Decolonisation in Africa with Case Studies of Ghana and Kenya

Lessons

Senior 3 · History and Citizenship

Decolonisation in Africa with Case Studies of Ghana and Kenya

4 lessons

Lesson 1 of 4

Causes of decolonisation in Africa

25 min

A promise read in Africa

In August 1941, before the United States had even entered the war, President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill met on warships off Newfoundland and agreed a statement of their war aims, the Atlantic Charter. Its third point reads:

Third, they 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;

Source A. The Atlantic Charter, 14 August 1941. Text: the Avalon Project, Yale Law School.

Analysing the source. Churchill meant the countries Germany had occupied in Europe, not the British Empire, and he later said so. But educated Africans read "all peoples" as including themselves. If the Allies were fighting for the right of peoples to choose their government, why not in Accra, Nairobi or Kigali? Words written for one purpose became a weapon for another. This lesson explains why, within about twenty years of the war, most of Africa became independent.

Definition

Decolonisation: the process by which colonies became independent states, in Africa mainly between the 1950s and the 1970s.

Nationalism: here, the movement of a colonised people to win independence and build their own nation.

Pan-Africanism: the idea that Africans, and people of African descent everywhere, share a common history and should unite to win freedom and dignity.

Self-determination: the right of a people to choose its own government.

Constitutional path: winning independence by elections, negotiation and new constitutions. Armed struggle: winning it by force.

The causes

Figure 1. The causes of decolonisation worked together; no single cause explains it.

Causes inside Africa

Nationalist parties and leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah's Convention People's Party (Gold Coast, 1949) organised mass support.
Ex-servicemen and educated elites. Africans who had fought in the Second World War (Unit 5) and graduates of mission schools and universities demanded the rights they had been promised.
Economic and land grievances. Low prices for crops, high prices for imported goods after the war, forced labour and, in settler colonies such as Kenya, the loss of land made colonial rule hated.
Towns, trade unions and newspapers brought people from many regions together and spread nationalist ideas.

Causes outside Africa

The Second World War weakened Britain, France and Belgium; ruling an empire had become expensive.
The superpowers and the UN. Both the United States and the Soviet Union opposed old-style empires, and the United Nations supported self-determination (Unit 5).
Asia's example. India and Pakistan became independent in 1947, followed by Burma, Ceylon and Indonesia.
Pan-Africanism. The Fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester in October 1945, attended by Kwame Nkrumah and Jomo Kenyatta, demanded independence. At Bandung, Indonesia, in April 1955, newly independent Asian and African states condemned colonialism.
Africa's own examples. Once Ghana became independent in 1957, others demanded the same; in 1960 alone seventeen African states became independent, and it was called the "Year of Africa".

Two roads to independence

	Constitutional road	Armed struggle
Method	Mass parties, strikes and boycotts, elections, negotiation	Guerrilla war, followed in the end by negotiation
Where it happened	Most British and French colonies in West Africa, such as Ghana (1957) and Senegal (1960)	Colonies with many settlers or a power that refused to leave: Kenya (Mau Mau, 1952 to 1960), Algeria (1954 to 1962), the Portuguese colonies (1961 to 1974)
Why	Few European settlers; colonial power willing to transfer power step by step	Settlers controlled land and politics and resisted African rule

Table 1. Two roads, compared. Lessons 3 and 4 study one example of each.

Rwanda's road was different again: as a UN trust territory it reached independence on 1 July 1962 through UN-supervised elections, but in a period of violence and exile rooted in colonial divisions (Senior 2).

Worked example: linking a war to the end of empire

Question: Explain three ways in which the Second World War contributed to decolonisation in Africa. (6 marks)

1. Weaker colonial powers. Britain and France ended the war in debt and dependent on American help, so holding colonies by force became too costly.

2. New ideas. The Atlantic Charter of 1941 promised "the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live"; Africans claimed this right for themselves.

3. Ex-servicemen. African soldiers had seen Europeans defeated and came home to poor pay and no jobs; in the Gold Coast in 1948 a march of ex-servicemen led to riots that sped up reform (Lesson 3).

Tip

Inside and outside. Sort every cause into "inside Africa" (people, parties, grievances) or "outside Africa" (war, superpowers, UN, Asia). The best answers show how the two worked together.

Warning

Independence was won, not simply "given". Even where power was handed over peacefully, it followed years of organisation, strikes, boycotts, arrests and elections by Africans. Avoid writing that a colonial power "granted" independence without explaining the pressure that made it do so.

Discuss

The Atlantic Charter was written for Europe but used in Africa. Can you think of other promises or rights, in history or today, that people have claimed for themselves even though the writers did not mean to include them? What makes such a claim powerful?

✦

Practice

Define decolonisation and self-determination.
What did the third point of the Atlantic Charter promise?
Name two internal and two external causes of decolonisation.
What was the Fifth Pan-African Congress, and why was it important?
Why was 1960 called the "Year of Africa"?
Explain why some colonies won independence peacefully while others went through armed struggle.
When did Rwanda become independent?
"External causes were more important than African nationalism in ending colonial rule." How far do you agree?

Show answersHide answers

Decolonisation: the process by which colonies became independent states. Self-determination: the right of a people to choose its own government.
That Britain and the United States respected "the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live", and wished to see self-government restored to those forcibly deprived of it.
Internal (any two): nationalist parties and leaders; ex-servicemen and educated elites; economic and land grievances; towns, trade unions and newspapers. External (any two): the war weakened the colonial powers; the superpowers and the UN opposed empires; India and Pakistan's independence in 1947; Pan-Africanism.
A meeting in Manchester in October 1945 of African and African-descended leaders, including Nkrumah and Kenyatta, which demanded independence; its participants went on to lead independence movements.
Because seventeen African states became independent in that year.
Where there were few settlers and the colonial power was willing to transfer power, as in Ghana, elections and negotiation worked. Where settlers held land and power and the colonial power resisted, as in Kenya and Algeria, nationalists turned to armed struggle.
On 1 July 1962.
Balanced answer: external causes (a weakened Britain and France, superpower and UN pressure) made empires harder to keep, but they did not decide when or how each colony became free. African parties, strikes, elections and, in some places, armed struggle forced the pace. Most historians conclude that both were needed, with African nationalism the driving force in each colony.

Sources and credits

The Atlantic Charter (14 August 1941), the Avalon Project, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School. Quoted.
Decolonisation of Africa, 5th Pan-African Congress, Bandung Conference and Year of Africa, Wikipedia contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0. Adapted by Ganzaa.
Plaque for the Fifth Pan-African Congress, Manchester, KGGucwa, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
The diagram, table, worked example and Practice were written by Ganzaa.

This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.

1A promise read in Africa

2The causes