How Africa was colonised and freed (Part II)
Towards the end of 1884 and the beginning of 1885, five European nations sent their representatives to a conference in Berlin, capital of Germany. These countries were Belgium, Britain, France, Germany and Portugal.
They agreed that each nation should colonise that part of Africa where its nationals were already active as missionaries or traders. A big scramble for Africa started. Each nation sent out empire builders equipped with guns or bribes to subdue African rulers. Within 15 years the whole of Africa had been partitioned between them. Tiny Belgium came out best with what it called Belgian Congo which we now call Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Why did Africa’s monarchs and their people so easily submit to foreign rule? Partly because there was no much co-operation between African kingdoms. Europeans exploited African disunity by recruiting soldiers from one tribe to go and fight another tribe. Very few European soldiers were employed in acquiring colonies in Africa.
At first, some rulers especially of the weak tribes welcomed colonialists as protectors from stronger tribes. But within two decades or so, some of them discovered they had jumped from the frying pan into the fire. They took up arms to chase out the colonists. In Namibia, the Herere led the rebellion, in South Tanzania tribes, including the Zulu Gama Ngoni rose up against Germans. They were suppressed with ferocity. In Natal, the Zulus led by Bambata rose up against British rulers while in Malawi there was the Chilembwe uprising.
People of African descent in the United States of America and the West Indies founded the Pan African congress first to demand better treatment of Africans and later to demand independence. Best known of the West Indians was Marcus Aurelius Garvey of the Back to Africa Movement. But the man best identified with the Pan African Congress was Dr W.B. Dubois.
In 1945, in collaboration with future great African leaders, Jomo Kenyatta, Kwame Nkrumah and Hastings Kamuzu Banda held what was definitely a landmark conference in Africa’s history. Nkrumah spoke on West African problems, Kenyatta on the east African problems and Kamuzu Banda on Central African. A resolution was passed to free Africans in the shortest possible time.
That was in 1945. By 1965, almost all the British, French and Belgian colonies had attained independence. Portugal was saying it had no colonies and that Angola and Mozambique were only overseas provinces of Portugal. This fiction Portugal was forced to drop by the year 1975 when Mozambique and Angola were granted independence.
Ancient empires that we read about such as Roman or Ottoman lasted centuries. European empires in Africa lasted less than a hundred years. How do we explain this? It is a story requiring a separate article.
