. During this period, most Gabonese practiced hunting, gathering, and mixed farming. There was no centralized government or economy. Historical narratives from this period are extremely localized and passed down through oral tradition by elders. Pre-colonial history is bound up with migration narratives, local genealogies, and clan memberships, and is centered on clan leaders and local conflicts. Clan and regional affiliations provided the political fabric of a person’s identity. Ethnic labels were largely created by the French colonialists and were not adopted by the Gabonese as a means of self-identifying until the latter part of the colonial era.
The lucrative trade opportunities that accompanied the arrival of Portuguese and other European traders in the late 15th and early 16th centuries altered the lives of most Gabonese. Libreville, the contemporary capital of Gabon, began as a small trading port in the Estuary region along the coast. Trade opportunities in the Estuary region spurred migrations of Fang groups to the Estuary region and the Woleu N’Tem agricultural region in the north. The Fang dominate these areas in contemporary Gabon. The Mpongwé, a smaller Bantu group that formerly dominated the Estuary region and was the initial beneficiary of early European trade, was forced to accommodate the Fang migration. Today, the Mpongwé remain wary of the Fang presence and have formed political alliances to limit Fang dominance.
Gabon's first European visitors were Portuguese traders who arrived in the 15th century. They named the area after the Portuguese word "gabao," a coat with sleeves and hood resembling the shape of the Komo River estuary. Dutch, British, and French traders followed the Portuguese in the 16th century, and the coast became a center of the slave trade. In a bid to beat the other European powers, France began to formalize its status in Gabon by signing treaties with Gabonese coastal chiefs in 1839 and 1841.
Libreville, the capital, grew out of a series of small settlements along the Komo River estuary. The first settlement was started in 1842 by American missionaries from New England who established a Presbyterian mission on a hilltop overlooking the estuary. The mission, called Baraka, is now located in the section of Libreville called Glass. In 1849, the population along the Komo River estuary swelled when the French captured an illegal slave ship and released the passengers at the mouth of the Komo River. The slaves named their settlement Libreville--"free town."
The interior remained relatively unexplored by outsiders until the mid-19th century. An American, Paul du Chaillu, was among the first foreigners to explore the interior of the region in the 1850s. Between 1862 and 1887, French explorers penetrated the dense jungles of what would become Gabon. The most famous, Savorgnan de Brazza, used local Bantu bearers and guides in his search for the headwaters of the Congo River.
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