0:00:21.829,0:00:51.829
Music Music and Singing Music>> The West Coast of Africa looking today much as

0:01:31.849,0:01:36.929
it did 100 years ago. At that time, the old evils of the slave trade had become

0:01:36.949,0:01:41.980
a distant though disgraceful memory. But there now opened a new chapter of

0:01:42.000,0:01:47.090
confrontation along these tropical shores. In past years, Europeans had come

0:01:47.109,0:01:54.679
here for profitable business. Now they wanted more, much more. Old trading

0:01:54.699,0:02:00.090
posts, like this one, had long been the scene of a partnership between maritime

0:02:00.109,0:02:06.230
traders from Europe and local Africans.By the 1880s, that old partnership was

0:02:06.250,0:02:12.419
being swept away in a dramatic change,the outcome of a new European drive for

0:02:12.439,0:02:18.759
overseas empire. Industrialized countries led by France and Britain had begun to

0:02:18.780,0:02:24.249
invade the black continent,each hoping for new sources of raw materials for its

0:02:24.269,0:02:30.279
factories, new markets for its manufacturers, and new positions of advantage

0:02:30.299,0:02:37.079
against its rivals. This was called the scramble for Africa. By 1914, only two

0:02:37.099,0:02:42.799
countries remained outside European possession, Liberia in the west and Ethiopia

0:02:42.819,0:02:48.409
in the east. Britain had seized the lion's share of control: Egypt and the Sudan

0:02:48.429,0:02:53.239
in the north, the immense wealth of South Africa, valuable colonies like

0:02:53.259,0:02:59.319
Rhodesia and Kenya, and richly populated territories such as Nigeria and the

0:02:59.340,0:03:07.199
Gold Coast. France had invaded Algeria in the 1830s. Now after new wars of

0:03:07.219,0:03:12.409
conquest, she added more colonies to her empire south of the Sahara, including

0:03:12.429,0:03:20.019
the island of Madagascar.Little Portugal carved out of two vast colonies, Angola

0:03:20.039,0:03:25.069
and Mozambique, while the imperial Germany took the Cameroons and southwest

0:03:25.090,0:03:32.859
Africa, and on the East Coast Tanganyika. The vast Congo basin fell to King

0:03:32.879,0:03:40.119
Leopold of the Belgians.Italy and Spain completed the enclosure. The fate of the

0:03:40.139,0:03:48.149
continent was utterly changed. Between the colonizing powers themselves, the

0:03:48.169,0:03:54.669
carve-up was peaceful.But their rivalry was intense. In 1884, a congress of the

0:03:54.689,0:04:00.079
competing governments met in Berlin to settle their disputes. Germany's Iron

0:04:00.099,0:04:06.859
Chancellor of Bismarck was there. And active behind the scenes was the ambitious

0:04:06.879,0:04:12.019
Belgian king. He spoke for them all when he said, "I am determined to get my

0:04:12.039,0:04:18.810
share of this magnificent African cake. Any power that could occupy African soil

0:04:18.829,0:04:33.550
could effectively claim it."Music Now the task was to stake out frontiers in

0:04:33.569,0:04:38.590
utterly uncharted land. Said the French prime minister, "We have embarked on a

0:04:38.610,0:04:43.170
gigantic steeplechase into the unknown." The British Prime Minister Lord

0:04:43.189,0:04:48.810
Salisbury was to say of this period,"We've been engaged in drawing lines on maps

0:04:48.829,0:04:53.209
where no man's foot has ever trod.We've been giving away mountains and rivers

0:04:53.229,0:04:57.259
and lakes to each other, only hindered by the small impediment that we never

0:04:57.279,0:05:07.780
knew exactly where we were."Music The great game was to get hold of places and

0:05:07.800,0:05:12.889
positions of advantage over rivals,no matter what irrational frontiers might

0:05:12.909,0:05:22.670
result. One of the most absurd cases was the magnificent Gambia River. Britain

0:05:22.689,0:05:27.430
had long held Bathurst, Banjul today,and was determined to keep this river route

