Why African Nationalism Grew: Internal and External Causes

20 min

A plaque in Manchester

On a wall in Manchester, England, a red plaque makes a bold claim: decisions taken at the Fifth Pan-African Congress, held there in October 1945, "led to liberation of African countries". Among the participants it names Kwame Nkrumah, who would lead Ghana to independence, and Jomo Kenyatta, who would lead Kenya. Read the plaque critically. Can one meeting free a continent? What else had to happen in Africa itself?

Definition

African nationalism: the movement of Africans to end colonial rule and govern themselves in independent states.

Pan-Africanism: the idea that Africans, on the continent and in the diaspora, share a common destiny and should unite. Its congresses, from 1900 onwards, ended in Manchester in 1945 with a demand for independence.

Decolonisation: the process by which colonies became independent states.

Figure 1. Nationalism grew from pressures inside the colonies and changes in the wider world, acting together.

Internal causes

Colonial exploitation: taxes, forced labour, compulsory crops and land taken for settlers (as in Kenya's highlands and Algeria) created deep grievances.
Racial discrimination: Africans were barred from top jobs, paid less and treated as inferior in their own countries.
Western education: mission schools and universities produced a new elite (lawyers, teachers, journalists) who used European ideas of liberty and democracy against European rule.
Organisations: political parties, trade unions, newspapers and youth and farmers' associations turned grievances into movements.
Ex-servicemen: Africans who had fought in the Second World War had seen that Europeans could be defeated and returned expecting reward.
Independent churches and cultural movements rejected the idea that African ways were inferior.

External causes

The Second World War left Britain, France and Belgium weak and in debt.
The Atlantic Charter (1941) declared the right of all peoples to choose their own form of government; Africans asked why it should not apply to them.
The United Nations Charter supported self-determination, and its trusteeship system aimed at independence.
The superpowers: both the United States and the Soviet Union opposed old-style empires.
Pan-Africanism, from the Manchester Congress of 1945.
Examples elsewhere: India's independence in 1947, the Bandung Conference of Asian and African states in 1955, and from 1957 Ghana's own example.

CrashCourse, "Decolonization" (Crash Course European History #43, about 13 minutes). It tells the story from the side of the European empires: watch for the reasons Europe gave up its colonies and compare them with the African causes above.

Warning

Do not make Africans passive. An answer that lists only external causes (the war, the UN, the superpowers) suggests independence was a gift. It was won: by parties, unions, strikes, boycotts and, in some colonies, armed struggle. Give internal causes at least equal weight.

Tip

Inside and outside. Sort every cause as internal or external, then show how they worked together: ex-servicemen (internal) came home from a world war (external).

Important

Discuss. The plaque says the 1945 Congress "led to liberation of African countries". Write two sentences that agree with the plaque and two that qualify it.

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Practice

Define African nationalism and Pan-Africanism.
Give three internal causes of African nationalism.
Give three external causes of African nationalism.
Explain how the Second World War encouraged nationalism in two different ways.
Why did Western education help to undermine colonial rule?
"External factors were more important than internal ones in the rise of African nationalism." Discuss.

Show answersHide answers

African nationalism: the movement of Africans to end colonial rule and govern themselves. Pan-Africanism: the idea that all Africans share a destiny and should unite.
Any three: exploitation (taxes, forced labour, land seizure); racial discrimination; educated elites; parties, unions and newspapers; ex-servicemen; independent churches.
Any three: the war weakened colonial powers; the Atlantic Charter; the UN Charter and trusteeship; US and Soviet opposition to empires; Pan-African congresses; India 1947 and Bandung 1955.
It weakened Britain, France and Belgium economically and militarily; and African soldiers returned with new experience and expectations. (The Atlantic Charter's promise is also acceptable.)
Educated Africans learned European ideas of liberty, equality and democracy and could use them, in the colonisers' own language, to demand self-government.
A balanced answer: external factors made independence possible and faster, but internal grievances and African organisation created the demand and won it. Many conclude that internal factors were decisive, with external ones as accelerators.

Sources and credits

Photo: Manchester fifth pan african conference plaque, KGGucwa, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Video: Decolonization: Crash Course European History #43, CrashCourse, embedded from YouTube.

Written by Ganzaa: the diagram, the analysis and the exercises. This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.

1A plaque in Manchester

2Internal causes

3External causes

A plaque in Manchester

Internal causes

External causes