History of Africa

Introduction to History of Africa

Fossil evidence indicates that the earliest forms of humans and humanlike creatures originated in Africa. In eastern Africa, human remains have been found that are more than 1,500,000 years old and remains of humanlike creatures called australopithecines have been found that are more than 4,000,000 years old. Scientists believe that humans evolved from australopithecines.

The earliest African people about whom anything is definitely known inhabited the Sahara region during an era of rainfall and luxuriant vegetation some 10,000 years ago. They left many cave paintings as a record of their culture. When the climate became dry and the desert began to develop, perhaps around 5000 B.C., the Saharan people apparently dispersed and their culture disappeared.

Bushmen, Negroes, and possibly Pygmies are considered to be racial types native to Africa; they developed in the regions south of the Sahara. The first Caucasoid Africans, who spoke Afro-Asiatic languages, probably came across the Isthmus of Suez from southwestern Asia sometime before 6000 B.C. Their descendants spread out from the Lower Nile Valley southward along the river and westward along the Mediterranean coast. Agriculture was introduced into Egypt in the 4000's. It had appeared south of the Sahara by 2000.

North Africa to 1500

About 4000 B.C. the Egyptians moved from sandy hill country down to the fertile plain of the Nile. There followed a surge in population and the growth of a brilliant civilization. Intellectually, culturally, and militarily, Egypt flourished from about 3000 to 1000 B.C. The area along the Nile to the south, a source of gold, ivory, and slaves, was annexed. Sea trade was carried on with Arabia, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, and the islands of the Aegean.

Green and prosperous Egypt attracted the Libyans (later called Berbers), nomads from the west. In an invasion in the 13th century B.C. they were defeated, but they succeeded in the 10th and ruled Egypt for more than 100 years. The Libyan rulers were followed by a dynasty from Cush, a kingdom south of Egypt. The Assyrians invaded Egypt in the seventh century B.C., and the country became subject successively to the Persians, Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines.

The Phoenicians, the first great seafaring people of the Mediterranean, began colonizing the Tunisian coast in the ninth century B.C. Utica was settled first, then Carthage, which became the center of an empire stretching west to Morocco and across the Mediterranean to Spain and Sicily.

In the seventh century B.C. the Greeks founded Cyrene, on the coast directly opposite Greece, as the nucleus of a colony. However, the Carthaginian language, Punic (from the Latin for “Phoenician”), became the common trade tongue of North Africa, even for the Greeks. Cyrenaica allied itself with the Persian masters of Egypt about 500 B.C., and passed with Egypt into the empire of Alexander the Great (332 B.C.) and the later Ptolemaic kingdom (323 B.C.).

By the third century B.C. Rome had grown strong enough to challenge Carthage for the control of the Mediterranean. The Punic Wars started in 264 B.C. and ended in 146 B.C., with the complete destruction of Carthage. The Carthaginian region became a province named “Africa.” Rome gradually extended its North African holdings both east and west. It annexed Cyrenaica in 96 B.C., Numidia (roughly the coastal area of modern Algeria) in 46 B.C., Egypt in 30 B.C., and Mauretania (Morocco) in 42 A.D. Some of the Berbers were converted to a settled agricultural life.

The Romans in Africa west of Egypt were concentrated along the western portion of the Mediterranean coast, where rainfall was sufficient to grow crops. Cyrene fell into ruin before the Christian Era began. The major cities were Leptis Magna (near modern Tripoli), Carthage (rebuilt by Julius Caesar and Augustus), Hippo Regius (Bône), Cirta (Constantine), Caesarea (Cherchel), and Tingis (Tangiers). The Berbers living beyond the area of cultivation came to resent Roman rule, and in the latter part of the fourth century they began raiding the settled areas.