0:05:27.449,0:05:33.069
to the interior. But France,invading from the West Coast, enclosed all the

0:05:33.089,0:05:38.459
territories surrounding the Gambia River in her new colony of Senegal. So the

0:05:38.479,0:05:43.079
French was naturally eager to obtain the Gambia River. They offered Britain in

0:05:43.099,0:05:48.720
exchange the much larger and richer Ivory Coast. But the British Parliament

0:05:48.740,0:05:55.050
insisted on keeping the Gambia,thus dividing the peoples of the region. And the

0:05:55.069,0:06:02.579
result and is a country that is 300 miles long but never more than 30 miles

0:06:02.599,0:06:12.860
wide.Conversations Indistinct What the African inhabitants might think of this

0:06:12.879,0:06:18.339
colonial carve-up was never asked. The European idea in the words of one British

0:06:18.359,0:06:23.199
governor was to seize African territory and then as much as possible rule the

0:06:23.219,0:06:29.800
country as if there were no inhabitants.Conversations Indistinct

0:06:29.819,0:06:34.290
In fact, European contempt for Africans now reached new depths. And no wonder;

0:06:34.310,0:06:40.389
for how otherwise and by asserting that Africans were helpless children, lazy

0:06:40.409,0:06:44.470
savages could Christian Europe justify taking their countries away from them?

0:06:44.490,0:06:57.699
Singing The helpless children meanwhile sang their own version of a famous hymn,

0:06:57.719,0:07:02.220
"Onward, Christian soldiers. On to heathen lands. Prayer book in your pockets.

0:07:02.240,0:07:07.129
Rifles in your hands. Take the happy tidings where trade can be done; spread the

0:07:07.149,0:07:16.250
peaceful gospel with a Gatling gun.Music The European invasions were widely

0:07:16.269,0:07:21.899
resisted. Conquest was never easy. And sometimes as these old drawings and

0:07:21.919,0:07:27.290
photographs testify, conquests led to a ruthless killing that later generations

0:07:27.310,0:07:48.290
would prefer to forget.Drums Resistance took many shapes. In French West

0:07:48.310,0:07:53.889
Africa, a focal point was found in Muslim loyalties. Many heroes, still

0:07:53.909,0:08:01.600
unforgotten, came on that scene. Some, like the Senegalese religious leader

0:08:01.620,0:08:11.719
Amadou Bamba, offered the way of peace but was still sent into exile. Others,

0:08:11.739,0:08:14.279
like the fierce warrior leader Samori, fought off

0:08:14.299,0:08:21.980
French attack after attack and was crushed and exiled only after years of war.

0:08:22.000,0:08:27.529
Death took many, strong or weak. With the skulls of earlier wars displayed in

0:08:27.549,0:08:32.039
their capital, Kumasi, the powerful Ashanti nation ruled over most of modern

0:08:32.058,0:08:38.450
Ghana. Led by their kings who had the title of Asantehene, they had long

0:08:38.470,0:08:43.549
defended their country against Britain. But now they desperately wanted a

0:08:43.568,0:08:49.529
peaceful settlement. In 1895, fearing a disastrous war with Britain, King

0:08:49.549,0:08:54.909
Prempeh made a strong bid for peace from his palace here at Kumasi. He offered

0:08:54.929,0:08:59.049
the British the right to establish in Ashanti a chartered company with all the

0:08:59.069,0:09:04.769
concessions, the privilege that such a company could possibly desire. But it

0:09:04.789,0:09:10.519
wasn't enough, for the British now wanted territorial possession as well as

0:09:10.539,0:09:18.279
privilege.Gunfire The Ashanti nation had already fought long, hard battles

0:09:18.299,0:09:24.460
against the British.But this time, in 1896, they decided to surrender.

