The 1920s was a transformative period for Africa, marked by the consolidation of colonial rule, significant economic changes, and the rise of nationalist movements. This era laid the groundwork for the struggles for independence that would define the latter half of the 20th century.
Map of Africa in 1914 showing colonial possessions.
The Legacy of the Scramble for Africa
The "Scramble for Africa" was the invasion, conquest, and colonization of most of Africa by seven Western European powers. It was driven by the Second Industrial Revolution during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in the era of "New Imperialism." As late as the 1870s, Europeans controlled approximately 10% of the African continent, with all their territories located near the coasts.
By 1841, businessmen from Europe had established small trading posts along the coasts of Africa, but they seldom moved inland, preferring to stay near the sea. They primarily traded with locals. The most important holdings were Angola and Mozambique, held by Portugal; the Cape Colony, held by the United Kingdom; and Algeria, held by France.
Technological advances facilitated European expansion overseas. Industrialization brought about rapid advancements in transportation and communication, especially in the forms of steamships, railways, and telegraphs. Medical advances also played an important role, especially medicines for tropical diseases, which helped control their adverse effects.
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Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the last regions of the world largely untouched by "informal imperialism", was attractive to business entrepreneurs. Surplus capital was often more profitably invested overseas, where cheap materials, limited competition, and abundant raw materials made a greater premium possible. Another inducement for imperialism arose from the demand for raw materials, especially ivory, rubber, palm oil, cocoa, diamonds, tea, and tin.
The scramble for African territory also reflected concern for the acquisition of military and naval bases, for strategic purposes and the exercise of power. The growing navies, and new ships driven by steam power, required coaling stations and ports for maintenance. Colonies were seen as assets in balance of power negotiations, useful as items of exchange at times of international bargaining.
Colonies with large native populations were also a source of military power; Britain and France used large numbers of British Indian and North African soldiers, respectively, in many of their colonial wars (and would do so again in the coming World Wars).
Key Players and Events
In the early 1880s, Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza was exploring the region along the Congo River for France, at the same time Henry Morton Stanley explored it on behalf of the Committee for Studies of the Upper Congo, backed by Leopold II of Belgium, who would have it as his personal Congo Free State. France occupied Tunisia in May 1881, which may have convinced Italy to join the German-Austrian Dual Alliance in 1882, thus forming the Triple Alliance.
In 1884, Germany declared Togoland, the Cameroons, and South West Africa to be under its protection; and France occupied Guinea. At first, Bismarck disliked colonies but gave in to popular and elite pressure in the 1880s. Pan-Germanism became linked to the young nation's new imperialist drives.
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Following unification, Italy sought to expand its territory and become a great power, taking possession of parts of Eritrea in 1870 and 1882. In 1889-90, it occupied territory on the south side of the Horn of Africa, forming what would become Italian Somaliland. In 1911, Italy engaged in a war with the Ottoman Empire, in which it acquired Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, that together formed what became known as Italian Libya.
The Second Italo-Abyssinian War (1935-1936), ordered by the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, was the last colonial war, occupying Ethiopia-which had remained the last independent African territory, apart from Liberia.
By 1890 the Congo Free State had consolidated control of its territory between Leopoldville and Stanleyville and was looking to push south down the Lualaba River from Stanleyville. The scramble for Katanga was a prime example of the period. Msiri refused, was shot, and his head was cut off and stuck on a pole as a "barbaric lesson" to the people. Thus, the half million square kilometres of Katanga came into Leopold's possession and brought his African realm up to 2,300,000 square kilometres (890,000 sq mi), about 75 times larger than Belgium.
The brutality of King Leopold II in his former colony of the Congo Free State was well documented; up to 8 million of the estimated 16 million native inhabitants died between 1885 and 1908. Sleeping sickness ravaged the country and must also be taken into account for the dramatic decrease in population; it has been estimated that sleeping sickness and smallpox killed nearly half the population in the areas surrounding the lower Congo River.
The Berlin Conference
In 1884, Otto von Bismarck convened the 1884-1885 Berlin Conference to discuss the African problem. While diplomatic discussions were held regarding ending the remaining slave trade as well as the reach of missionary activities, the primary concern of those in attendance was preventing war between the European powers as they divided the continent among themselves.