In 429 the barbarian Vandals crossed the Strait of Gibraltar to Mauretania. Their landing was unopposed by the Romans and the Berbers. The Vandal leader, Genseric, and his horde moved eastward along the coast, murdering and pillaging as they went. Numidia was quickly occupied, and Carthage fell to the barbarians in 439. In 455 Genseric raided lower Italy and Rome. Back in Africa, he easily repulsed a Roman attack in 468.

Under Genseric's heirs, the Vandal kingdom went into decline. By the end of the fifth century it was unable to check the raids of the desert Berbers. In 533 the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Emperor Justinian sent his general Belisarius to Africa, and by the following year Vandal power had been destroyed. The Berbers, however, continued in revolt, and European influence receded toward the coast. In the early 600's the Persians seized Egypt, but were driven out by the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius.

In 639 Muslim armies from Arabia, dedicated to spreading their Islamic faith, swept into Egypt. Members of the Coptic (Egyptian) Church, who had split away from the Byzantine Church, agreed to support the invaders in return for religious freedom. In 642 the Byzantines were forced from the country, and Egypt became part of the Muslim world.

The Arabs moved on westward to the borders of Tunisia in 647, but withdrew upon receiving tribute. In 670, however, they returned to seize most of the area (which they called Ifriqiya) and to found the city of Kairouan. A march to the Atlantic in 681–83 aroused resistance that briefly halted Arab expansion. The fall of Carthage in 698 and the conversion of the Berbers to Islam brought all of the Maghrib (northwest Africa) under Arab control. Spain, where the North Africans were known as Moors, was conquered in 711–13. Sicily, where they were known as Saracens, fell in the next century.

In 750 the Omayyad caliphate, which had ruled the Muslim world since 661, was replaced by the Abbasid caliphate. Bitter factional differences among the Muslims followed. In North Africa many Berbers joined the fanatical Kharijite sect and slaughtered orthodox Muslims. New African Muslim dynasties arose—among others, the Idrisids and the Aghlabids in the 9th century; the Fatimids in the 10th; the Almoravids in the 11th; the Almohads in the 12th; and the Hafsids and Marinids in the 13th. The Almoravids and other western dynasties were Berber rather than Arab. In Egypt the Fatimids were succeeded by the Ayyubids, who, in turn, were succeeded by the Mamelukes.

Savage fighting accompanied the constant struggle for power. In addition to internal conflict, there were invasions by various outsiders. At the beginning of the 11th century hordes of Arabian nomads known as Bedouins surged into Egypt. Sent on westward by the Fatimids to help subdue insubordinate areas, the Bedouins sacked and pillaged their way across North Africa, absorbing all but the urbanized coastal fringe.

The Normans, who had expelled the Saracens from Sicily, annexed the coastal area of Tunisia in the 12th century and held it for two decades. The Crusaders, fighting against the Muslims in the Holy Land, also attacked them in North Africa. There were invasions of Egypt in the Fifth Crusade (1218–21) and the Seventh (1248–54), and of Tunisia in the Eighth (1270–72). A Christian victory at Las Navas de Tolosa, Spain, in 1212 was followed by the expulsion of the Moors from the Iberian Peninsula.

In spite of their political and religious dissension, the Islamic peoples developed a rich culture. From Persia, which had been overrun in the first Arabic conquest, a highly developed art, literature, and science were spread westward. Mingling with elements of Syrian, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman civilization, Islamic culture was carried across North Africa.

In the early centuries of Muslim rule, North Africa was completely cut off from Europe. Gradually small-scale trading was established, mainly by Jewish merchants who transported furs and swords from Europe and carried back precious spices and drugs.

At the time of the Crusades, Venetian and Genoese sailors discovered that their trade was welcome at North African ports. Soon business was flourishing in iron and lumber from Europe and gold, ivory, and spices from Africa. The spices, whether from eastern Africa or the East Indies, were brought to Egypt to be traded. So little was known of Africa and Asia that one European who visited Egypt reported that cinnamon, ginger, and rhubarb came from the Nile and were harvested with nets.