0:09:24.480,0:09:34.090
Gunfire In a ceremony of deliberate humiliation, the king was made to kiss the

0:09:34.110,0:09:39.149
British commander's boot, and then sent into exile. But it wasn't the end of the

0:09:39.169,0:09:43.529
story.The British now blundered. A new British governor, Sir Frederick Hodgson,

0:09:43.549,0:09:48.210
decided that he had to get possession of the sacred golden stool, symbol of the

0:09:48.230,0:09:53.179
Ashanti Nation's soul. Arriving at the British fort here in Kumasi, he ordered

0:09:53.199,0:09:58.370
the assembled chiefs to hand the stool over. Worse still, he demanded the right

0:09:58.389,0:10:03.903
to sit on it, something that no person had ever been allowed to do, not even the

0:10:03.923,0:10:14.240
king himself.Gunfire To Hodgson's final insult, the Ashanti replied with war.

0:10:14.259,0:10:20.250
This little fort at Kumasi is what the British had built, just in case, and now

0:10:20.269,0:10:25.730
they sorely needed it. The few dozen British inmates of the fort were besieged

0:10:25.750,0:10:36.500
for months, and had to eat rats to stay alive. Hodgson's act of folly had

0:10:36.519,0:10:41.539
exacted a bitter price.Efforts to send in relief from the coast were repeatedly

0:10:41.559,0:10:47.090
frustrated by Ashanti resistance, until finally, the governor and his wife got

0:10:47.110,0:10:52.620
away to the coast, and the absurd but tragic affair could be closed. This ended

0:10:52.639,0:10:57.819
war between Britain and Ashanti, and a year later, in 1901, the British quietly

0:10:57.839,0:11:03.909
annexed the country,which became part of the colony of the Gold Coast. All over

0:11:03.929,0:11:09.330
Africa, the new military technology of automatic guns gave easy victories to the

0:11:09.350,0:11:22.669
invaders.Singing Background Singing Countless resisters died, many thousands at

0:11:22.689,0:11:30.039
the single battle of Omdurman, in Britain's conquest of the Sudan. Meanwhile, in

0:11:30.059,0:11:35.909
another part of the Sudan, the French were also scoring victories. For the most

0:11:35.929,0:11:41.460
part, public opinion rejoiced, for were these not victories over an inferior

0:11:41.480,0:11:55.860
species, a kind of joke humanity? There were some critics, but not many, and

0:11:55.879,0:11:58.759
their voice was ignored or silenced. What really mattered was to do down one's

0:11:58.759,0:12:04.580
European rivals:if you were British, to get the better of the French in West

0:12:04.600,0:12:11.299
Africa, or of the Germans in East Africa, while orphans like little Uganda were

0:12:11.319,0:12:19.919
left on the protective doorstep of Father John Bull. Even before 1900, there

0:12:19.939,0:12:25.340
came a new source of conflict: settlers from Europe, French in the far north,

0:12:25.360,0:12:30.340
Dutch, and then British in the far south, and some Germans. Other settlers were

0:12:30.360,0:12:35.559
attracted to the good farming land of the east, to Tanganyika, northern and

0:12:35.579,0:12:42.120
southern Rhodesia, and the British territories of Uganda and Kenya. Once again,

0:12:42.139,0:12:48.569
nobody asked permission. An early French governor had laid down the Golden Rule:

0:12:48.589,0:12:52.799
"Wherever good water and fertile land are found," he said, "settlers must be

0:12:52.819,0:12:58.559
installed without questioning whose land it may be." The settlers, not

0:12:58.579,0:13:06.139
surprisingly, agreed. The next step in East Africa was to build a railway from

0:13:06.159,0:13:14.289
the coast to the interior. The line was completed in 1901, and millions of acres

0:13:14.309,0:13:19.139
of good farming land in Kenya were opened to white ownership and settlement for

0:13:19.159,0:13:24.779
the buying price of next to nothing. These white strangers, oddly enough, were

0:13:24.799,0:13:30.449
at first welcomed by the African inhabitants. But the welcome didn't last for

0:13:30.469,0:13:36.129
long, for they soon discovered that colonial government wanted them to give

0:13:36.149,0:13:43.259
things, above all their land, and their labor. These colonial demands provoked a

0:13:43.279,0:13:48.019
repeated resistance. And against that resistance, the colonial government, with

0:13:48.039,0:13:52.819
white settlers arriving in ever larger numbers from Britain, waged a war with

0:13:52.839,0:14:03.850
little mercy, and of course with rifles and machine guns against spears and

0:14:03.870,0:14:19.980
arrows.Drums This beating down of a sometimes violent and desperate African

0:14:20.000,0:14:25.319
protest was called pacification, or less politely, hammering. A British officer

0:14:25.339,0:14:28.360
then fighting in Kenya kept a sadly instructive diary.

