History

• From the 1800s through the 1900s, every part of the continent of Africa was colonised at least once
• Main colonisers of Africa


  • Britain
  • Belgium
  • France
  • Germany
  • Italy
  • Portugal
  • Spain
• For most of these countries, the size of their African colonies was much larger than the home country
• During the 20th century the process of decolonisation progressed slowly and gradually it was accepted as inevitable
• In Kenya, the British government refused to grant the 20,000 European settlers in the 'white highlands' any kind of direct political power over the majority of tribal blacks
• In British West Africa, the change from direct colonial government to self-rule by the black elite had started by 1939
• This was because there were no white settlers or Indian merchants (as there were in East Africa) to cause difficulties
• The process was not always peaceful
• Protests against colonial rule


  • Women's War in south-eastern Nigeria in 1929
  • Protests across the continent of Africa in the 20th century
• In the Women's War, the women were peaceful, never injuring anybody they were protesting against or any of the forces fighting against them, but about 50 women were killed and another 50 injured by the soldiers and police
• Before World War II, decolonisation failed to progress only in two areas: Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia
• In Northern Rhodesia, moves to independence were strongly resisted by powerful mining companies, especially copper mining
• In Southern Rhodesia, white farmer settlers established self-government and privileges over a black majority with no voting power
• Unit 12.1


  Decolonisation and Independence
• World War II


  1939-45
• World War II


  • Global war
  • Axis Powers (Germany, Italy and Japan) were defeated by the Allies (Britain and the countries of the British Commonwealth, the Soviet Union and the United States)
• World War II


  1. War began in Europe and covered most of that continent

  2. Fighting spread to the Mediterranean and North Africa and through the Middle East, South East Asia and the Western Pacific, including Indo-China, Burma, Malaya, Indonesia, the Philippines and Papua New Guinea
• An estimated 55 million people lost their lives during World War II
• After the war


  The United States and the Soviet Union emerged as rival superpowers and that sowed the seeds of the Cold War
• The post-war period


  • Saw extensive redrawing of national frontiers, especially in Europe, but also in other parts of the world
  • Led to an acceleration of moves towards decolonisation and the granting of independence to former colonial territories
• Decolonisation


  The process of colonies gaining independence from their colonial rulers
• Decolonisation occurred


  During and after World War II
• Britain, France and Holland (The Netherlands)


  • Weakened by World War II and did not have the strength or wealth needed to keep the colonies
• Decolonisation of colonies in Asia


  1. India

  2. Pakistan

  3. Ceylon

  4. Burma

  5. The Philippines
• After the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu (in Vietnam) in 1954 and the Suez Crisis (in Egypt) of 1956


  Decolonisation accelerated
• By the mid-1970s only scattered parts of Europe's colonial territories remained
• Reasons for the increase in the rate of decolonisation


  • The two post-war superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, both took up positions opposed to colonialism and used indirect means to take over from previous colonial rulers
  • Colonial wars fought by the mass revolutionary movements of the colonial world were expensive and bloody
  • The public of Western Europe was tired of war and eventually refused any sacrifices of life and money to maintain overseas colonies
• Colonies that did not possess either concentrated resources or strategic advantages, and that had no European settlers, won easy separation from their colonisers
• The end of colonialism did not result in the spread of new, neatly divided nation-states throughout the world and it did not ease rivalry between the great powers
• The United States, the USSR and China all assumed that the newly independent nations would follow the ways of governing of their mother countries or move towards 'anti-imperialist' Soviet or Mao camps
• Many Third World leaders chose socialism or to remain neutral
• After World War II, the United States urged Britain and France to free their empires


  But this changed when the United States needed Britain and France as allies in the Cold War
• As a trade-off for their support, the United States supported the Anglo-French resistance to nationalist and communist forces in their colonies
• President Truman's policy was to provide foreign aid and loans to new nations


  To prevent them drifting 'towards poverty, despair, fear and the miseries of mankind which breed unending wars'
• President Eisenhower, who followed Truman


  Cut back on this aid as he felt foreign aid did not always serve US interests
• The Soviets held that new nations would not be truly independent until they freed themselves from economic dependence on their former masters
• When the Soviets provided assistance to a country they expected political support in international forums in return
• A conference was held at Bandung in Indonesia


  1955
• The Bandung Conference


  • Representatives from 29 Asian and African countries attended
  • They proposed the creation of the Non-Aligned Movement
  • This was a group of Third World countries that was aligned neither to the West nor to the communist countries
  • The conference condemned colonialism in all its forms
  • They adopted principles including mutual respect between nations, territorial sovereignty, non-aggression and non-interference in any country's internal affairs, peaceful coexistence, and the right to independence
• The Non-Aligned Movement was more formally organised in 1961