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More importantly, the diplomats in Berlin laid down the rules of competition by which the great powers were to be guided in seeking colonies. They also agreed that the area along the Congo River was to be administered by Leopold II as a neutral area in which trade and navigation were to be free. The Berlin Conference transformed Africa's colonization from informal economic penetration to systematic political control through its 'effective occupation' principle.
No nation was to stake claims in Africa without notifying other powers of its intentions. No territory could be formally claimed before being effectively occupied.
Case Studies: South Africa and Kenya
South Africa
The Union of South Africa was an independent nation within Britain's Commonwealth of nations. The capital was at Cape Town. The population consisted of a white minority in cities and an Afrikaner (Dutch) majority of farmers in rural areas. Some blacks were living in cities and working on white-owned farms or elsewhere in the countryside.
In 1919, black workers organized a labor union. Later that same year, Smuts faced a rebellion by white workers. Smuts sent troops, resulting in bloodshed and the deaths of white workers. The South African War (or Anglo-Boer War) (1899-1902) was a bitter, costly colonial war fought by Britain against the Afrikaner South African Republic.
The reasons for the war remain controversial. Over the next three and a half years, nearly 500,000 British troops were deployed against an Afrikaner force of 60,000 to 65,000, at great cost to the British taxpayers. Some 6,000 British soldiers died in action and another 16,000 of infectious diseases. The Afrikaners lost some 14,000 in action and 26,000 in concentration camps.
In the end, Britain’s greater resources wore the Afrikaners down; their leaders were forced to sue for peace, and a treaty was signed on May 3l, 1902. By 1906-07 the British were sufficiently confident of the new order they had established to grant self-governing institutions to male whites in the conquered territories, and in 1910, under the South Africa Act passed by the British Parliament in 1909, the four South African colonies of Transvaal, Natal, Orange Free State, and the Cape were unified as provinces of the Union of South Africa.
By the beginning of the 20th century the subcontinent was under European rule, and its disparate societies were increasingly meshed into a single political economy. Railroads connected the coast with the interior, opening up new markets and releasing new sources of labour. New boundaries were drawn that lasted beyond the colonial period, and the Zambezi became the frontier between the settler south and the “tropical dependencies” of East and Central Africa, although Nyasaland (Malawi) and Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) occupied a middle ground.
In 1886 the South African Republic was still a preindustrial state controlled by a livestock-owning elite; by 1910 it was dominated by mining capital and formed the hub of the industrializing subcontinent. European racist ideology replaced an older tradition in the Cape of social dominance through economic control. White racism, though still embryonic outside South Africa, fueled African nationalism throughout the region.
Racially discriminatory policies were prompted by settlers’ fears of competition from Blacks and the growth of Black class consciousness; they were given an intellectual underpinning by anthropologists and administrators fearful of rapid social change. Before 1945 the ideology of segregation was espoused by virtually all the governments of the region and by most whites regardless of political persuasion.
For Blacks segregation meant exclusion from citizenship; incorporation into a restricted and racially segmented labour market based on the use of migrant labour; government control of movement, urban residence, and trade union organization; the consolidation of the authority of the chiefs; and a recognition or invention of Black ethnic identity in the African reserves.
In 1910 the Union wished to incorporate Basutoland (now Lesotho), Bechuanaland (now Botswana), and Swaziland-three landlocked territories that, through a variety of historical accidents, had remained outside South African control. African and humanitarian opposition and Britain’s desire for a foothold in the region prevented this incorporation, and the territories remained British protectorates.
During the interwar years South Africa was able to defy the many resolutions passed by the League of Nations urging African social and educational advancement, and the country continued to defy them even when the South African mandate was withdrawn by the United Nations in 1946.
Kenya
In Kenya, the 1920s saw increasing resistance to British colonial rule. On March 14, 1922, Harry Thuku, a member of the Kikuyu tribe from Kiambu District and an opponent of British colonial rule in Kenya, was arrested by British police. Several thousand individuals demonstrated outside the Central Police Station in Nairobi on March 16, 1922. Police fired on the demonstrators, killing at least 20 demonstrators. The British government deported three members of the Kikuyu tribe - Harry Thuku, Waiganjo Ndotono, and George Mugekenyi - from British Kenya.
