The decolonisation of Africa was a series of political developments in Africa between the mid-1950s to 1976, during the Cold War. Colonial governments formed during the Scramble for Africa collapsed, giving way to sovereign states in a process characterised by violence, political upheaval, civil unrest, and organised revolts. Major events during the decolonisation of Africa include the Mau Mau rebellion, the Algerian War, the Congo Crisis, the Angolan War of Independence, the Zanzibar Revolution, and the events leading to the Nigerian Civil War.
Background
The Scramble for Africa between 1870 and 1914 was a significant period of European imperialism in Africa that ended with almost all of Africa, and its natural resources, claimed as colonies by European powers, who raced to secure as much land as possible while avoiding conflict amongst themselves. The partition of Africa was confirmed at the Berlin Conference of 1885, without regard for the existing political and social structures.
Almost all the precolonial states of Africa lost their sovereignty with the exceptions of Liberia and the Ethiopian Empire. Liberia had been settled in the early 19th century by formerly enslaved African-Americans and was recognised as independent by the United States in 1862 but was viewed by European powers as being in the United States' sphere of influence, while the Ethiopian Empire won its independence at the Battle of Adwa but was later occupied by Italy in 1936. Britain and France had the largest holdings, but Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, and Portugal also had colonies.
By 1977, 50 African countries had gained independence from European colonial powers.
External causes
In the early 20th century, nationalism gained ground globally. Following the end of World War I, German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires according to the principles espoused in Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points. Though many anti-colonial intellectuals saw the potential of Wilsonianism to advance their aims, Wilson had no intention of applying the principle of self-determination outside the lands of the defeated Central Powers. The independence demands of Egyptian and Tunisian leaders, which would have compromised the interests of the victorious Allies, were not entertained. Though Wilsonian ideals did not endure as the interwar order broke down, the principle of an international order based on the self-determination of peoples remained relevant.
After 1919, anti-colonial leaders increasingly oriented themselves toward the Soviet Union's proletarian internationalism.
Many Africans fought in both World War I and World War II. In World War I, African labour was essential on the Western Front, and African soldiers fought in the Sinai and Palestine campaign. Many Africans were not allowed to bear arms or serve on an equal basis with whites. The sinking of the SS Mendi in 1917 was a particularly tragic incident for Africans in the war, with 607 of the 646 crew killed being Black South Africans. In the Second World War, Africans fought in both the European and Asian theatres of war.
Approximately one million sub-Saharan Africans served in European armies in some capacity. Many Africans were compelled or even forced into military service by their respective colonial regimes, but some voluntarily enlisted in search of better opportunities than they could find in civilian employment. This led to a deeper political awareness and the expectation of greater respect and self-determination, which went largely unfulfilled. Because the victorious allied powers had no intention of withdrawing from their colonial holdings at the end of the war, and would instead need to rely on the resources and manpower of their African colonies during postwar reconstruction in Europe, the colonial powers downplayed Africans' contributions to the allied victory.
On 12 February 1941, United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met to discuss the post-World War II world. The result was the Atlantic Charter. It was not a treaty and was not submitted to the Parliament of the United Kingdom or the United States Senate for ratification, but it turned out to be a widely acclaimed document. Clause Three referred to the right to decide what form of government people wanted, and to the restoration of self-government.
Prime Minister Churchill argued in the British Parliament that the document referred to "the States and nations of Europe now under the Nazi yoke". President Roosevelt regarded it as applicable across the world. Anticolonial politicians immediately saw it as relevant to colonial empires.
In 1948, three years after the end of World War II, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognised all people as being born free and equal.
Italy, a colonial power, lost its African empire, Italian East Africa, Italian Ethiopia, Italian Eritrea, Italian Somalia and Italian Libya, as a result of World War II. Furthermore, colonies such as Nigeria, Senegal and Ghana pushed for self-governance as colonial powers were exhausted by war efforts.
The United Nations 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples stated that colonial exploitation is a denial of human rights, and that power should be transferred back to the countries or territories concerned.
Internal causes
Colonial economic exploitation involved diverting resource extraction, such as mining, profits to European shareholders at the expense of internal development, causing significant local socioeconomic grievances. For early African nationalists, decolonisation was a moral imperative around which a political movement could be assembled.
