Republic du Guinee African Heroes and Martyrs

REPUBLIC DU GUINEE on 2 October 1962 issued five First Day Cover stamps honouring African Heroes and Martyrs.

The honourees included:

- Alfa Yaya Maudo, was a 19th-century ruler of Labé, one of the nine provinces of the Imamate of Futa Jallon (a Muslim state ruled by Fula leaders), in present-day Guinea. He rose to power as the French began pushing into the interior of Guinea. This lasted until the French ceded part of Labé to the control of Portuguese Guinea, effectively taking away part of Alfa Yaya's territory. In 1905, the government of what was then French Guinea arrested him and he was deported to the French colony of Dahomey. After nearly a decade of imprisonment and exile, he died of scurvy in 1912. In 1968 his remains were returned to Guinea. His tomb is at the Camayanne Mausoleum, situated within the gardens of Conakry Grand Mosque.

- Roi Béhanzin is considered the eleventh King of Dahomey, modern-day Republic of Benin.  He ascended the throne in 1890 and ruled until 1894, when he was defeated by the French in the Second Franco-Dahomean War and exiled to Martinique. Béhanzin was Dahomey's last independent ruler established through traditional power structures. He led the resistance to French colonisation of his kingdom, during the Dahomey Wars.

- Babemba Traoré was a king of the Kénédougou Empire. Following the from 1893 until his death in 1898. The capital, Sikasso, was beset during this time by both the Mandinka forces of Samory Touré and by the rapidly advancing French colonial army. The neighboring Toucouleur Empire's capital at Ségou had fallen to the French the previous year, leaving the French free to focus on subduing the Kénédougou. In early 1898, the French began a major artillery barrage against Sikasso's walls; the city itself fell on 1 May 1898. Rather than surrender to the French, Babemba ordered his guards to kill him, an action still celebrated in Mali today. Samory Touré was captured in September of the same year, marking the effective end of West African resistance to French rule.

- Samory Toure, also known as Samori Toure, Samory Touré, or Almamy Samore Lafiya Toure, was a Muslim cleric, a military strategist, and the founder and leader of the Wassoulou Empire, an Islamic empire that was in present-day north and south-eastern Guinea and included part of north-eastern Sierra Leone, part of Mali, part of northern Côte d'Ivoire and part of southern Burkina Faso. Samori Ture was a deeply religious Muslim of the Maliki jurisprudence of Sunni Islam. Toure resisted French colonial rule in West Africa from 1882 until his capture in 1898. Ture died in captivity on an island in the Ogooué River, near Ndjolé on 2 June 1900, following a bout of pneumonia.  His tomb is at the Camayanne Mausoleum, within the gardens of Conakry Grand Mosque. He is considered a powerful example of resistance to French colonial forces and known for his building collaboration among diverse groups, as well as his war strategies.

- Thierno Aliou Bhoubha Ndian  was an important Fula author, Muslim theologian and politician in Fouta-Djalon, French West Africa. During the French colonisation of Guinea he became the principal judge of Labé, but he was replaced by his eldest son Thierno Siradiou in 1914. After the administrative reform of 1912 he was named chief of the canton of Donghora - a role which he accepted without enthusiasm at the insistence of his friends and supporters who feared he would experience the repression which had befallen other scholars in Fouta. He reigned four years and was obliged to abdicate in 1916. However, he continued with his cultural and religious activities, including a presentation at a conference of African scholars organised at Dakar by the Governor General of French West Africa.