50 Fun Facts About Decolonization of Africa

Which country took its new name from a medieval West African empire when the Gold Coast became independent in 1957?

Ghana revived the name Arab traders gave Wagadu, an empire that lay far to the north-west in what is now Mali and Mauritania.

Which West African republic, settled by freed American slaves, was independent before the Scramble for Africa began?

Liberia declared independence in 1847, and only it and Ethiopia were spared when European powers carved up the continent.

Which 1950s uprising against British rule in Kenya was fought mainly by members of the Kikuyu people?

The Mau Mau rebellion was effectively beaten when British forces captured its field marshal, Dedan Kimathi, in October 1956.

Which first prime minister of independent Congo was dismissed within months and shot by firing squad in January 1961?

Patrice Lumumba lasted under three months in office. In 2022 Belgium returned a single gold-capped tooth, all that was left of him, to his family.

Which Egyptian president nationalised the Suez Canal in 1956, prompting an invasion by Britain, France and Israel?

Gamal Abdel Nasser announced the takeover in a speech in Alexandria, saying the canal would pay for the Aswan Dam after Western funding was withdrawn.

What nickname is given to 1960, when seventeen African nations including Nigeria and Senegal gained independence?

Year of Africa was a phrase UN official Ralph Bunche used that February, predicting a rush of new states; fourteen of the seventeen came out of the French empire.

Which British prime minister told South Africa's parliament in 1960 that a wind of change was blowing through Africa?

Harold Macmillan had already given the same address in Accra a month earlier, where it drew little response.

Which French leader returned to power in 1958 during the Algerian War and later accepted Algeria's independence?

Charles de Gaulle offered Algeria self-determination in 1959, and French voters backed that course in a 1961 referendum.

Which country dropped the name Rhodesia at independence in 1980 for one taken from a ruined medieval city?

Zimbabwe comes from a Shona term for Great Zimbabwe, the medieval city whose ruins stand in the country's south-east.

Which country, known as South West Africa under South African rule, finally became independent in 1990?

Namibia had been run from Pretoria since a League of Nations mandate in 1920, and its independence day finally came on 21 March 1990.

Which Gold Coast politician won a 1951 election from his prison cell and went on to lead the colony to independence?

Kwame Nkrumah was serving a three-year sentence in Accra's Fort James when his party won by a landslide, and the British freed him that same month.

Which future president of Kenya was imprisoned by the British after the Kapenguria trial of the early 1950s?

Jomo Kenyatta was tried in a remote town near the Ugandan border, chosen because the authorities hoped it would not attract crowds.

Which former schoolteacher, nicknamed Mwalimu, led Tanganyika to independence in 1961 and became its first president?

Julius Nyerere kept the nickname, Swahili for teacher, although a headmaster had once vetoed him as head prefect for being too kind.

Which Swahili word for freedom names the Nairobi gardens where Kenya's flag was first raised in December 1963?

Uhuru Gardens mark the spot where the colonial flag came down at midnight; a fig tree stands at the purported exact place.

In which city did Emperor Haile Selassie host the 1963 founding of the Organisation of African Unity?

Addis Ababa was chosen after the emperor invited two rival blocs of states there to settle their dispute, and the body kept its headquarters in the city.

Which Portuguese colony's independence in 1975 set off a civil war that drew in Cuban and South African troops?

Angola had been a major exporter of coffee, bananas and sisal, but three decades of fighting left its farmland littered with landmines.

Which breakaway state's secession in 1967 plunged newly independent Nigeria into a civil war lasting until 1970?

Biafra was proclaimed by the military governor Odumegwu Ojukwu in the mainly Igbo south-east, after a wave of anti-Igbo killings in 1966.

Which mineral-rich province, led by Moïse Tshombe, broke away from the Congo days after Belgian rule ended in 1960?

Katanga seceded with the backing of Union Minière, the company mining its copper and uranium, and a large contingent of Belgian military advisers.

Which 1974 military coup in Lisbon toppled Portugal's dictatorship and soon freed its African colonies?

Carnation Revolution comes from the flowers a restaurant worker, Celeste Caeiro, handed to soldiers; crowds then put them in the muzzles of guns.

Which UN Secretary-General died in a 1961 plane crash while flying to ceasefire talks during the Congo Crisis?

Dag Hammarskjöld went down near Ndola in Northern Rhodesia and is the only person to have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize after his death.

Which Guinean leader urged a No vote in France's 1958 referendum, winning immediate independence for his country?

Sékou Touré declared that Guinea preferred poverty in freedom to riches in slavery, and it was the only French African colony to vote to leave.

Which poet became Senegal's first president in 1960 and later the first African elected to the Académie française?

Léopold Senghor spent two years in wartime prison camps, passing most of his time writing poems, before he entered French politics.

Which movement asserting Black identity took its name from a term Aimé Césaire used in a 1930s Paris student magazine?

Négritude was built on a French word that was derogatory at the time, and its writers drew on the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.

Which Martinique-born psychiatrist joined Algeria's independence struggle and wrote The Wretched of the Earth?

Frantz Fanon dictated the book in Tunis after being diagnosed with leukemia, and it was published in 1961 shortly before his death.

Which movement opened Algeria's war of independence against France with a declaration and attacks on 1 November 1954?

The National Liberation Front, known by its French initials FLN, went on to negotiate the country's independence directly with the French government.

Which 1962 agreement, named after a French lakeside town, brought a ceasefire to the Algerian War?