0:14:28.379,0:14:35.259
>> "Marched into Fort Hall, and the expedition comes to an end. To my mind, the

0:14:35.279,0:14:39.029
people of the Embu have not been sufficiently hammered, and I should like to go

0:14:39.039,0:14:43.360
back at once and have another go at them. During the first phase of our

0:14:43.379,0:14:48.809
expedition against the Iriani, we killed 797 niggers, and during the second

0:14:48.829,0:14:56.590
phase, against the Embu, we killed about 250.">> There was, in fact, much more

0:14:56.610,0:15:01.470
of the same thing. In a sixth campaign against the Kenya Nandi, for example,

0:15:01.490,0:15:07.199
British troops reported killing 1117 people,besides seizing all their

0:15:07.219,0:15:16.819
livestock. In 1906, a junior British minister in London cabled this protest: "

0:15:16.839,0:15:21.720
Surely it cannot be necessary to go on killing these defenseless people on such

0:15:21.740,0:15:27.669
an enormous scale." The minister's name was Winston Churchill, but on that

0:15:27.689,0:15:57.689
occasion, his intervention had no effect.Music By 1915, about four million acres

0:16:42.059,0:16:47.309
of African farming land in central Kenya had been given to about one thousand

0:16:47.329,0:16:53.720
British settlers. By the 1920s, about half of the able-bodied men of Kenya's two

0:16:53.740,0:16:58.399
largest founding peoples, the Kikuyu and the Luhya, were working as laborers for

0:16:58.419,0:17:05.309
British newcomers. How was that done? The answer, once again, was something new

0:17:05.329,0:17:11.279
in Kenya: taxation. To cultivate these splendid acres, it was necessary to make

0:17:11.299,0:17:17.670
Africans pay taxes in cash. Having no money economy of their own, Africans could

0:17:17.690,0:17:25.740
pay tax in cash only if they went to work for a European wage. An old Masai

0:17:25.759,0:17:55.759
recalls those early days. The Masai proved particularly good at dodging the

0:18:03.659,0:18:08.589
payment of the new taxes, so the colonial government thought it should send some

0:18:08.609,0:18:13.569
of these apparently idle warriors to school, so as to turn them, if possible,

0:18:13.589,0:18:41.399
into tax collectors among their own people. Small boys were seized for this

0:18:41.419,0:18:50.269
purpose. On the other side of the continent, in northern Nigeria, the colonial

0:18:50.289,0:18:55.799
scene was very different. With no white settlers, life was peaceful. Things

0:18:55.819,0:19:00.609
continued much as before. The British had conquered this huge region far from

0:19:00.629,0:19:06.159
the sea for no real reason other than to keep it from the French, so the British

0:19:06.179,0:19:10.180
were content with a supervision which allowed them to take a back seat. Under

0:19:10.200,0:19:16.420
the direction of Lord Lugard, this was called indirect rule. This was the

0:19:16.440,0:19:20.440
residence of the British official who governed the northern Nigerian province of

0:19:20.460,0:19:25.829
Kano. Indirect rule meant ruling through local kings, in this case the local

0:19:25.849,0:19:30.970
emir, who, after defeat, accepted British over lordship on condition that

0:19:30.990,0:19:36.329
nothing was done to modernize or democratize the conquered system. Indirect rule

0:19:36.349,0:19:42.149
was cheap and highly effective.Local kings and princes kept the peace and law

0:19:42.169,0:19:47.089
and order, in their own interest as well as in that of the British. Both sides,

0:19:47.109,0:19:55.480
at the top, had much to gain. So kings like this one, the Emir of Katsina, were

0:19:55.500,0:20:01.509
able to stay in power and even add to their personal privileges. They were able

0:20:01.529,0:20:05.960
to call on their own local retainers to govern the everyday affairs of the

0:20:05.980,0:20:13.690
country.Music In this way, the native governing class, as the doctrine said, was

0:20:13.710,0:20:18.930
to remain a real living force, as well as being a curious and interesting

0:20:18.950,0:20:32.059
pageantry.Chanting>> The ceremonies are the same as a thousand years ago. There

0:20:32.079,0:20:35.319
were kings in northern Nigeria when Richard Lionheart set out on crusade.