In the 13th century the Franciscan and Dominican orders of the Roman Catholic Church were permitted to establish missions in Morocco. In the 15th century the Portuguese, who had already explored the Canary Islands, visited Madeira and attempted to set up trading centers on the coast of Barbary, as Europe called the Maghrib. (The inhabitants were non-Christian, therefore barbarian.) Several ports were taken by Portugal, but Moorish resistance was fierce. The Portuguese determined to bypass the Moors and trade directly, by sea, with the African gold merchants and the Indies.

Sub-Saharan Africa to 1500

Early records of Africa south of the Sahara desert, often referred to as Black Africa, are extremely scanty. It is known, however, that as early as 900 B.C. an advanced agricultural civilization called the Nok culture arose in northern Nigeria.

Another civilization had emerged about 1800 B.C. south of Egypt in a region later known as Nubia, which the Egyptians valued for its gold. From time to time Egypt invaded Nubia, and finally about 1500 B.C. conquered it and made it a province.

Sometime after 1000 B.C., a Nubian people called the Kushites broke away from Egyptian rule and established an independent kingdom. The Kushites became so powerful that they were able to conquer Egypt in the eighth century B.C. A century later, invading Assyrians drove the Kushites back into their homeland in northern Nubia. Later Kush was centered in central Nubia around the city of Meroe. The original Kushites were Caucasian. However, Meroe was in a region of dark-skinned peoples, and the Kushites soon intermarried with this population.

Kush became one of the most powerful kingdoms south of the Sahara. The Kushites are believed to be the first people of sub-Saharan Africa to make practical use of iron, having possibly learned ironworking from the Assyrians. The region was rich in iron ore, and iron became important to the kingdom's prosperity. Many historians believe that knowledge of ironworking was carried by the Kushites to central and west Africa. During the third century A.D., powerful nomadic peoples began migrating into Kush, gravely weakening the kingdom's control over its own territory.

Meanwhile, about 100 A.D., there had arisen to the southeast of Nubia in what is now Ethiopia a kingdom called Aksum (or Axum). It was founded by Semites from southern Arabia, who intermarried with the native Ethiopians to form a new civilization. Aksum flourished as a result of trade that passed through the kingdom and soon surpassed Kush as a power. In the fourth century A.D., an Aksumite invasion destroyed the declining Kushite kingdom.

Kush was succeeded by three less advanced kingdoms—Nobatia in northern Nubia, Makuria in central Nubia, and Alwa in southern Nubia. In the sixth century, missionaries converted the kingdoms to Christianity. In the seventh century, Makuria absorbed Nobatia. Makuria was also known as Dongola, after its capital.

The growth of Islam in the eighth century left the Christian kingdoms surrounded by hostile Muslim powers. Makuria managed to maintain its Christian identity until the 14th century, and Alwa survived until the early 16th century, when it was destroyed and replaced by the Muslim Sennar kingdom.

Meanwhile, Aksum had adopted Christianity in the fourth century. Muslim pressure after the eighth century forced the Aksumites to fall back into the Ethiopian highlands. From there a new empire arose in the 12th century ruled by the Zagwe dynasty. It was succeeded in the 13th century by an Ethiopian empire centered in Amhara.

In the later Middle Ages, European contact with Ethiopia began. Hearing of the isolated Christian country from Ethiopian pilgrims in the Holy Land, the Dominicans sent representatives to Ethiopia in the early 14th century. Strong military and diplomatic ties with Portugal were established in the 15th and 16th centuries.

From ancient times, the western part of the Sudan (the grassland belt south of the Sahara) engaged in trade with North Africa. The central Sudan also had contact with the north and, in addition, traded with Egypt and Nubia. At first goods were transported by donkey or horse, but after the camel was introduced into the Sahara from Egypt early in the Christian Era, the camel caravan became the means of transport.