The Évian Accords stopped the fighting on 19 March 1962, and Algeria was pronounced independent that July after a popular referendum.

What name was given to Algeria's European settlers, about 800,000 of whom left for France after independence in 1962?

Pieds-noirs literally means black feet. The harkis, Muslim auxiliaries who had fought for France, got far less help to escape.

Which leader of the ZANU guerrilla movement won the 1980 election that ended white minority rule in Rhodesia?

Robert Mugabe became prime minister on a promise of racial reconciliation, then held power as premier and president until a coup in 2017.

Which army chief seized power in the Congo in a bloodless 1965 coup and later renamed the country Zaire?

Mobutu Sese Seko made the change in October 1971 as part of an authenticity programme meant to purge every colonial cultural influence.

Which symbol on the flag raised at the Gold Coast's independence was borrowed from Marcus Garvey's shipping line?

Black star was the emblem of Garvey's Black Star Line, which operated from 1919 to 1922; the flag itself was designed by the teacher Theodosia Okoh.

Which 1884–85 meeting of colonial powers set rules for the Scramble for Africa without inviting a single African ruler?

The Berlin Conference closed with a General Act regulating colonisation and trade, and its principle of effective occupation sped up the land grab.

Which defeated power's African colonies were divided among Britain, France and Belgium as League of Nations mandates?

Germany gave up every colony under the Treaty of Versailles: Britain and France split Togoland and Cameroon, and Belgium took Ruanda-Urundi.

Which system of racial segregation did South Africa's National Party enforce from 1948 until the early 1990s?

Apartheid is Afrikaans for separateness; it ended with non-racial elections in April 1994 after years of talks between the government and the African National Congress.

Which island state united with Tanganyika in April 1964, three months after a revolution deposed its sultan?

Zanzibar and its mainland partner soon blended their two names into a new one for the union, Tanzania.

Which former Italian colony became independent in 1951 as a kingdom under Idris I, meeting a deadline set by the UN?

Libya had been promised independence by a UN General Assembly resolution in 1949, and its new king announced it by radio from Benghazi.

Which American scholar, a founder of the NAACP, organised Pan-African Congresses and spent his final years in Accra?

W. E. B. Du Bois died in Accra in August 1963 at the age of 95 and was given a state funeral there.

Which English city hosted the 1945 Pan-African Congress attended by future leaders of Kenya, Malawi and the Gold Coast?

Manchester welcomed the fifth congress at Chorlton-on-Medlock Town Hall, where most delegates were Africans bound for power at home rather than African Americans.

In which Indonesian city did 29 Asian and African states meet in 1955 to denounce colonialism?

Bandung gave its name to the conference, steered by Indonesia's Sukarno and India's Nehru, that became a stepping stone to the Non-Aligned Movement.

Which 1941 Roosevelt–Churchill declaration backed self-determination, giving hope to colonial independence leaders?

The Atlantic Charter soon divided its authors: Churchill said within weeks that it applied to nations under German occupation, not to the peoples of the British Empire.

Which currency did France create in 1945 for its African colonies, most of which went on using it after independence?

The CFA franc first stood for French colonies of Africa; from 1958 the same three letters were reread as French Community of Africa.

Which former Spanish colony did Morocco claim with the 1975 Green March, triggering a war with the Polisario Front?

Western Sahara was the target when 350,000 unarmed Moroccans massed at the border, waiting for a signal from King Hassan II to cross.

Which island's 1947 uprising against French rule, fought mainly with spears, was crushed well before independence?

Madagascar's death toll is still disputed, with estimates from 11,000 into the tens of thousands, and the repression wiped out a generation of its managerial class before independence in 1960.

Which agronomist led the PAIGC guerrilla war against Portuguese rule in Guinea-Bissau until his assassination in 1973?

Amílcar Cabral put his profession to work by training his troops to teach local farmers better farming techniques.

Which liberation front, based in Dar es Salaam under Eduardo Mondlane, went on to rule Mozambique from 1975?

FRELIMO took control after ten years of sporadic warfare. Mondlane had been killed by a parcel bomb in 1969, so Samora Machel became the first president.

Which nationalist, once jailed for two years on La Galite island, became independent Tunisia's first president?

Habib Bourguiba served first as prime minister under the king, then proclaimed a republic in July 1957 and held the presidency for thirty years.

Which future first president of Botswana was kept in exile by Britain after marrying an Englishwoman, Ruth Williams?

Seretse Khama's marriage was opposed by South Africa's white-minority government, and Britain held him in England so as not to sour relations with it.

Which Belgian king had his ceremonial sword snatched in Léopoldville on the eve of the Congo's independence in 1960?

Baudouin soon had the sword back and wore it at the next day's ceremony; a famous photograph shows Ambroise Boimbo flourishing it while the king appears unaware.

Which Rhodesian prime minister issued a Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965 rather than accept majority rule?

Ian Smith, a former fighter pilot, held office until 1979, when an internal settlement led to multiracial elections.

Which leader of the United National Independence Party became Zambia's first president in 1964 and governed until 1991?

Kenneth Kaunda had broken away from Harry Nkumbula's older congress party, and was finally ousted by Frederick Chiluba in multi-party elections.

Which first president of Algeria had been seized in 1956 when French authorities hijacked the plane carrying him?

Ahmed Ben Bella was overthrown in June 1965 in a bloodless coup led by his own defence minister, Houari Boumédiène.