0:20:35.339,0:20:43.819
Today, he and all the emirs of northern Nigeria play their part as subjects of

0:20:43.839,0:20:48.009
the king of England, but their subjects still show their loyalty as in the days

0:20:48.029,0:20:58.509
when Katsina was warring with her neighbors.Horn Katsina still keeps her way of

0:20:58.529,0:21:01.529
life, still resists new influences from the world

0:21:01.549,0:21:08.190
outside.>> In short, no modernization of any kind, and therefore, big problems

0:21:08.210,0:21:13.180
for the future. I talked to Nigerian Professor Obaro Ikime.

0:21:13.200,0:21:20.529
>> For the larger part of Nigeria, British rule did not mean anything, for many

0:21:20.549,0:21:26.019
years. In other words, although at the centers of administration there was a

0:21:26.039,0:21:30.470
change which could be seen by the people and felt by the people. In the outlying

0:21:30.490,0:21:37.518
areas, life went on as if the British did not exist. If you take a look at one

0:21:37.538,0:21:43.119
particular area, the north, for example, the seat of the emir, and the seats of

0:21:43.139,0:21:48.460
the district heads, may have felt the immediate impact of the British presence,

0:21:48.480,0:21:54.549
but the villages were ordered and run just as before, with one important

0:21:54.569,0:22:01.750
difference, though, taxation, that the people had to pay tax to a new power. The

0:22:01.769,0:22:09.579
British built up a corps of Africans, who became known as native administrators,

0:22:09.599,0:22:17.009
developed some commitment to the system. The salaries were comfortable. They had

0:22:17.029,0:22:22.769
power, which they used to enrich themselves at the expense of their followers

0:22:22.789,0:22:29.230
and their subjects. Consequently, the British were able to succeed largely by

0:22:29.250,0:22:34.950
developing a corps of people who became partners with them.

0:22:34.970,0:22:39.470
>> British officers, headed by a resident, are there in every emirate to advise

0:22:39.490,0:22:46.450
and assist the emir and his ministers in their day-to-day work. And each month,

0:22:46.470,0:22:50.815
the resident presides at a full meeting with the emir's council. There may be

0:22:50.835,0:22:54.809
words from Nigeria's governor in Lagos, or from the colonial office in London.

0:22:54.829,0:23:03.319
Or the council may discuss the repatriation of pilgrims from Mecca. The dignity

0:23:03.339,0:23:08.579
of the past, the traditions of Katsina are present in the council chamber.

0:23:08.599,0:23:13.899
>> Here once more, this time behind polite words, was the essence of colonial

0:23:13.919,0:23:26.639
paternalism.Music In the French colonies along the coast, the scene was both the

0:23:26.659,0:23:32.569
same and different. Dakar, capital of Senegal, actually the little suburb of

0:23:32.589,0:23:38.950
Rufisque, a charmingly nostalgic place. Senegal was France's oldest colony in

0:23:38.970,0:23:43.129
tropical Africa, and one where the French presence, like that of the British in

0:23:43.149,0:23:48.500
northern Nigeria, could easily be absorbed. Generally, the French ran their

0:23:48.519,0:23:52.779
colonies on much the same system as the British. But there was one important

0:23:52.799,0:23:58.369
difference. The British thought that their Africans could never become anything

0:23:58.389,0:24:02.889
but Africans,and certainly not British. The French idea, on the contrary, was

0:24:02.909,0:24:08.589
that in the end, at some distant time, all their Africans would become black

0:24:08.609,0:24:13.460
Frenchmen. The culture and the language of France were offered as the eventual

