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Free French Africa was the part of the French empire that came under the control of General Charles de Gaulle’s movement. From 1940 to 1943, it encompassed French Equatorial Africa and Cameroon; Brazzaville served as its capital. These African lands provided Free France with legitimacy, manpower, revenue, natural resources, and a starting point for military operations in the Desert War. These territories fell into Free French hands for a number of reasons, including the actions of African noncommissioned officers who spearheaded the arrest of Vichy’s governor in late August 1940. Thereafter, they were thrown headlong into the war effort. Some 17,000 soldiers were recruited in these regions and a run on natural resources ensued. It was at considerable cost to local populations that de Gaulle built a military machine in Central Africa, one capable of bringing France back into the global fray. For Africans, the advent of Free France signaled economic hardship, multiple imperatives including military enlistment and rubber collection, and a hardening of colonial practices.

The Kanem and Borno sultanates durably marked the history of central Sahel. From the 11th century to the end of the 19th century, the Islamic dynasties of the Sayfāwa, the Bulālah, and the Kanemi ruled over the shores of Lake Chad and actively participated in trans-Saharan and trans-Sahelian trade. There were also the site of a rich architectural and written Islamic culture. From the 11th to the 14th centuries, the Sayfāwa dynasty ruled over Kanem. They were the first rulers of this area to adopt Sunni Maliki Islam. In the 14th century, they migrated to Borno where they restored their authority, while the Bulālah dynasty replaced them in Kanem. From the 14th to the 18th centuries, the sultans of Borno developed intense diplomatic and commercial relations with the Mediterranean world, from Morocco to Mecca. In the 19th century, the Kanemi dynasty replaced the Sayfāwa in Borno after the rise of the Sokoto Caliphate in the west. The Kanemi ruled for a century, until 1897, at the eve of European colonization of the region.

Chad, a landlocked state in the heart of Africa, encompasses an area of 495,755 square miles (1,284,000 km2) and contains a population of 15 million people, with an estimated 180 different people groups. Women have played an important role in Chad’s history and society. In the precolonial period (16th century–1900), Chadian women played an essential part in the physical labor activities that provided for the livelihood of the community, yet the majority of women held limited decision-making power. In the courts of precolonial kingdoms, however, certain women of high rank held important political functions. During the period of French colonial rule (1900–1960), no significant effort was made to promote the status of women. Moreover, certain colonial policies geared toward generating revenue inflicted disproportionally heavy burdens on Chadian women. Education for women in colonial schools was an exception rather than a rule. Nevertheless, a small number of women were able to take advantage of the opportunities they did receive to carve out a space for themselves and become leaders in independent Chad (1960– ). Those belonging to the dominant political party mostly aimed their attention at improving women’s rights, while others in the opposition focused on the larger battles against colonialism, authoritarianism, nepotism, and the blatant disregard for human rights in Chad. In early 21st-century Chad, women are still underrepresented in all spheres of public life. Sexual and gender-based violence against women has become commonplace, contributing to the mounting gender inequality that continues to pervade and shape Chad.