Resource 3: Key events in the move to independence
Background information / subject knowledge for teacher
1957 | Ghana becomes first independent black state in Africa under Kwame Nkrumah through Gandhi-inspired rallies, boycotts and strikes, forcing the British to transfer power over the former colony of the Gold Coast. | |
1958 | Chinua Achebe (Nigeria): Things Fall Apart, written in ‘African English’, examines Western civilisation's threat to traditional values and reaches a large, diverse international audience. | |
1958 | All-African People's Conference: Resolution on Imperialism and Colonialism, Accra, 5–13 December 1958 | |
1954– 1962 | French colonies (Francophone Africa) oppose continued French rule despite concessions, though many eager to maintain economic and cultural ties to France – except in Algeria, with a white settler population of 1 million. Bitterly vicious civil war in Algeria ensues until independence is gained in 1962, six years after Morocco and Tunisia had received independence. | |
1958 | White (Dutch-descent) Afrikaners officially gain independence from Great Britain in South Africa. | |
1964 | Nelson Mandela,on trial for sabotage with other ANC leaders before the Pretoria Supreme Court, delivers his eloquent and courageous ‘Speech from the Dock’ before he is imprisoned for the next 25 years in the notorious South African prison Robben Island. | |
1960– 1961 | Zaire (formerly Belgian Congo, the richest European colony in Africa) becomes independent from Belgium in 1960. Then, in Elisabethville (now Lubumbashi), ‘charismatic nationalist Patrice Lumumba was ... martyred in 1961, with the connivance of the [US] Central Intelligence Agency and a 30-year-old Congolese colonel who would soon become president of the country, Joseph Deséré Mobutu.’ (Bill Berkeley, ‘Zaire: An African Horror Story’, The Atlantic Monthly, August 1993; rpt. Atlantic Online) | |
1962 | Algeria (of Arab and Berber peoples) wins independence from France; over 900,000 white settlers leave the newly independent nation. | |
1963 | Multi-ethnic Kenya (East Africa) declares independence from the British. | |
1963 | Charter of the Organisation of African Unity, 25 May 1963. | |
mid-60s | Most former European colonies in Africa gain independence and European colonial era effectively ends. However, Western economic and cultural dominance, and African leaders’ and parties’ corruption intensify the multiple problems facing the new nations. | |
1965 | Rhodesia: Unilateral Declaration of Independence Documents. | |
1966 | Bechuanaland gains independence and becomes Botswana. | |
1970s | Portugal loses African colonies, including Angola and Mozambique. | |
1976 | Cheikh Anta Diop (Senegal, 1923–1986), one of the great African intellectuals of the 20th century, publishes the influential and controversial book, The African Origin of Civilization, his project to ‘identify the distortions [about African history] we have learned and correct them for future generations’. | |
1980 | Zimbabwe (formerly Southern Rhodesia) gains independence from large white settler population after years of hostilities. | |
1970s–1980s | Police state of South African white minority rulers hardens to maintain blatantly racist and inequitable system of apartheid, resulting in violence, hostilities, strikes, massacres headlined worldwide. | |
1986 | Nigerian poet/dramatist/writer Wole Soyinka awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature. | |
1988 | Egyptian novelist and short story writer Nabuib Mahfouz awarded the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first prizewinning writer with Arabic as his native tongue. | |
1994 | The Hutus massacre up to a million Tutsis in Rwanda; then fearing reprisals from the new Tutsi government, more than a million Hutu refugees fled Rwanda in a panicked mass migration that captured the world's attention. | |
1996 | 500,000 of Hutu refugees streamed back into Rwanda to escape fighting in Zaire. | |
