United States of Latin Africa

United States of Latin Africa
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The United States of Latin Africa (French: États-Unis de l'Afrique latine, Portuguese: Estados Unidos da África Latina, Spanish: Estados Unidos de África Latina) was the proposed union of Romance-language-speaking Central African countries envisioned by Central African politician Barthélémy Boganda. Boganda first called for it in May 1957.^[1]

The countries to be part of this large federal entity were Angola, Burundi, French Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Republic of Congo, and Rwanda. The idea's implementation was cut short by Boganda's death in a plane crash on 29 March 1959.^[2] Boganda viewed this entity to be a counterweight to the powerful British-influenced southern bloc of South Africa and the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.^[1]

The idea of the United States of Latin Africa was criticised by Richard Wright in a special introduction to French readers of a translation of his book White Man, Listen!, on the basis that Latin Africa meant Catholic Africa, and that it would allegedly create a religious division against secular, English-speaking Africa, which he called Protestant Africa. According to Wright, these ideas reflected only the attitudes of those Africans educated in France or Britain, the dominant European powers of that time. He called instead for a Pan-African approach.^[3]