He supported educated Africans and placed more in the colonial administration, as well as supporting preservation of African culture. He was the first black person to be buried in the Pantheon in Paris.
Early life and education
Born in Cayenne, French Guiana, the grandson of slaves, Éboué was the fourth son in a family of five brothers. His father, Yves Urbain Éboué, was a gold prospector, and his mother, Marie Josephine Aurélie Leveillé, was a shop owner born in Roura. She raised her sons in the Guiana Créole tradition.
Éboué served in colonial administration in Oubangui-Chari for twenty years, and then in Martinique. In 1936 he was appointed governor of Guadeloupe, the first man of black African descent to be appointed to such a senior post anywhere in the French colonies.
Two years later, with conflict on the horizon, he was transferred to Chad, arriving in Fort Lamy on 4 January 1939. He was instrumental in developing Chadian support for the Free French in 1940. This ultimately gave Charles de Gaulle's faction control of the rest of French Equatorial Africa.[4]
New indigenous policy for the French empire
As governor of the whole of French Equatorial Africa between 1940 and 1944, Éboué published The New Indigenous Policy for French Equatorial Africa, which set out the broad lines of a new policy that advocated respect for African traditions, support for traditional leaders, the development of existing social structures and the improvement of working conditions. The document served as a basis for the Brazzaville conference of French colonial governors, held in 1944, that sought to introduce major improvements for the peoples of the colonies.[5]
He classified 200 educated Africans as "notable évolués" and reduced their taxes, as well as placing some Gabonese civil servants into positions of authority.
Éboué died in 1944 of a stroke while in Cairo. His mortal remains were reburied in the Panthéon in Paris in 1949, making Éboué the first black French man honored in this manner.[4][9]
Within France, a square, Place Félix-Éboué, in 12th arrondissement of Paris is named for him, as is the adjacent Paris Métro station Daumesnil Félix-Éboué. A primary school in Le Pecq bears his name and offers bilingual English/French education. A small street near La Défense was named for him.
The main airport of Cayenne, French Guiana, which was previously named after the comte de Rochambeau, was named in his honor in 2012.
The Lycée Félix Éboué in N'Djamena is one of Chad's oldest secondary schools. Founded in 1958 as a general education college, it was made a lycée in 1960, the year that Chad became an independent country. In 2002, it was split into two separate schools, each with about 3000 students.[11]
References
^"Félix Éboué". AZ Martinique (in French). Retrieved 5 July 2022.
^Shillington, Kevin (2013). Encyclopedia of African History 3-Volume Set. Vol. 1 A–G. Routledge. p. 448. ISBN978-1-135-45669-6. OCLC254075497. Retrieved 2 June 2020. There was much support for the Vichy regime among French colonial personnel, with the exception of Guianese-born governor of Chad, Félix Éboué, who in September 1940 announced his switch of allegiance from Vichy to the Gaullist Free French movement based in London. Encouraged by this support for his fledgling movement, Charles de Gaulle traveled to Brazzaville in October 1940 to announce the formation of an Empire Defense Council and to invite all French possessions loyal to Vichy to join it and continue the war against Germany; within two years, most did.
^ abcBarry, Françoise (19 January 1999). "ÉBOUÉ FÉLIX - (1884-1944)". Encyclopædia Universalis [en ligne]. Encyclopædia Universalis France. Retrieved 9 July 2020.