0:24:13.480,0:24:20.769
supreme blessings. This idea was called assimilation. Originally, this was a

0:24:20.789,0:24:27.339
generous idea, but colonial rule reduced it to little or nothing. Yet in four

0:24:27.359,0:24:32.389
municipalities of coastal Senegal, assimilation did take effect. This

0:24:32.409,0:24:38.000
picturesque island of Goree, just off the port of Dakar, was one. Here you could

0:24:38.019,0:24:44.799
go to school, and even become a French citizen. But you belonged to a tiny

0:24:44.819,0:24:52.009
minority. By 1926, only 48,000 Senegalese had become assimilated, out of a total

0:24:52.029,0:25:14.740
of one and a half million. The Senegalese historian Professor Cheikh Anta Diop

0:25:14.759,0:25:20.909
explains. One man from Goree Island who did make it, and carved out for himself

0:25:20.929,0:25:26.859
a brilliant career, was Blaise Diagne. Of humble origins, Diagne became the

0:25:26.879,0:25:31.970
first black man to be elected to the French national parliament in Paris. He

0:25:31.990,0:25:38.619
campaigned for black rights, and began to win concessions. That was in 1914.

0:25:38.639,0:25:45.839
Music During the First World War, an embattled France called for tens of

0:25:45.859,0:25:50.809
thousands of African troops, as Flanders swallowed its victims. Blaise Diagne

0:25:50.829,0:25:56.009
agreed to be France's recruiting sergeant, and his African reputation vanished

0:25:56.029,0:26:26.029
in the slaughter. France had long relied on African mercenaries, even as far

0:26:39.109,0:26:44.000
back as the Crimean War, but now it was different, in scale and in suffering.

0:26:44.019,0:26:51.190
More than 200,000 African troops, mostly conscripts, were sent to France, and at

0:26:51.210,0:26:58.379
least 170,000 were thrown into the Holocaust of the trenches.

0:26:58.399,0:27:05.159
Music Thousands never came home. Others returned with an experience that

0:27:05.179,0:27:35.179
survivors have still not forgotten. Shoulder to shoulder, white men and black

0:27:59.579,0:28:05.740
men, equal in the trenches. Were they now to become equal in the colonies? Only

0:28:05.759,0:28:35.759
the monuments suggested that. With the coming of peace in 1918, the victorious

0:29:38.799,0:29:43.629
colonial systems looked more strongly entrenched than ever before, though

0:29:43.649,0:29:48.899
military rule now gave way to civilian government. This led to a far more

0:29:48.919,0:29:53.519
thorough system of tax collection, to pay for the government. The linchpin of

0:29:53.539,0:29:58.783
the British system as the District Officer.>> I'm the District Officer in this

0:29:58.803,0:30:02.563
particular area. The native authority treasurer sends his figures to me for

0:30:02.583,0:30:08.490
checking against last year's. When it's decided what the tax is to be this

0:30:08.509,0:30:15.169
year, I go up to tell the chiefs and people what they're to pay, and why. That's

0:30:15.189,0:30:20.052
my wife. I spend so much time doing the rounds that if she didn't come, we

0:30:20.072,0:30:24.819
wouldn't see much of each other. We take our beds and everything else, as the

0:30:24.839,0:30:31.710
rest huts where we spend the nights have no furniture. You know, we're very

0:30:31.730,0:30:36.678
ordinary people, but the pagans still find us a bit of a puzzle with our fuss

0:30:36.698,0:30:41.128
and bother. That's the local chief. We ask news of

0:30:41.148,0:30:50.435
the crops and the children.Music It's like sitting in a shop window. We come

0:30:50.455,0:30:54.538
here every year, and follow the same ritual, but they always behave as though it

0:30:54.557,0:31:00.049
was the first time. Peace is all very well, but it is dull, and they love a bit

0:31:00.069,0:31:06.299
of variety.>> Many colonial officials were good, practical, hardworking people

0:31:06.319,0:31:11.929
devoted to their ideals. They were sure that the strong paternal arm of colonial

0:31:11.949,0:31:15.669
rule must be a blessing for Africans, and would have to be continued for

0:31:15.689,0:31:20.559
centuries. They firmly believed that if left to themselves, Africans would

0:31:20.579,0:31:25.369
simply go on living as before, and that, they thought, would be a thoroughly bad

0:31:25.389,0:31:34.689
thing. An old film tells the story as the colonial officials saw it.

