Anthony Atmore

Africa on the Eve of Partition

This chapter reviews the state of the Africa on the eve of partition, roughly over the decade of the 1870s. The situation of Egypt and the Maghrib countries and their response to European influence and interference, and to modernisation in general, varied considerably at the beginning of the period. In the remarkably uniform ecological zones of West Africa the patterns of economic production and trade on the one hand, and political development on the other, had by the 1870s undergone a century or more of rapid change. South of the equator farming populations only started to build up their numbers within the Iron Age. In the 186os the boundaries of the Portuguese colony of Angola were receding and its economy was passing through a deep recession. Widespread ideological and cultural changes had taken place as a result of African experiences of the Muslim Near East and Christian Europe.

Africa Since 1800: THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE: (2) AFRICA FROM THE SAHARA TO THE ZAMBEZI

The roots of Black African nationalism reach in many directions back into history. One powerful impulse was the growing ethnic awareness of the descendants of the African slaves in the New World, which was proclaimed by activists such as Marcus Garvey with his slogan ‘Africa for the Africans’, and Edward Blyden, who settled in Liberia in 1850, with his idea of the African personality. Even more influential was the Pan–Africanist doctrine of William DuBois, who organised Pan–African Congresses in the 1920s and 1930s. Many Africans from British colonies who were studying in Britain and the United States were caught up in the excitement of these ideas and schemes. Another powerful strand in the web of African nationalism was that stemming from European socialism and communism, which, especially after the Russian Revolution, were vehement in denouncing the colonial system. Africans who went to Europe discovered in socialism, and in particular in Marxist communism, techniques of political action which appeared well suited to their needs, a call to heroism in a world struggle, and a promise of future freedom and prosperity. And in Europe, of course, there was the pervasive and heady example of nationalism in practice, an example which was already spreading through colonial lands in Asia like wildfire. To see how these complex strands were woven together to produce the political activity that resulted in independence, we can look for an example at the early career of Kwame Nkrumah, which is so well told in his autobiography, Ghana .

Africa Since 1800: THE PARTITION OF AFRICA ON PAPER, 1879–1891

European Trading Interests in Africa before Partition During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, events took place which changed the face of Africa and which can only be understood by tracing their origin and development outside Africa. In 1879, more than 90 percent of the continent was ruled by Africans. By 1900, all but a tiny fraction of it was being governed by European powers. By about 1914, the lives of almost all Africans were being deeply affected by the changes brought about by these foreign rulers. The European powers partitioned Africa among themselves with such haste, like players in a rough game, that the process has been called ‘the scramble for Africa’. The motives for this partition, the reason why the European powers acted as they did, and when they did, are a part of European history rather than African history, and it is to these European affairs that we must now turn our attention. We have to remember, first of all, that throughout the first sixty-five years of the nineteenth century, the only great powers in western Europe were Britain and France. Germany and Italy did not yet exist as separate and unified states. Of the lesser powers, Holland and Denmark actually abandoned their African possessions (trading posts on the Gold Coast) during the nineteenth century, leaving only Portugal as a minor competitor with France and Britain.

Africa Since 1800: THE PARTITION OF AFRICA ON THE GROUND, 1891–1901

European Conflicts in Africa The first stages of the partition, when European states were laying claim to coastal regions and navigable rivers and were defining on paper the boundaries running inland from these first footholds, were accomplished with surprisingly little bloodshed and conflict. The reason for this was that very small numbers of European forces were used in Africa during this time. The first occupying groups consisted of small, mobile expeditions of European officers or chartered-company officials, accompanied by a few dozen lightly armed porters, scarcely distinguishable from the expeditions of the first explorers. Africa itself was so immense that these first little groups of Europeans seldom came into contact with each other. Their attitude to the African peoples had necessarily to be that of negotiators rather than conquerors. They entered into the local politics of every region that they came to, supporting the groups and factions which had some reason to be friendly and avoiding those which were hostile. In the later stages of the scramble, however, toward the close of the nineteenth century when forces were somewhat larger and when the final, interior frontiers were being claimed, meetings between rival European expeditions became more frequent. Collisions occurred between the occupying forces and those of the larger and more organised African states, which often fought desperately for their survival. Numerically, the armies of these states often outnumbered the European expeditions by many hundreds to one, but the superiority of European weapons was overwhelming.

Africa Since 1800: THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE: (1) NORTH AND NORTH-EAST AFRICA

As we saw in Chapter 14, nationalism in the Muslim north of Africa had developed much earlier than in Africa south of the Sahara. Egypt, indeed, had been self-governing since 1922. Yet, it was not until forty years later – after all of West Africa and most of eastern Africa had become independent – that the final emancipation of this region was completed by the withdrawal of the French from Algeria. North Africas emergence from colonialism was thus a much longer drawn out and more piecemeal process than that of the regions to the south. And, although it became in its final stages increasingly linked with the rest of the Pan–African freedom movement, its origins were different and must be separately treated. The countries of the Horn of Africa likewise took special paths to independence, which fit more easily with those of the lands to the north of them than with those farther to the south. Egypt and the Sudan The key country of the whole North African region was, as ever, Egypt. Although a British garrison remained in the Canal Zone in accordance with the terms of the 1936 treaty (see Chapter 14), the wartime occupation of the rest of the country ended in 1946, leaving Egypt free to resume the political independence it had enjoyed before the war. Egypt had, by far, the largest population and, by far, the most developed industry and commerce of any of the North African countries. It was also the intellectual capital of the Arabic-speaking world.

The African Middle Ages 1400-1800

1. The African dimension of Islam 2. The back country of the African Middle Ages 3. Egypt and the Nilotic Sudan 4. The north-eastern triangle 5. The states of Barbary 6. Western West Africa 7. Eastern West Africa 8. From the Niger to the Nile 9. The upper Nile basin and the East African plateau 10. From the Lualaba to the Zambezi 11. The land of the blacksmith kings 12. The approaches to Zimbabwe 13. The peoples of the south Epilogue.

Africa since 1800

1. Africa north of the equator 2. Africa south of the equator 3. The opening up of Africa I: from the north-east 4. The opening up of Africa II: from the Maghrib 5. West Africa before the colonial period 1800-75 6. Western Central Africa 7. Eastern Central Africa 8. Southern Africa 9. The partition of Africa on paper 1879-91 10. The partition of Africa on the ground 1891-1901 11. Colonial rule in Tropical Africa I: political and economic developments 1885-1914 12. Colonial rule in Tropical Africa II: social and religious developments 13. The inter-war period, 1918-38 14. North and North-East Africa 1900-39 15. South Africa 1902-39 16. The last years of colonial rule 17. The road to independence I: North and North-East Africa 18. The road to independence II: Africa from the Sahara to the Zambezi 19. The road to independence III: Central Africa 20. The long road to democracy in Southern Africa 21. The politics of independent Africa 22. Economics and society in independent Africa 23. Into the third millenium Epilogue Suggestions for further reading Index.