The principal trade commodities were salt from North Africa and gold from the western Sudan. Much of the gold came from coastal areas farther south and was accumulated in Sudanese cities before its shipment across the desert. Later, ivory and slaves from the western and central Sudan were traded for metal tools, cotton goods, and horses.

Strong and extensive kingdoms grew up around the great sub-Saharan trading centers. The populations of these kingdoms were predominantly black, with some Caucasian mixture. Most of the urban people were, or later became, Muslims. Many of the country people remained animistic in religious belief. Most of the kingdoms were urban in character, with complex political organization. They had well-trained cavalry units, which in time of war were supplemented by mass armies of conscripts.

Among the earliest of the western kingdoms was Ghana, lying between the Senegal and Niger rivers. Ghana was founded in the 5th or 6th century A.D. In the 9th century, Kanem was founded around Lake Chad in the central Sudan. To the west and south of Kanem, in what is now northern Nigeria, the Hausa city-states arose in the 11th century. These included Kano, Gobir, and Katsina.

The Berbers of the Sahara, who controlled the Saharan trade routes, gradually penetrated the sub-Saharan grasslands. In the 11th century, a group of Berbers (the Almoravid Muslims) conquered Ghana. Although Ghana recovered its independence, it never regained commercial dominance and had broken up into a number of petty states by the early 13th century.

With the fall of Ghana, the Mali kingdom emerged as the leading power in the western Sudan. Its inhabitants, the Mandingo people, were converted to Islam in the 14th century. The Mali empire encompassed a vast area from the Atlantic coast east to Timbuktu, a Berber trading city on the Niger that became a center of Muslim scholarship. At times Mali had possession of Gao, a trading city of the Songhai people east of Timbuktu.

Mali went into decline in the late 14th century. In 1375 the Songhai threw off Mali domination, and began pressuring the empire from the east. From the north the Tuareg (a Berber people) seized cities, including Timbuktu, and from the south the Mossi made raids on Mali. The empire was gradually reduced to a small state, and Gao became the center of a rapidly growing Song-hai empire that by 1500 controlled the western Sudan. (

Meanwhile, in the central Sudan, Kanem had emerged as a powerful state, the Kanem-Bornu empire. It became noted for its large standing army—cavalry and infantry uniformed in quilted armor and chain mail. Kanem-Bornu grew prosperous from the export of slaves to the north and east. The empire continued to expand after 1500. (

In the 15th century, the Portuguese began exploration of the Atlantic coast. They colonized the Cape Verde Islands in the 1460's and established trading contacts with the western Sudanic kingdoms.

About the beginning of the Christian Era Asiatic food plants, including the banana and the yam, were introduced into Africa. Suitable for tropical culture, they became the basis of a forest civilization. As the population of the Sudan swelled, various peoples at the southern edge moved down the rivers toward the coast, taking with them Sudanic political and social patterns.

Since the Arabs who traded with the Sudanic kingdoms did not travel as far as Guinea, records for this area are extremely scarce. Some of the early kingdoms, such as Bono and Banda along the Volta River and Yoruba and Benin along the lower Niger, were probably founded about the 13th century and were located first at the northern edge of the forest. By some 200 years later they were within the forest.

Active trade was carried on with the Sudan, kingdoms west of the Volta dealing mainly with Ghana and Mali and those to the east with the Hausa states and Kanem-Bornu. Guinea's major exports were gold, kola nuts, and ivory. Imports were salt, copper, horses, and cattle. Cloth and beads, in common use throughout Guinea, were both imported and exported. There is no record of a Guinea slave trade before the Europeans came to the coast, although the Sudan had then been supplying slaves to North Africa for several centuries. The forest kingdoms became more powerful after the beginning of the European slave trade, for which the indigenous rulers provided slaves.

The Portuguese reached the Senegal River in 1445 and the island of Fernando Po in 1472. Their trading station of Elmina, on the Gold Coast, was founded in 1482. A port for Benin in the west delta of the Niger was opened in 1486.