In the 1930s, colonial powers cultivated, sometimes inadvertently, a small elite of local African leaders educated in Western universities, where they became familiar with ideas such as self-determination. Although independence was not encouraged, arrangements between these leaders and the colonial powers developed, and such figures as Jomo Kenyatta (Kenya), Kwame Nkrumah (Gold Coast, now Ghana), Julius Nyerere (Tanganyika, now Tanzania), Léopold Sédar Senghor (Senegal), Nnamdi Azikiwe (Nigeria), Patrice Lumumba (DRC), António Agostinho Neto (Portuguese West Africa) now (Angola) and Félix Houphouët-Boigny (Ivory Coast) came to lead the struggles for African nationalism.
During World War II, some local African industries and towns expanded when U-boats patrolling the Atlantic Ocean impeded the shipping of raw materials to Europe.
Over time, urban communities, industries, and trade unions grew, improving literacy and education, and leading to the establishment of pro-independence newspapers.
By 1945, the Fifth Pan-African Congress demanded the end of colonialism, and delegates included future presidents of Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, and other nationalist activists.
Transition to independence
Following World War II, rapid decolonisation swept across the continent of Africa as many territories gained their independence from European colonisation.
In August 1941, United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met to discuss their post-war goals. In that meeting, they agreed to the Atlantic Charter, which in part stipulated that they would, "respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them". This agreement became the post-WWII stepping stone toward independence as nationalism grew throughout Africa.
Consumed by post-war debt, European powers could no longer afford to maintain control of their African colonies. This allowed African nationalists to negotiate decolonisation very quickly and with minimal casualties. Some territories, however, saw large death tolls as a result of their fight for independence.
Historian James Meriweather argues that American policy towards Africa was characterised by a middle road approach, which supported African independence but also reassured European colonial powers that their holdings would remain intact. Washington wanted the right type of African groups to lead newly independent states, in other words not communist and not especially democratic. Meriweather argues that nongovernmental organisations influenced American policy towards Africa. They pressured state governments and private institutions to disinvest from African nations not ruled by the majority population. These efforts also helped change American policy towards South Africa, as seen with the passage of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986.
British Empire
Ghana
On 6 March 1957, Ghana (formerly the Gold Coast) became the first sub-Saharan African country to gain its independence from European colonisation. Starting with the 1945 Pan-African Congress, the Gold Coast's (modern-day Ghana's) independence leader Kwame Nkrumah made his focus clear. In the conference's declaration, he wrote, "We believe in the rights of all peoples to govern themselves. We affirm the right of all colonial peoples to control their own destiny. All colonies must be free from foreign imperialist control, whether political or economic."
In 1948, three Ghanaian veterans were killed by the colonial police on a protest march. Riots broke out in Accra and though Nkrumah and other Ghanaian leaders were temporarily imprisoned, the event became a catalyst for the independence movement. After being released from prison, Nkrumah founded the Convention People's Party (CPP), which launched a wide-scale campaign in support of independence with the slogan "Self Government Now!" Heightened nationalism within the country grew their power and the political party widely expanded.
In February 1951, the CPP gained political power by winning 34 of 38 elected seats, including one for Nkrumah who was imprisoned at the time. The British government revised the Gold Coast Constitution to give Ghanaians a majority in the legislature in 1951. In 1956, Ghana requested independence inside the Commonwealth, which was granted peacefully in 1957 with Nkrumah as prime minister and Queen Elizabeth II as sovereign.
Winds of Change
Prime Minister Harold Macmillan gave the famous "Wind of Change" speech in South Africa, in February 1960, where he spoke to the country's Parliament of "the wind of change blowing through this continent". Macmillan urgently wanted to avoid the same kind of colonial war that France was fighting in Algeria. Under his premiership, decolonisation proceeded rapidly.
Britain's remaining colonies in Africa, except for Southern Rhodesia, were all granted independence by 1968. British withdrawal from the southern and eastern parts of Africa was not a peaceful process. Kenyan independence was preceded by the eight-year Mau Mau rebellion. In Rhodesia, the 1965 Unilateral Declaration of Independence by the white minority resulted in a civil war that lasted until the Lancaster House Agreement of 1979, which set the terms for recognised independence in 1980, as the new nation of Zimbabwe.
Britain has moved to return its last British-occupied possession in Africa by signing a formal agreement in 2025 transferring sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. Under the terms of the agreement, the strategic atoll of Diego Garcia and its 38-kilometre buffer zone are immediately returned to Mauritius. This agreement allows for the continued operation of the joint Anglo-American base on Diego Garcia.
Belgium
Belgium controlled several territories and concessions during the colonial era, principally the Belgian Congo (modern DRC) from 1908 to 1960 and Ruanda-Urundi (modern Rwanda and Burundi) from 1922 to 1962. It also had a small concession in China (1902–1931) and was a co-administrator of the Tangier International Zone in Morocco.