Sir Robert Thorne Coryndon was appointed as Governor of British Kenya on August 15, 1922. Elections for the Legislative Council were held in British Kenya on March 15, 1924. The Legislative Council had 17 elected seats, including 11 seats for whites, five seats for Indians, and one seat for Arabs. The Indians boycotted the elections due to their opposition to the separate ballots for whites and Indians. Edward W. M. Grigg was appointed as Governor of British Kenya on October 2, 1925. Elections for the Legislative Council were held in British Kenya on February 5, 1927. Indians boycotted the elections for four out of five of their seats.
Members of the Mau Mau Society led by Dedan Kimathi Waciuri began an armed rebellion against the British government on September 26, 1952. On October 21, 1952, Jomo Kenyatta, president of the KAU, was arrested by British colonial police. Jomo Kenyatta was elected president of the Kenyan African National Union (KANU) in absentia on May 14, 1960. The KANU was officially recognized as a political party on June 11, 1960. Legislative elections were held in British Kenya on February 27, 1961, and KANU won 24 out of 65 elected seats in the Legislative Council. Jomo Kenyatta, president of KANU, was released from prison on August 14, 1961.
Harry Thuku, a key figure in Kenyan resistance to colonial rule.
The Rise of Pan-Africanism and Marcus Garvey
Marcus Garvey was born in 1887 in St. Anne's Bay, Jamaica. Garvey did not make much headway in Jamaica and decided to visit America in order to meet Booker T. Washington and learn more about the situation of African Americans. Jim Crow's demise. African Americans were moving in large numbers out of the rural South and into the urban areas of both North and South.
As World War One came to an end, disillusionment was beginning to take hold. However, as black soldiers returned from the war, and more and more African Americans moved into the urban areas, racial tensions grew. Between 1917 and 1919 race riots erupted in East St. Americans would bring about equality and respect.
Garvey's message reached into small towns across the country as well. For Garvey, it was no less than the will of God for black people to be free to determine their own destiny. His organization took as its motto "One God! One Aim! One Destiny!"
The Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), founded by Marcus Garvey, represented the largest mass movement in African-American history. Garvey's philosophy had three components-unity, pride in the African cultural heritage, and complete autonomy. He promoted the eventual return to Africa of all people of African descent.
In 1919 Garvey purchased an auditorium in Harlem and named it Liberty Hall. To promote unity, Garvey encouraged African Americans to be concerned with themselves first. Garvey proclaimed "black is beautiful" long before it became popular in the 1960s. He wanted African Americans to see themselves as members of a mighty race. Garvey organized his group in a way that made those sentiments visible. He attempted to shape the UNIA into a Christian black-nationalist organization.
Marcus Garvey: Black Nationalism - Fast Facts | History
Garvey was not interested in promoting hope in the afterlife. Success in this life was the key. Garvey's ideas were very different from other African-American leaders. Garvey was not interested in promoting hope in the afterlife. Success in this life was the key. Garvey's ideas were very different from other African-American leaders. That meeting only gave more fuel to his critics. States lost much of its momentum.
Marcus Garvey, founder of the UNIA.
Economic and Social Changes
The exploitation of minerals, the capitalization of settler agriculture, and the establishment of manufacturing industries drew Africans into the world economy as workers and peasants, transforming class structures and political alignments and shifting the division of labour between men and women.
Previously male occupations, such as hunting and warfare, declined. Indigenous production of nonagricultural commodities from cotton to iron suffered from the competition of cheap, mass-produced imports.
Some Blacks and whites, particularly those who had been educated or had prior experience, were able to take advantage of economic opportunities developing in new towns and markets. Yet, for the growing numbers of mission-educated Africans and Coloured and for Indian communities in Southern Africa, the period was probably one of regression rather than advance.
While the establishment of new colonial states contributed to the creation of new forms of national consciousness, Black hopes of inclusion in the wider society were dashed by the South Africa Act of 1909 and by the establishment of settler-only representative institutions elsewhere.
Conclusion
| Region | Key Events/Developments |
|---|---|
| South Africa | Consolidation of white minority rule, rise of Afrikaner nationalism, beginnings of Apartheid. |
| Kenya | Increasing resistance to British colonial rule, arrest and deportation of Harry Thuku. |
| Congo Free State | Brutality under King Leopold II, significant population decline. |
| Pan-African Movement | Rise of Marcus Garvey and the UNIA, promotion of black unity and autonomy. |
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