During thousands of years, different types of population went through Guinea territory.
The set-up of the ethnic groups Soussous and Malinkés started in the X^th century. The current region called “Haute-Guinée” was successively part of Ghana Empire during the X^th and XI^th centuries, Mali Empire in the XVI^th century and finally Songhai Empire until the XIX^th century. The set-up of the ethnic group Peuls from the early XVI^th century will be accompanied by a strong Islam influence. The populations pushed down towards the coast have the first contact with Europeans. Europeans then established sales counters and did businesses such as spice, palm oil, ivory and…slavery! The treaty of Tordesillas (1494) established the limits between Spanish and Portuguese. Thus, at the origin, Africa belonged to Portuguese.

During the XVI^th century, Portuguese came into competition with French and British. Fairly quickly, Portuguese will own only the today’s Guinea-Bissau and the British the today’s Sierra Leone. Within less than fifty years, French imperialism won the game and went inland in direction of “Fouta Djalon” and "Haute-Guinée”. That’s how the French Gaspard-Théodore MOLLIEN reached the “Moyenne-Guinée-Fouta Djalon” and the town of TIMBO whereas the British Gordon LAING in 1826 and the French René CAILLE in 1828 reached the town of TIMBUKTU. The first Treaties with the local Kingdoms of Guinea were signed by the French Admiral BOUET-WILLAUMEZ (1808-1871), future governor of Senegal. But, it is the French Olivier de SANDERVAL, who, in 1880, will prepare the French colonisation of Guinea.
In 1884-1885, at the so-called “Berlin Conference”, the most powerful colonial countries (France, Great Britain, Germany and Portugal) agreed together to divide African continent up!
This agreement recognized the “rights” of France among others, on Guinea. Thus, the Territory of Guinea became officially “French Colony” in 1893. However, this colonisation did not take place without resistance. Almamy Samory TOURE (Almamy means Sovereign in language Malinké) opposed a strong resistance as soon as the years 1880 with important means and an excellent military and social organization. Samory lost the war in 1898, victim of a betrayal! He was deported to Gabon in prison, where he died in 1900. Other nationalists continued fighting until 1912. At this date, the French colonisation is completed. The administration system of the existing colonies was applied to Guinea and French language became the official language!

As a reminder, the contribution of Africa and populations from Africa was decisive in the successful conclusion for France of the Second World War. The after-war was also the opportunity for populations to claim the recognition of their dignity. The 1946 Constitution changed replaced the “Colonial Empire” by “French Union”, the content of the domination remaining the same!
With the war in Algeria (1954-1962), France faced a big political crisis which ended up with the come-back of General Charles de GAULLE (Hero of the freedom). With this come back, a new Constitution was established and General de GAULLE, organized a tour of the main African countries. French Government was asking African Countries to respond YES or No to the following question: Do you want to be part of “French Community”? On August 25^th 1958, General de GAULLE came to Guinea-Conakry and had a meeting with the local leader called Sékou TOURE. Sékou TOURE and other Guinean leaders understood immediately that this new proposal was only a new format of the past “French Union”.
On September 1958, in contrary to all other countries, the response of Guinea was “NO”. Independence Day was fixed to October 2^nd at 10:30AM. General Charles de GAULLE was rather angry and he gave instruction to the Governor to remove immediately all French working people and all colonial means from Guinea, which was done accordingly.
Since then, referring to tentatives of destabilization from France, the new political Regime of Sékou TOURE undertook violent repressions against all categories of Guineans, especially the so-called Intellectuals. Thousands of people were killed and more than 500 000 Guineans (Students, Intellectuals, workers, and other categories) moved out of Guinea.

The successive phases of “Revolution”, Repressions, State disorganization and Corruption stopped the development of the Country and plunged the population in a deep depression and misery. Thus, the population had no benefit from the huge potentialities of the country in minerals, agriculture and fishing!