Impacts of Colonialism on Africa

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Colonialism confronts simple definition, for its usage has tended to reflect changing moral judgments. In the late 1800s, the term was applied only to colonies of white settlers and was used in either of two ways, both morally neutral, a trait characteristic of such colonies, and the political status of a dependency as distinct from the metropolis or another sovereign state.

Actually, the term colonialism rarely was used in the sense of a colonial system. Its later usage resulted from its adoption as part of the verbal ammunition of the age of decolonization. In this, it suffered the fate of “imperialism,” which after 1900 was adopted by critics of European expansion to serve ideological purposes and used imprecisely to suggest both the annexation of territories and their subsequent state of subordination, in each case to serve the economic interests of the capitalist powers of Europe and North America. By the mid of 1900s, colonialism also began to be used in this derogatory sense. (Doctrines on colonialism 1)

The two terms were gradually refined and distinguished. Whereas “imperialism” came to indicate the dynamics of European empire-building and, for Marxists, the special character of the capitalist societies that acquired empires, “colonialism” described the resultant complex of political and economic controls imposed on dependencies. Colonialism, therefore, must now be taken to denote the colonial system in its post-expansionist phase, with the implication that it constituted a system of controls that was constructed by the imperial powers to subordinate and exploit their dependencies. (Singh 1)

Let’s take a view of the history of Colonization the special feature common to most modern colonial systems was that dependencies were geographically separated from their metropolis, although they remained under some degree of imperial control. The only power of which this was not true was Russia, whose “colonies” stretched without a break from its territory in Europe to the borders of India and to the Bering Strait. Although contiguous, these outlying provinces were true colonial dependencies; for they had been distinct ethnic and economic units with which Russia’s initial relations were those of conqueror or colonizer. (Johnston 2-5)

The Russian Empire provides a conceptual bridge between the modern colonial empires and other territorial empires at earlier periods, most of which was continental and contiguous to the metropolis. Most of Europe, Asia, Africa, and Central and South America at one time fell under the authority of an imperial dynasty or state. The greatest ancient imperial powers were Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, Persia, Rome, Byzantium, the Carolingians, the Arabs, China, the Incas, and the Aztecs—were essentially continental.

Maritime empires were few and unspectacular before modern European overseas colonization. In classical times the Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, and Romans established overseas colonies. Later, Hindus and Muslims from India and Arabia settled territories of the Indian Ocean and Indonesia, and the Chinese colonized much of Southeast Asia. However, these settlements generally lacked central control or even continuing contact with the parent state.

For the most part, neither the great continental empires nor earlier maritime settlements had much in common with modern colonial systems—the former because they were territorially contiguous, the latter because they lacked central control. However, then, as later, both the motives that led to the creation of the systems, and the patterns of government, trade, or culture that emerged, were infinitely varied.

Continental empires were the product of multiple factors, notably dynastic ambition, frontier insecurity, religious fanaticism, or the need for land or slave labor. The same variety of motives is seen in earlier maritime colonization in which trade, surplus population, dynastic ambition, and religion figured. Colonial systems were equally varied. Some empires attempted to impose cultural uniformity; others did not. Some were highly centralized administratively; others consisted of essentially autonomous provinces. (Brunelle n.p.)

Modern European expansion can be dated from the Portuguese conquest of Ceuta (in Morocco) in 1415 to the Italian occupation of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1936. Within this period there were two overlapping cycles, the first ending with the independence of the majority of the original colonies in the Americas in the 1820s, and the second beginning with the British conquest of Bengal in and after 1757. During the first cycle, most of the European colonies were in the Western Hemisphere. During the second cycle, the colonial empires encompassed much of Asia, the Pacific, and Africa. Behind these geographical contrasts lay fundamental differences in the character of colonialism. (Fieldhouse n.p.)

