Wallace G. Mills Hist. 317 1 Overview

Africa in the 20th C—An overview

- the partition and appropriation of Africa, including the initial conquest, was accomplished relatively late and in a very brief period; indeed, most of it was compressed into the 1880s and 90s. This ‘scramble’ (as it has been appropriately labeled) was carried out in a virtual frenzy in which rational calculations (whether economic or strategic) were at best a veneer, when they were present at all. Mostly, it was an irrational, herd-like frenzy.

- little thought had been given to what and how affairs should be arranged and handled in these newly acquired territories or to how power and authority were to be exercised over peoples whose economic, social and political organization were so different from their new European overlords; also, there were large variations and differences between African peoples and societies. However, imperial governments and peoples were not able to ignore such issues and soon woke up in the 20th C with a hang-over and with serious headaches!

- first, in this vacuum of thought and planning, there emerged in very many areas examples of excess and atrocities. Not too surprising perhaps when frequently, military authorities were given overall control (not very wise) and a great deal was left to ‘private enterprise’. The results soon showed as rebellions and revolts were frequent; these raised costs greatly and forced governments to take action and to begin thinking seriously about how to govern their new colonies and spheres of influence.

- secondly, World War I and its aftermath had large effects:

• all European imperial powers emerged much poorer and weaker than before 1914, much less enamored with war and military power and much less certain of the right to dominate and abuse other peoples of the world;
  
  
• Germany lost her colonies, but in the new moral climate (a lot of this was lip service, but there were effects) it was not done simply because Germany had lost the war; instead, the rationale was that Germany had been a ‘bad’ colonial power who governed badly. Germany’s colonies were divided up among the Allied powers so there were some changes in the maps; however, more importantly, by implication good government had become a requirement of colonial powers.
  
  
• in fact German colonies were given only as ‘mandates’ of the League of Nations; a mandated government was more or less in the position of a trustee for a ward. The ex-German colonies in effect were made wards of the court to the League of Nations, which then appointed various other countries to be trustees. In mandates it was explicitly stated that the role of the trustee government was to improve the lot of the subject peoples, and over the long term, to prepare them for self-gov’t and independence (even though it was assumed that the last was far into the future, even hundreds of years). This notion of trusteeship also began to be carried over into regular colonies as well.
  
  
• even more important were a number of ideas (often associated with Woodrow Wilson and his 14 Points but more widely based than that) about the need for morality in international relations; in the late 19th C and during the scramble, almost everyone had accepted the social darwinist idea that the arena of international relations was amoral and governed only by survival of the fittest and domination by the strongest.
  
  
• this was reinforced by the idea of self-determination which came to be a leading principle in the peace settlement (at least in theory) and the redrawing of the political boundaries in Europe; some representatives of Africans appeared at the peace conference to demand self-determination for Africans.
  
  - they were turned down and not admitted to be formal participants in the settlement negotiations, mostly on the grounds that African peoples were not yet ready for such a principle to be applied to them; however, again was implicit the idea that over time, the direction and objective of colonial administration should be towards such a condition.
  
  

1. the independence of India and Indonesia in the late 1940s was a preview of the trend and a great encouragement to seek independence.
   
   
2. there was World War 2 with its destruction and impoverishment of European imperial states so that the costs and burdens of colonialism were much more difficult to bear in the circumstances of the late 1940s and 50s to which the burdens of the Cold War were added from 1948 on; moreover, the rapid growth of mass nationalist movements and rising organized opposition to continued colonialism were clearly going to require large and growing expenses, both in economic resources and in lives (the Mau Mau outbreak in Kenya did not involve a large number of lives lost by whites or by British military, however, the Algerian horror simply kept escalating in the late 1950s, apparently indefinitely).
   
   - in fact, there was a reversal of the trend in the 19th C which had made the conquest possible—i.e., the costs in resources & lives had dropped dramatically; in the post 1945 period, costs began to increase.
   
   
3. also, in Europe, there was a profound change in beliefs and assumptions about the world and about their place in it (cosmological ideas and assumptions).
   
   - in the late 19th C, it was assumed that remaining ‘great powers’ was possible and important and that that required colonial empires.
   
   - in the post 1945 period, it became clear (in spite of attempts to deny it by Britain and France) that European states had been reduced to secondary level behind the 2 dominant superpowers; in two protracted internecine wars, European states had wasted their power and impoverished their peoples; in the atomic era, they faced the prospect of being the battleground for the superpowers and being subjected to even worse devastation and destruction.
   
   - the effects on attitudes to colonialism & empire were very great; some people blamed the wars at least partly on colonial rivalries; however, even without that, there was a growing tendency to feel that colonies were no longer desirable or worth the costs.
   
   
4. there were also pressures from the superpowers—the Soviet Union tried to turn independence struggles to its advantage in the larger Cold War and the U.S. was anxious to undermine this by urging its allies in Europe to dispense with empires and work towards independence.
   
   

• the Gold Coast received responsible government under African political leadership in 1956 and full independence as Ghana in 1958.
  
  
• in 1959, Harold Macmillan, British prime minister, made his ‘winds of change’ tour of Africa in which he promised independence shortly; most remaining British colonies were scheduled 1960-62.
  
  
• Charles DeGaulle came to power in France during the Algerian crisis in 1958; then in 1961, he surprised everyone by forcing African leaders to choose (even though, except for Algeria, there were no significant demands for independence in the French African colonies); (1) remain part of metropolitan France (i.e., as they were) or (2) independence
  
  - initially, only one colony, Guinea, opted for independence; then, quickly, after DeGaulle assured them that economic ties would continue, they all changed their minds and opted for independence.
  
  
• then at the beginning of 1962, the Belgian government announced that the Congo would become independent in 6 months, in spite of having made almost no preparation for it.
  
  

• only the Portuguese held out at ever increasing cost into the 1970s before they too gave up after a revolution in Portugal.
  
  
• most people would also include the two white settler-dominated regimes, Rhodesia and South Africa (including South West Africa/Namibia), as part of colonialism; eventually, even these have succumbed to majority rule: Rhodesia in the 1980s and South Africa only recently in the 1990s.
  
  

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