Kwame Nkrumah & Julius Nyerere
Sam Swoyer Honors Capstone Professor Steven Taylor Kwame Nkrumah & Julius Nyerere: Independence, Leadership, & Legacy I. Introduction One of the more compelling movements of the second half of the twentieth century was the rise of the African independence movements. The first fifty years after 1880 had seen a great scramble by the European colonial powers for territory in Africa, followed by readjustments in colonial possessions in the aftermath of both World War I and World War II. Through this period of colonialism and subjugation, only the countries of Liberia, founded with the support of the United States, and Ethiopia, which 1 overcame a short period of subjugation by Mussolini’s Italy during the Second World War, remained independent. The entirety of the rest of the continent was subjected to colonization efforts by the likes of Great Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, and Belgium. After the First World War, many of Germany’s colonial possessions were entrusted to Allied countries as League of Nations mandates in accordance with the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I. After World War II, the mandates became United Nations trusteeships. One of, if not the, most influential colonial power during this time was Great Britain. During its peak, the country could claim that the “sun never set on the British Empire,” and the Empire’s colonial holdings in Africa were a large part of its possessions. At one point or another, the British Empire exerted control over the colonies of Gambia, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, Nigeria, Southern Cameroon, Libya, Egypt, the Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, Northern Rhodesia, Rhodesia, Nyasaland, Swaziland, and South Africa.
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