The paradoxical feature of the first cycle was that the states of Western Europe established vast empires in America almost by accident. Columbus intended to find an oceanic route to the East, not to found colonies. He failed, but Spain found compensation in the gold and silver resources of parts of Central and South America. Colonization there was the result of the first overseas gold rush by Europeans. In the wake of the first conquistadores came missionaries, administrators, settlers, and craftsmen. By 1650, Spain, Portugal, France, England, and the Netherlands all had colonies in America.

The motives of the colonizers varied, and their enterprises at first were experimental. Many hoped to find gold or silver. The search for a northwest passage to China continued. French and English fishermen needed bases near the Newfoundland Banks. Emigrants were attracted by free land or hoped to escape political or religious persecution at home. American colonization was an unforeseen and largely uncontrolled reaction to the challenge of discovery.

In other parts of the world the character of European expansion was quite different and to some extent was the result of deliberate planning. The general pattern was set by Portugal, which from the 1400s aimed to exploit the discovery of a route to the East round the Cape of Good Hope for commercial rather than colonizing purposes. Portugal did establish territorial possessions in certain parts of Africa and Asia, but on the whole, it chose to limit its commitments to coastal bases, relying on naval power and treaties with indigenous rulers to provide suitable conditions for a profitable trade. The French, English, and Dutch followed this example.

Nevertheless, European colonial empires expanded anew in the latter 1800s. This “new imperialism” is conventionally explained in terms of changing European economic needs and interests. Sources of raw materials, fields for investment, and ever-larger markets were needed, and fear of exclusion from regions controlled by other states forced each country to establish colonies in order to protect its interests. An alternate explanation holds that, with intensified international rivalries, each state claimed colonies to increase its strategic power, to defend its trade routes, or to use pawns in diplomacy. Finally, it has been suggested that colonization reflected a new aggressive nationalism in Europe, produced partly by international rivalries and partly by racist theories.

All these explanations focus on Europe, but while there were elements of truth in each, the evidence suggests that the dynamics of European expansion once again lay outside Europe: that imperialism was a reaction to crises and opportunities in Asia, the Pacific, and Africa rather than the product of needs and calculated policies within Europe. Crises might result from the frontier problems or expansionist tendencies of existing colonies, from the disintegration of indigenous political or social systems, or from rivalries between Europeans on the spot. Such situations might induce a European government to annex. (The New Imperialism n. p.)

Between 1880 and 1910 the tempo of annexation was quickened partly because crises occurred simultaneously in many areas and partly because Germany, Belgium, the United States, Italy, and Japan joined the existing group of maritime nations and Russia as colonial powers. The outcome was the virtually complete partition of Africa and the Pacific region and an increase of colonial territory in Asia. By 1914, Europe dominated every continent except the Americas, which in turn were dominated, indirectly, by the United States.

The period from 1914 to 1939 was the apogee of the modern colonial empires. After World War I, German, Japanese, and Ottoman territories were assigned mainly to European powers. These territories technically were League of Nations mandates, but they were administered like other dependencies. With the Italian occupation of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1936, the colonial empires reached their territorial peak. Most western European countries were colonial powers, as were the United States and Japan. Russia, by this time a Socialist state, disclaimed colonies but retained those parts of central and eastern Asia that the Czarist regime had acquired, technically as autonomous republics.

World War II marked the beginning of the end. Europe lost control of most possessions in the Pacific and Southeast Asia to Japan, and other colonies were isolated from their metropolises. Although most ties were restored after 1945, the dissolution of empires had begun.

The reasons are not entirely clear. Hostility to alien rule sprouted or increased. Changing attitudes in Europe weakened faith in the moral basis and the practical advantages of colonialism. Russia and then China supported revolutionary movements. The first dependencies to gain independence—India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Burma, and Indonesia—inspired nationalists elsewhere.

By the late 1960s, only a few colonies remained notably Portuguese and Spanish territories in Africa, and some British, U. S., and French dependencies, which could not easily be set adrift or which still provided useful military facilities. Colonialism in the formal sense was dead.