Only fragmentary knowledge exists of the early history of the Bantu-speaking peoples, who occupy most of Africa south of a line from Cameroon to southern Ethiopia. On linguistic evidence it appears that they originated in the area of modern Cameroon and migrated eastward and southward. Apparently a great population expansion and dispersal occurred around the beginning of the Christian era.

The great Kongo kingdom at the mouth of the Congo River came to power about 1400. The Portuguese discovered this river and made coastal explorations in 1482–86. In 1491 Portuguese missionaries and craftsmen arrived in Kongo and began creating a Christian kingdom, based on the capital of San Salvador. It declined during the late 17th and 18th centuries.

Northwest of Lake Victoria, Bantu-speaking peoples established a strong kingdom called Bunyoro (or Kitara) during the 14th century. It ruled what is now Uganda. In the 16th century the kingdom of Buganda began to vie with Bunyoro for control of the region, and by the early 19th century it was the dominant power. Further south there were a number of smaller kingdoms—Ankole, Burundi, and Rwanda.

Centered in the upper Zambezi Valley was the Shona (or Rozwi) confederation. In the 11th century the Shona built a city called Zimbabwe to serve as their capital. During the 15th and 16th centuries, Zimbabwe was the capital of the Mutapa Empire (named after the Shona leader, Mutapa), which covered all of the present-day countries of Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Its prosperity was based on the export of gold to the east. The empire went into decline in the 16th century and eventually Zimbabwe was abandoned.

From very early times Arab sailors visited the upper east coast of Africa to trade iron implements for ivory. From Africa came also palm oil, rhinoceros horn, and frankincense. The Arabs transported this merchandise to the Mediterranean countries by way of the Red Sea and to Arabia, Persia, and India across the Indian Ocean. The Chinese were also involved in this early trade. (Axum, an Ethiopian kingdom built on this trade, was discussed earlier in this section, under the subtitle Sub-Saharan Africa to 1500: Kingdom of Kush.)

There is no mention of slave trade in the early records of the east coast. As the Bantu population expanded eastward, however, black slaves became an item of trade throughout the Indian Ocean area. Indonesians, who had colonized Madagascar, dominated the trade routes from the 8th century to the 12th.

In about the eighth century, Muslims began to found settlements along the coast. Some of these were communities of Arabian refugees from religious conflicts within the Islamic world. Others were trade settlements established by Persian and Arab merchants. Malindi, Mombasa, Kilwa, Mozambique, and Sofala—the major gold port for Zimbabwe—were among important coastal cities. In the 13th century Arab seafarers gained control of the Indian Ocean, and east Africa was absorbed into the Islamic world.

Beginning of Foreign Exploitation

When Bartholomeu Dias rounded the southern tip of Africa in 1488, Portugal had discovered a direct water route to the East Indies. It had also, on the way south, established itself on Africa's Gold Coast and at the mouth of the Congo. In 1493 Pope Alexander VI drew the Line of Demarcation, which gave Portugal exclusive rights to explore and trade in Africa.

Before the turn of the century the Portuguese had discovered the gold and the rich trade of the east coast. They seized Kilwa and Mozambique in 1502 and Zanzibar in 1503. Under Francisco de Almeida the rest of the coastal cities were brought to submission by 1510. Fortified trading stations were built on both coasts.

For a century no European nation had the sea power to challenge Portugal in Africa. Then in 1598 the Netherlands founded two posts on the Gold Coast. During the 17th century the English settled at the mouth of the Gambia River; the French at the mouth of the Senegal River; the English and Danes along the Gold Coast. The Dutch established themselves also at the Cape of Good Hope. The Portuguese were largely driven from Africa, retaining only their settlements south of the Gambia (Portuguese Guinea), south of the Congo (Angola), and around the Zambezi (Mozambique).