2001 | After 38 years in existence, the Organisation for African Unity (OAU) is replaced by the African Union. |
Country | Colonial name | Colonial power | Independence date | First head of state |
Ethiopia | establishment as the Kingdom of Aksum | 1st century BC | Menelik I | |
Liberia | Commonwealth of Liberia | American Colonization Society | 26 July 1847 | Joseph Jenkins Roberts |
Libya | Libya | Italy | 24 December 1951 | Idris |
Egypt | Egypt | Britain | 1922/1936/1953 | n/a |
Sudan | Sudan | Britain | 1 January 1956 | Ismail al-Azhari |
Tunisia | Tunisia | France | 20 March 1956 | Muhammad VIII al-Amin |
Morocco | Morocco | France | 7 April 1956 | Mohammed V |
Ghana | Gold Coast | Britain | 6 March 1957 | Kwame Nkrumah |
Guinea | French West Africa | France | 2 October 1958 | Sékou Touré |
Cameroon | Cameroun | France, Britain | 1 January 1960 | Ahmadou Ahidjo |
Togo | French Togoland | France | 27 April 1960 | Sylvanus Olympio |
Mali | French West Africa | France | 20 June 1960 | Modibo Keita |
Senegal | French West Africa | France | 20 June 1960 | Léopold Senghor |
Madagascar | Malagasy Protectorate | France | 26 June 1960 | Philibert Tsiranana |
DR Congo | Belgian Congo | Belgium | 30 June 1960 | Patrice Lumumba |
Somalia | Italian Somaliland, British Somaliland | Italy, Britain | 1 July 1960 | Aden Abdullah Osman Daar |
Benin | French West Africa | France | 1 August 1960 | Hubert Maga |
Niger | French West Africa | France | 3 August 1960 | Hamani Diori |
Burkina Faso | French West Africa | France | 5 August 1960 | Maurice Yaméogo |
Côte d'Ivoire | Côte d'Ivoire | France | 7 August 1960 | Félix Houphouët-Boigny |
Chad | French Equatorial Africa | France | 11 August 1960 | François Tombalbaye |
Central African Republic | French Equatorial Africa | France | 13 August 1960 | David Dacko |
Congo | French Equatorial Africa | France | 15 August 1960 | Fulbert Youlou |
Gabon | French Equatorial Africa | France | 17 August 1960 | Léon M'ba |
Nigeria | Nigeria | Britain | 1 October 1960 | Nnamdi Azikiwe |
Mauritania | French West Africa | France | 28 November 1960 | Moktar Ould Daddah |
Sierra Leone | Sierra Leone | Britain | 27 April 1961 | Milton Margai |
Tanzania | Tanganyika | Britain | 9 December 1961 | Julius Nyerere |
Rwanda | Ruanda-Urundi | Belgium | 1 July 1962 | Grégoire Kayibanda |
Burundi | Ruanda-Urundi | Belgium | 1 July 1962 | Mwambutsa IV |
Algeria | Algeria | France | 3 July 1962 | Ahmed Ben Bella |
Uganda | British East Africa | Britain | 9 October 1962 | Milton Obote |
Kenya | British East Africa | Britain | 12 December 1963 | Jomo Kenyatta |
Malawi | Nyasaland | Britain | 6 July 1964 | Hastings Kamuzu Banda |
Zambia | Northern Rhodesia | Britain | 24 October 1964 | Kenneth Kaunda |
Gambia | Gambia | Britain | 18 February 1965 | Dawda Kairaba Jawara |
Botswana | Bechuanaland | Britain | 30 September 1966 | Seretse Khama |
Lesotho | Basutoland | Britain | 4 October 1966 | Leabua Jonathan |
Mauritius | Britain | 12 March 1968 | ||
Swaziland | Swaziland | Britain | 6 September 1968 | Sobhuza II |
Equatorial Guinea | Spanish Guinea | Spain | 12 October 1968 | Francisco Macías Nguema |
Guinea-Bissau | Portuguese Guinea | Portugal | 24 September 1973 | Luis Cabral |
Mozambique | Portuguese East Africa | Portugal | 25 June 1975 | Samora Machel |
Cape Verde | Portugal | 5 July 1975 | ||
Comoros | France | 6 July 1975 | ||
São Tomé and Príncipe | Portugal | 12 July 1975 | ||
Angola | Angola | Portugal | 11 November 1975 | Agostinho Neto |
Seychelles | Britain | 29 June 1976 | ||
Djibouti | French Somaliland | France | 27 June 1977 | Hassan Gouled Aptidon |
Zimbabwe | Southern Rhodesia | Britain | 18 April 1980 | Robert Mugabe |
Namibia | South West Africa | South Africa | 21 March 1990 | Sam Nujoma |
Eritrea | Eritrea | Ethiopia | 24 May 1993 | Isaias Afewerki |
South Africa | South Africa | South Africa (apartheid) | 27 April 1994 | Nelson Mandela |
Sahrawi Republic 1 | Spanish Sahara | Spain | 27 February 1976 | El-Ouali Mustapha Sayed |
Resource 2: African timelines template