There remained, however, a complex of economic and political influences exercised by the advanced over the less advanced world. Labeled “neocolonialism” by its critics, this predominance became the focus of the anti-European and anti-American complaints. Whether it differed in substance from the predominance exercised by the USSR over the eastern European states and how the imbalance of power could be redressed was open questions. (Bissell and Radu 1-7)

After the above-detailed discussion on the background of Colonialism now we proceed towards its impacts on Africa

From 1914 to 1939 saw the peak and the beginning of the decline of the colonial system in Africa. The administrations established by the major colonial powers before 1914 had three primary goals, first to protect law and order, and to erect an administrative makeup designed for effective government at a minimum cost, and to promote forms of economic development that would provide raw materials demanded by markets in the home country.

The political and administrative institutions that the Europeans created in their African colonies were modeled on those they knew best, their own. Frequently there was little regard for the fact that these institutions had been developed for European countries, whose histories, social backgrounds, and administrative needs bore little if any relationship to those of Africa. For the most part during the colonial period, little consistent thought was given by European administrators to the long-range development of the colonies toward independence. Moreover, some administrations forced Africans to work under deplorable conditions or to plant export crops instead of staple food crops. It was only through the gradual spread of education and the consequent emergence of political awareness among a small segment of the African population that demand arose for a share in political power. From this small group of nationalist leaders came the popular movements that finally swept the colonial administrations out of existence. (Cowan 1 of 1)

In the case of Britain, the theory of “indirect rule” was the basis of administration. British officers governed through the traditional chiefs, seeking to preserve as far as possible the power and prestige of those leaders while adapting the customary methods of the rule to meet the needs of modern society. It was hoped in this way to ease the impact of the transition from traditional to modern government. By 1939, however, it was becoming clear that indirect rule was unsatisfactory; the chiefs could not always be adapted to new ways, and the system left no place for the young, educated Africans to share in local administration. Gradually, in the years after World War II, elected local councils were substituted for the “native authorities”. These new councils became the testing ground for nationalist political parties.

France, in its African colonies, pursued a policy of assimilation and direct rule. The objective was to acquaint its African subjects as fully as possible with French institutions, language, and culture, the ultimate goal being the complete assimilation of the colonies to the home country. For this reason, little effort was made until after World War II to create representative political institutions in the colonies, and the traditional chiefs were largely subordinated to the French administrations. In the long run, French assimilation was no more successful than British indirect rule. For the comparatively small number of Africans who were able to enjoy the full benefits of the French educational system, assimilation was complete. Most Africans, however, were only superficially exposed to the French way of life and proved unwilling to give up their traditional cultures, particularly in the Muslim areas, where religion became a block to full acceptance of France. Beginning in 1946, therefore, efforts were made to create territorial assemblies, or local parliaments, in each colony. (Cowan 1 of 1)

Portuguese policy, to a greater degree than that of France, was based on full assimilation. Administratively the colonies were regarded as overseas provinces of Portugal. But Portuguese rule was characterized by abuse of authority, a low level of African education, and (except in Angola after World War II) severe limitations on economic development. In part, this restrictive policy could be accounted for by the poverty of Portugal itself, yet it was also a reaction to the spread of nationalism elsewhere in Africa. Portuguese resistance to the trend toward independence resulted in the outbreak of revolution in its territories in the early 1960s. Only after a military coup deposed Portugal’s conservative government in 1974 did that country become reconciled to the end of its colonial empire.

In the Belgian Congo, the home country pursued a policy of strong paternalism. Africans were prepared by widespread primary education for technical positions, but virtually no attempts were made to create African political representation, nor were political parties organized. In consequence, when Belgium decided in 1960 to grant immediate independence, the colony was unprepared for self-rule and chaos ensued.

