The United States of Latin Africa (French: Les Etats-Unis de l'Afrique Latine, Portuguese: Estados Unidos da África Latina) was the proposed union of Romance-language-speaking African countries envisioned by Barthélémy Boganda. Boganda first called for it in May 1957.[1]
The countries to be part of this large federal entity were Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, the Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, Chad, French-speaking parts of Cameroon, Gabon, and Equatorial Guinea. The idea's implementation was cut short by Boganda's death in a plane crash on March 29, 1959.[2] Boganda viewed this entity to be a counterweight to the powerful British-influenced southern bloc of South Africa, the Rhodesias, Bechuanaland and Nyasaland.[1] Many economists today strongly advocate the creation of such a union of countries which would constitute a powerful market and create a more viable infrastructure for sustainable internal development and international trade.
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 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]