Colonialism, decolonisation and independence movements
What this domain tests
Questions here compare colonial systems and explain how and why independence came, including negotiated transitions and armed struggles. You need to distinguish causes, processes and consequences, and use cases from across Africa.
Core concepts
- Rule: direct rule and French assimilation versus British indirect rule; settler colonies such as Kenya and Algeria versus non-settler colonies such as Ghana and Tanzania.
- Economy: cash-crop production, mining, taxation, labour migration and land alienation.
- Decolonisation: nationalist parties, trade unions, churches, women’s movements, colonial reform, Cold War pressure, and the 1960 UN Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.
Worked example
Ghana’s path to independence in 1957 is often reduced to “Nkrumah”. A stronger answer links the 1948 Accra riots, the Watson Commission, the 1949 Coussey Committee, Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party (1949), positive action and the 1951 election. Because the Gold Coast had no large settler population, Britain could negotiate; the CPP’s mass organisation made continued rule costly. Independence came in 1957, but the 1966 coup shows that decolonisation did not solve economic dependence.
Traps
Treating independence as a single event; assuming all decolonisation was violent; ignoring divisions within nationalist movements; forgetting that colonial boundaries and economies survived independence.