At first the coastal trade was mainly in ivory and gold, although Portugal also supplied slaves to the Latin American colonies. As the sugar plantations of the West Indies were developed, the demand for slave labor grew enormously, and ship captains learned that the most profitable cargo was slaves. The Dutch became dominant in the slave trade when Portuguese power declined, but by the end of the 18th century British ships were carrying more than half the slaves to America.

Inland raids by the coastal peoples to provide slaves for the traders brought perpetual warfare. Meanwhile Morocco seized the gold trade of the western Sudan. The Songhai empire disintegrated, and chaos prevailed. There were migrations of various peoples, and new kingdoms arose.

Ottoman Turks occupied Egypt in 1517. Turkish corsairs (sea raiders) quickly gained control of the Red Sea and of the North African coast as far west as Morocco, with the exception of Oran, which was seized and held by Spain. Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers became administrative centers in the Ottoman Empire, but under the bold rule of the corsairs they were virtually autonomous. Trade connections with the Sudan were established from the Maghrib, and with the southern Nile Valley from Egypt. Ethiopia, with aid from Portugal, successfully defended itself against the Turks. Morocco also repelled Turkish attacks, as well as those of Spain, although the Spanish won control of a few ports.

On the east coast the previously Arab ports north of Cape Delgado were taken back from Portugal by the Arabs of Oman during the latter half of the 17th century. African slaves were transported by the Arabs throughout the Indian Ocean area and by the Turks and the corsairs throughout the Mediterranean area. The Barbary corsairs also harassed shipping in the Mediterranean. (

Exploration and Colonization

By the end of the 18th century a strong feeling for the abolition of slavery was developing in many Western nations, especially Great Britain. The abolitionists were fervently religious and wanted to Christianize Africa. The first Christian missions were established in West Africa in the 1790's, and missionaries later moved into the interior, furthering exploration there. Exploration of the interior was also undertaken for political, commercial, and scientific reasons.

Mungo Park led an expedition into the western Sudan in 1795–97 for a British association (later called the Royal Geographical Society). His second journey in 1805–06 was sponsored by the British government. The government also sent the Denham-Clapperton-Oudney expedition from Tripoli across the Sahara in 1823–25; Richard and John Lander to the Niger River in 1830–31; and Heinrich Barth across the Sahara to the Sudan in 1850–55. A Frenchman, René Caillié, in 1827–29 was the first European to visit Timbuktu and return. The German missionaries Johann Krapf and Johannes Rebmann discovered Mount Kilimanjaro in 1848. Between 1862 and 1869 Gerhardt Rohlfs crossed North Africa from Agadir to Cairo.

Outstanding among the explorers was the Scottish missionary David Livingstone, who during his residence in Africa, 1841–73, traveled extensively in the southern area. Henry M. Stanley gained fame by locating Livingstone in the interior in 1871, and went on to make important explorations of his own. In the meantime John Hanning Speke discovered Lake Victoria in 1858 and in 1862 proved it to be the source of the Nile.

During the 19th century the western slave trade was gradually abolished. The Arab slave trade in the east, however, lingered on into the 20th century.

Except for the Dutch colony at Cape Town, for more than two centuries the Europeans had no territorial ambitions in Africa. Two native states were founded on the west coast by antislavery groups—Sierra Leone by the British in 1788 and Liberia by Americans in 1821. The Cape Colony passed to Britain in 1814.

The first move toward building a colonial empire in Africa was the French occupation of Algeria in 1830. The Danes and the Dutch, having given up the slave trade, relinquished their Guinea stations to the British in mid-century, and in 1874 Britain declared the Gold Coast a colony. France established a protectorate over Tunisia in 1881, and Britain began occupying Egypt in 1882, while Belgium took control of the Congo basin.

The rivalry among European powers for possession of African territory became so intense that the Berlin Conference (1884–85) was called to settle the claims. Free trade was established in the Congo basin, but most of the rest of the continent was divided into European spheres of influence.

