Adolphe Sylvestre Félix Éboué (; 26 December 1884 – 17 May 1944) was a French colonial administrator and Free French leader. He was the first black French man appointed to a high post in the French colonies, when appointed as Governor of Guadeloupe in 1936. As governor of Chad (part of French Equatorial Africa) during most of World War II, he helped build support for Charles de Gaulle's Free French in 1940, leading to broad electoral support for the Gaullist faction after the war. He supported educated Africans and placed more in the colonial administration, as well as supporting preservation of African culture. He was the first black person to be buried in the Pantheon in Paris. Early life and education Born in Cayenne, French Guiana, the grandson of slaves, Éboué was the fourth son in a family of five brothers. His father, Yves Urbain Éboué, was a gold prospector, and his mother, Marie Josephine Aurélie Leveillé, was a shop owner born in Roura. She raised her sons in the Guiana Créole tradition. Éboué won a scholarship to study at secondary school in Bordeaux. Éboué was also a keen footballer, captaining his school team when they travelled to games in both Belgium and England. He graduated in law from the École nationale de la France d'Outre-Mer (called École coloniale for short), one of the grandes écoles in Paris. Career Éboué served in colonial administration in Oubangui-Chari for twenty years, and then in Martinique. In 1936 he was appointed governor of Guadeloupe, the first man of black African descent to be appointed to such a senior post anywhere in the French colonies. Two years later, with conflict on the horizon, he was transferred to Chad, arriving in Fort Lamy on 4 January 1939. He was instrumental in developing Chadian support for the Free French in 1940. This ultimately gave Charles de Gaulle's faction control of the rest of French Equatorial Africa. New indigenous policy for the French empire As governor of the whole of French Equatorial Africa between 1940 and 1944, Éboué published The New Indigenous Policy for French Equatorial Africa, which set out the broad lines of a new policy that advocated respect for African traditions, support for traditional leaders, the development of existing social structures and the improvement of working conditions. The document served as a basis for the Brazzaville conference of French colonial governors, held in 1944, that