Home · Contemporary Era · Chapter two
Decolonization
In 1945 European states still ruled most of Africa and much of Asia. Thirty years later almost all those colonies had become independent states. Some won freedom through negotiation, others through long and bitter wars. The United Nations, founded by 51 states in 1945, had more than 140 members by 1975, and the new states changed the voice of the world.
India and Asia
THEME ONE
Mahatma Gandhi's campaigns of non-violent resistance made Indian independence a question of when, not if. On 15 August 1947 British India became two states, India and Pakistan. Partition was accompanied by terrible violence: hundreds of thousands were killed and some 15 million people fled across the new borders. The Philippines, Burma and Ceylon also became independent, and Indonesia won its freedom from the Netherlands in 1949.
The Year of Africa
THEME TWO
In 1957 the Gold Coast, led by Kwame Nkrumah, became Ghana, the first colony south of the Sahara to win independence. In 1960, the "Year of Africa", seventeen countries followed, most of them former French colonies, together with Nigeria, Somalia and the Belgian Congo. In the Congo independence was followed at once by mutiny, secession and foreign intervention.
Wars of independence
THEME THREE
Where settlers were many or the colonial power refused to leave, independence came through war. France fought in Indochina until its defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, and in Algeria from 1954 until independence in 1962. Britain fought the Mau Mau rising in Kenya. Portugal held on longest: its wars in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau ended only after the Carnation Revolution of 1974 in Lisbon.
New states in a divided world
THEME FOUR
In 1955 leaders of 29 Asian and African countries met at Bandung in Indonesia, and in 1961 the Non-Aligned Movement was founded to keep out of the superpowers' rivalry. In 1960 the UN General Assembly declared colonialism a denial of human rights. Yet many new states inherited borders drawn by Europeans, economies built to export raw materials, and the pressure of the Cold War.
Periods
Asia first
1945 – 1956
Independence for India, Pakistan, Indonesia and the Philippines, the French defeat in Indochina, and the Suez crisis of 1956, which showed that Britain and France could no longer act as world powers on their own.
Africa's turn
1957 – 1965
Ghana, the Year of Africa, the Congo crisis and Algerian independence. Most of British and French Africa becomes independent.
The last empires
1966 – 1975
Small colonies in the Caribbean, the Pacific and the Gulf become independent, and Portugal's African empire ends after the revolution of 1974.
Key dates
- 1947India and Pakistan become independent.
- 1949The Netherlands recognises Indonesia's independence.
- 1955The Bandung Conference of Asian and African states.
- 1957Ghana becomes independent.
- 1960The Year of Africa: seventeen new states.
- 1975Angola and Mozambique become independent.
Questions and answers
Why did the colonial empires end so quickly after 1945?
The war had weakened Britain, France and the Netherlands, national movements had grown strong, and both superpowers and the United Nations opposed colonial rule. Holding colonies by force became too costly, as the wars in Indochina and Algeria showed.
Did decolonization end in 1975?
The main wave did. Zimbabwe became independent in 1980, Namibia in 1990, Hong Kong returned to China in 1997, and the United Nations still lists 17 non-self-governing territories today.