The Germans established themselves in what are now Togo, Cameroon, Namibia, and mainland Tanzania. North Africa was gradually occupied by the French. The Spanish held the coast southwest of Morocco, and the Italians were in Somaliland and Eritrea.

Under the urging of Cecil Rhodes, Great Britain annexed Bechuanaland, and Rhodes himself took over Zambezia. Great Britain increased its African holdings further by crushing the Dutch colonists of South Africa in the Boer War of 1899–1902 and annexing the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. In 1910 these two states became part of the Union of South Africa. Two years earlier Belgium had taken possession of the Congo Free State.

The Turkish-Italian War of 1911–12 resulted in victorious Italy acquiring Tripoli and Cyrenaica and forming them into Libya. At the start of World War I in 1914, only Liberia and Ethiopia remained independent. After the war the German colonies were mandated to France, Great Britain, Belgium, and Portugal. Ethiopia was seized by Italy in 1935.

Independence Movement

The Africans of the Mediterranean region, with greater educational opportunities and more exposure to modern attitudes than other Africans, were the first to work for independence, in the 1920's. In 1938 there were revolts against French rule in Tunisia. The revolts were suppressed, and the leader of the Neo Destour party, Habib Bourguiba, was imprisoned in France. The war broadened North Africa's contacts and created greater restlessness. Formation in 1945 of the Arab League encouraged the Muslim countries in their desire for national sovereignty.

Libya, lost by Italy in the war, became independent in 1951, and Eritrea joined Ethiopia in a federation in 1952. Guerrilla warfare started in Tunisia in 1952, the Algerian war began in 1954, and a revolt broke out in Morocco in 1955. Tunisia and Morocco were granted independence by France in 1956, and Algeria achieved nationhood in 1962.

The general practice of colonial governments in central and southern Africa was to maintain nonwhites in a menial position, deny them virtually all voice in government, and make little or no effort to improve their way of life. The fact that colonialism was no longer commercially profitable was very apparent during the worldwide depression of the 1930's. The demand for minerals, rubber, and other products in World War II revived the economy. Not only did Africa provide valuable resources, but it was recognized as a promising new market. The European colonial powers found it advantageous after the war to concern themselves with the education and social welfare of their African subjects.

A nationalistic fervor developed rapidly among the Africans, and demands for independence began to be voiced. The Mau Mau uprisings in Kenya in the early 1950's were one of the most violent expressions of discontent. Great Britain gave independence to Sudan in 1956 and Ghana in 1957, and in 1958 France made Guinea a nation. Seventeen independent nations were created in sub-Saharan Africa in 1960, and more followed.

The African Nations

Within a few years after independence, most African governments had fallen to coups and been replaced by dictatorships or military rule. When the Europeans abandoned colonial control, they left behind nations with borders unrelated to local ethnic populations. As a result, many African countries were torn by devastating civil wars in the following decades. Perhaps the bloodiest such conflict occurred in Rwanda and Burundi in 1994, when long-simmering ethnic hatred resulted in the genocide of more than half a million people within a few months.

Other countries in which civil wars were fought—in some cases for more than a decade—include Angola, Chad, Mozambique, Nigeria, Sudan, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Despite the fighting, most of the colonial-era borders remained intact. A notable exception occurred in 1993, when Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia after a civil war lasting more than 30 years.

In southern Africa, black liberation movements arose in the 1960's against white-dominated governments. These movements achieved significant success in 1975, when Mozambique and Angola won independence; in 1980, when Rhodesia became independent as Zimbabwe; and in 1990, when Namibia achieved independence. South Africa, however, remained under white minority rule until 1994, when the country's first all-race elections were held.

Since 1998, conflict in Congo has claimed nearly 4 million lives, mostly from disease and malnutrition. The pan-Africanism movement, which promotes the unity of African countries, continued and in 2002 the African Union (AU), an association of African states, was formed.