The decolonisation of Africa
Within twenty years almost all the colonies of Africa become states; in the single year 1960, seventeen.
In 1957 Ghana is the first colony of black Africa to gain independence; after it, in the single year 1960, come seventeen countries, from Senegal to Madagascar, and the year is called the Year of Africa. Where settlers were many, the departure went by war: Algeria won independence from France in 1962 after eight years of fighting, the Portuguese colonies in 1975 after a long struggle. The new states receive the borders the Europeans drew at the Berlin conference, across peoples and languages, and this will remain a source of wars for decades. For the Jewish communities of North Africa the departure of France coincided with their own: from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia almost all leave for France and for Israel.
Sources
Documents of the period
- the UN Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries, 1960 — the Year of Africa and the recognition of the right to independence
Scholarship
- studies of twentieth-century Africa — the course of decolonisation from Ghana to the Portuguese colonies
Basis: documents and evidence.