Octaviano Olympio
Octaviano Olympio (* 1860, † 1940) was the leader of the citizens of Lomé ( Togo).
Life
Octaviano Olympio was the son of Fransico Olympio Silva, a slave trader from the Brazilian Bahia. Silva was in 1850 came at the age of 17 years from Keta and then moved to Porto Seguro. Then he took the name Silva and founded a home in Agoué. From 1865 onwards, he was transformed from a slave trader for planters and The Plain Dealer. His mother was Constancia Talabi Pereira dos Santos, they had seven more sons of Silva.
Olympio was informed only in Portuguese by a Catholic priest, after which he continued his education in Nigeria and London continued. In London, he learned basics of trading. He then worked for the British trading firm A. and F. Swanzy.
In the early 1880s, a new English -dominated trading center on the West African coast began to be established, then known as Bay of Bey or Be, today a district of Lomé. Olympio and his brother Chico were selected by their firm A. and F. Swanzy, to establish a branch office there in 1882. While Chico died in 1886, Olympio was a successful trader. He worked not only for Swanzy, but also for his family. He acquired land on the market street just behind the European trade Häuseren and continued his two older sisters Clara and Julia as a saleswomen. He founded a trade with the Hausa from Salaga, the later area of the Gold Coast.
1884 established the German colony Togo. Their management was settled first in Baguida, then in Anecho and most recently in 1897 in Lomé. 1887 Olympio used his influence on the new German Governor Jesko of Puttkamer to move it to also control the Kpalime area and so to be able to drive an undisturbed trade in Hausa from Ghana. It is very likely that it at about cheap labor, if not walked him disguised slavery.
In 1889 he built his first coconut plantation in the north- west of the city on 90 acres of land with 12,000 palm trees. He was the first Togolese who created from his coconuts copra and exported. He built the first and long time the only brickyard of Lomé, which he fired with remnants of copra production.
1892 Olympio was the most prominent citizens of Lomé. He was Catholic Divine Word Missionaries welcome and asked her once, to open a school. At the same time he separated from the Swanzy - brothers, but they still got a loan to expand his business. In 1903 he had a herd of 150 cattle.
Between 1909 and 1913, he doubled his income of about 9,000 a year to 21,000 Reichsmarks. He spent most of his fortune in lands and diversified it. 1914, the value of his lands was estimated at 750000-1000000 Mark. At the same time went under the harsh German terms, such as high import and export duties, many local dealers under. The Germans were very strict, they whipped in 1891 even Olympio for libel from. 1898 and the following year had to pay penalties Olympio because resistance to the tax authorities. This procedure prepared in Togo the first anti-colonial and nationalist aspirations of the ground, which led Olympio later.
1909 directed Olympio and Andreas Aku, a teacher, a pastor and later head of the Ewe Church, a petition to the German Governor Count Julius von Zech. They called for equal treatment for the natives, bans a provisional arrest in civil litigation, as well as the possibility to deposit instead of cash assets and the country as a deposit in court. In his report to the colonial administration of the German Reich Zech was these demands as too revolutionary, although he portrayed the petitioners as loyal German. His German -speaking answer to Olympio, however, was racist reasons that whites are superior to blacks and therefore should be treated differently. Four years later, in 1913, the native citizens drafted a petition again, again Olympius was signed to colonel. This time it was written in German and was addressed to Wilhelm Solf, the head of the Imperial Colonial Office. Olympio and seventeen others were locked up then.
With the onset of World War I, the Germans withdrew from Togo. The colony initially fell to the British, which were very welcome and the locals could come back to prosperity. Olympio stormed the British Foreign Office, British newspapers and the League of Nations during the peace negotiations at the end of World War telegrams and petitions to give the locals more rights. Nevertheless, Togo came in 1919 under French influence. Even at the age of 61 years he learned French. Built in 1922, the French Conseil des Notables one (such as " by prestigious Council of " ) in Lomé with Olympio ( until 1935 ) as one of the first members. The Council could advise local citizens in colonial affairs. Later, he was also a member of the Conseil d'administration.
1924 Olympio traveled to London and Paris. He died in 1940 at the age of 81 years.
Olympio had 24 children by different women. His eldest son, Agostinho, was a farmer and Chef de Canton in Agoué 1937. Whose son, Pedro was the first European -trained doctor in Togo. His youngest son, Luciano ( Lucien Bebi ) was Attorney General at the Togolese Supreme Court. Olympius nephew Sylvanus Olympio was the first president of Togo.