Acacio Mañé Ela

Acacio Mane Ela was born around 1904 in Ndote, near Bata, in continental Equatorial Guinea. A successful cocoa and coffee farmer, he refused to submit to discriminatory Spanish colonial marketing cartels that impoverished indigenous farmers.

In the early 1950s, Mane Ela organized underground nationalist cells known as Cruzados del Pais, which later evolved into the Movimiento Nacional de Liberacion de Guinea Ecuatorial (MONALIGE). On November 20, 1959, he was arrested by the Spanish colonial marine infantry in Bata. Subjected to brutal interrogation at the barracks, he was murdered and his weighted body thrown into the Atlantic Ocean. He is revered as Equatorial Guinea's foundational national martyr.