[3] Peoples who arrived before the 16th century include the Ehotilé (Aboisso), Kotrowou (Fresco), Zéhiri (Grand Lahou), Ega, and Diès (Divo).

[3] The first recorded history is in the chronicles of North African Muslims who conducted a caravan trade across the Sahara in salt, slaves, gold, and other items from early Roman times.

[3] Islam was introduced into western Sudan by Arab traders from North Africa and spread rapidly after the conversion of many important rulers.

[3] By the 11th century, the rulers of the Sudan empires had embraced Islam that spread south into the northern areas of contemporary Ivory Coast.

[5] The Bono kingdom of Gyaman was established in the 17th century by the Abron, an Akan group that fled the developing Ashanti Empire in Ghana.

[6] From their settlement south of Bondoukou, the Abron gradually extended their dominance of the Juula, recent emigrants from the market city of Begho.

[6] The Baoulé, like the Ashanti, elaborated a highly centralized political and administrative structure under three successive rulers, but it finally split into smaller chiefdoms.

[6] Ivory Coast, like the rest of West Africa, was subject to these influences but the absence of sheltered harbors along its coastline prevented Europeans from establishing permanent trading posts.

[7] The treaties gave the French sovereignty for trading privileges in exchange for fees or customs paid annually to the local rulers for the use of their land.

[7] The trading post at Grand-Bassam was left to Arthur Verdier, a shipper from Marseille who was named a resident minister when the Ivory Coast was established in 1878.

[10] Prince Otto von Bismarck also wanted a greater role in Africa for Germany, which he thought he could achieve in part by fostering competition between France and Britain.

[10] To support its claims of effective occupation, France again assumed direct control of its West African coastal trading posts and embarked on an accelerated program of exploration in the interior in 1886.

[11] Also in 1887, Verdier's agent, Marcel Treich-Laplène, negotiated five additional agreements that extended French influence from the headwaters of the Niger River Basin through Ivory Coast.

[11] By the end of the 1880s, France had established effective control over the coastal regions of Ivory Coast and Britain recognized French sovereignty in the area in 1889.

[11] Samori Touré offered the greatest resistance; he had established the Wassoulou Empire over large parts of present-day Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast starting in 1878.

[14] The French imposed a system of forced labor, requiring each adult male Ivorian to work ten days each year without compensation as an obligation to the state.

As farming gained importance to the economic growth of Ivory Coast, European and African farmers alike worked diligently to enlarge their businesses.

These systemic injustices caused great strife between the African working class as they were growing further apart from their European counterparts and had little to no say in the matter as none of them were recognized, French citizens.

[14] Many Ivorians viewed the head tax as a violation of the terms of the protectorate treaties because it seemed that France was now demanding a coutume or payment from the local kings rather than the reverse.

[13] Angoulvant had little prior experience in Africa but believed that the development of Ivory Coast could proceed only after the forceful conquest, or so-called pacification, of the colony.

[17] Assimilation was practiced in Ivory Coast to the extent that a small number of Westernised Ivorians were granted the right to apply for French citizenship after 1930.

The Brazzaville conference in 1944, the first Constituent Assembly of the Fourth Republic in 1946, and France's gratitude for African loyalty during World War II led to far-reaching governmental reforms in 1946.

A turning point in relations with France was reached with the 1956 Overseas Reform Act or Loi-cadre Defferre, which transferred several powers from Paris to elected territorial governments in French West Africa and also removed remaining voting inequalities.

[18] Until 1958, governors appointed in Paris administered the colony of Ivory Coast, using a system of direct, centralized administration that left little room for Ivorian participation in policymaking.

He was one of the founders of the Rassemblement Démocratique Africain (RDA), the leading pre-independence inter-territorial political party for all of the French West African territories except Mauritania.

Representing Ivory Coast in the French National Assembly from 1946 to 1959, he devoted much of his effort to inter-territorial political organization and further amelioration of labor conditions.

In May 1959, Houphouët-Boigny reinforced his position as a dominant figure in West Africa by leading Ivory Coast, Niger, Upper Volta (Burkina Faso), and Dahomey (Benin) into the Council of the Entente, a regional organization promoting economic development.

Mass murders occurred, notably in Abidjan from 25 to 27 March, when government forces killed more than 200 protesters, and on 20 and 21 June in Bouaké and Korhogo, where purges led to the execution of more than 100 people.

Tensions between Ivory Coast and France increased on 6 November 2004, after Ivorian air strikes killed 9 French peacekeepers and an aid worker.

To answer these problems, the concept of "ivoirité" was born, a racist term targeted denying political and economic rights to the Northern immigrants.