Two colonial powers, Germany and Italy, disappeared from Africa between 1918 and 1943. Following World War I the German colonies were separately placed under the administration of Belgium, Britain, France, and South Africa—at first under the overall supervision of the Mandates Commission of the League of Nations, and after 1945 under the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations in preparation for their independence. Italy lost all its colonies during World War II. Ethiopia regained full sovereignty in 1941 after less than five years of Italian rule, and after the war, the Italian colony of Eritrea was joined to Ethiopia. The other two Italian possessions became independent. (Cowan 1 of 1)

Although the colonial system was showing signs of decline by 1939, what shattered the old order was World War II. The war exposed the weakness of the major colonial powers and had profound effects on all dependent territories in Africa. The European belligerents, hard-pressed by their war effort, made exceptionally heavy demands on their African subjects. Because of the shortage of officials, the colonial administrations were forced to grant Africans a degree of responsibility that would hitherto have been impossible. African leaders showed that they were capable of holding the reins of government. In turn, they encouraged and organized the popular demand for autonomy that forced the colonial powers to give way, first in local government and later at the level of central administration. As new institutions for popular representation were created, the stage was set for the transformation to self-government and finally, by the mid-1950s, to full independence.

Although World War II accelerated the growth of African nationalism, the seeds of independence had been sown in most parts of the continent before the war. In Egypt, for example, what prompted British occupation in 1882 was a nationalist movement expressing popular discontent with international control of the country?

In tropical Africa, the earliest nationalist parties were founded shortly after World War I by professional men in two British colonies: the Gold Coast (afterward Ghana) and Nigeria. Seeking a greater share in the decisions made by the colonial administrations, these parties were not concerned with mass participation in government but with obtaining a share in decision-making for their own small, well-educated elites. (Cowan 1 of 1)

One of the first mass nationalist parties, the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons, was founded in 1944, and beginning in 1946 similar mass parties sprang up in the French territories of West Africa. In the Gold Coast, it was not until 1950 that the Convention People’s Party, headed by Kwame Nkrumah, became the focus for mass nationalist demonstrations in favor of independence. Thereafter the spread of nationalist sentiment was rapid throughout Africa.

During the early postwar years the colonial administrations fought against the organization and growth of political parties. The trade union movement, however, represented an alternative source for experience in organization and mass discipline, which younger nationalists put to good use. Particularly in French Africa, where the union movement was dominated by the French General Confederation of Labor, the newly formed unions provided training in the political party organization.

The rapid influx of young men from the rural areas to the mushrooming cities contributed substantial numbers of recruits for the growing political parties, which promised the new urban dwellers all the advantages of modernization that presumably would come with independence. Most of the recent arrivals in the cities retained close connections with their villages and became the chief avenue through which political nationalism was spread. (Cowan 1 of 1)

The nationalist parties were organized with a tightly disciplined, hierarchical type of leadership that stretched in an unbroken line from the single leader at the top to the hundreds of village party groups scattered throughout the country. This network of communication made it possible to mobilize mass public opinion in favor of independence and, when the time came, to arouse the people to active resistance to the colonial administrations. Faced with such popular action, the colonial powers could do little but attempt to slow down, through constitutional negotiations, the transfer of power from European hands. The small groups of educated leaders at the top of the nationalist parties, themselves often the product of schools run by European missionaries, were to become the new rulers of the African states.

Works Cited

Bissell, Richard. E/ & Radu, Michael. S. “Africa in the post-decolonization era”. 2008. Web.

Brunelle, Gayle. K.”Early Modern International Trade and Merchant Empires”. 2008. Web.

Cowan, L. Gray. “Africa.” Encyclopedia Americana. 2008. Grolier Online. Web.

“Doctrines on Colonialism”. 2008. Web.

Fieldhouse, D. K. “A Review Journal: The European Colonial Empires 1815-1919 by H.L. Wesseling”. JOURNAL OF IMPERIAL AND COMMONWEALTH HISTORY.

Johnston, Hamilton. Harry.”A History of the Colonization of Africa by Alien Races”. Cambridge University Press.

Singh, Awardees. 2008. Web.

“The New Imperialism”. 2008. Web.

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Impacts of Colonialism on Africa

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