0:31:34.709,0:31:40.650
>> Background Music This simple life under the hot African sky was once a life

0:31:40.670,0:31:46.591
of fear and uncertainty. British rule has brought peace. The enterprise of

0:31:46.611,0:31:51.089
European officials and settlers, and of Indian traders, has opened up the

0:31:51.109,0:31:55.460
country. But there is still a long battle to be fought with ignorance, poverty,

0:31:55.480,0:32:01.049
and disease. In these lands, where there are so many changes to be made, much

0:32:01.069,0:32:05.309
can be achieved by money, and the initiative of the white man.

0:32:05.329,0:32:10.000
>> In the more favored colonies, those were the hopes of the 1920s, and in some

0:32:10.019,0:32:14.169
respects they were fulfilled. There came the founding of the first modern

0:32:14.189,0:32:20.059
hospitals, veterinary services, and other benefits of Western life. But all the

0:32:20.079,0:32:25.069
money to pay for these good things had to come from Africans, so there now began

0:32:25.089,0:32:33.519
a drive for the export of crops to yield cash. The cash crop era got into its

0:32:33.539,0:32:39.919
stride. Groundnuts, as here in Senegal, were a crop that brought cash to farmers

0:32:39.939,0:32:57.717
and to colonial purchasing companies. But the cash crops' success also brought

0:32:57.737,0:33:27.737
problems. So long as their crops were bought, African growers could be

0:33:58.179,0:34:03.740
reasonably content. But in 1929, there began the huge and long disaster of the

0:34:03.759,0:34:08.480
world Depression, and prices collapsed. Food production for local people,

0:34:08.500,0:34:13.739
already badly hit because of land taken for cash crops, became a subject of

0:34:13.759,0:34:22.389
major crisis. What is true of the French Empire was just as true of all the

0:34:22.409,0:34:29.389
others. Here in the Gold Coast, the big cash crop was cocoa, providing the bulk

0:34:29.409,0:34:34.190
of the colony's exports. The crop was grown and harvested entirely by African

0:34:34.210,0:34:39.690
farmers, who had to sell it to British and other foreign buying companies. These

0:34:39.710,0:34:47.599
companies banded together so as to pay the farmers an artificially low price.

0:34:47.619,0:34:52.299
The farmers of Ghana, then the Gold Coast, nonetheless worked so well that they

0:34:52.319,0:34:57.420
became the world's biggest producers of cocoa, and so of chocolate, which

0:34:57.440,0:35:03.019
Africans didn't eat. But the gains were far from equally shared. The Ghanaian

0:35:03.039,0:35:08.460
historian, Professor Adu Boahen.>> There's no doubt at all that the farmers were

0:35:08.480,0:35:14.460
being cheated. The prices that were being paid for the cocoa bore no

0:35:14.480,0:35:19.059
relationship to the prices that we had to pay for the imported goods. We had no

0:35:19.079,0:35:24.000
say in the pricing of our own commodities.We had no say in what we paid for what

0:35:24.019,0:35:27.799
was imported. This was in fact one of the greatest indictments against the

0:35:27.819,0:35:33.469
colonial economic policies, the fact that so much emphasis was placed on a

0:35:33.489,0:35:39.429
single cash crop. And we had to import rice. We had to import oil, palm oil, and

0:35:39.449,0:35:44.130
so on, you know, to feed ourselves, because so much emphasis and so much

0:35:44.150,0:35:47.159
attention was paid to this single cash crop, cocoa.

0:35:47.179,0:35:51.880
The colonial governors were just concerned with obtaining raw materials to feed

0:35:51.900,0:35:56.269
their factories abroad.>> The raw materials were produced by the skill and

0:35:56.289,0:36:01.509
enterprise of hard-working African men and women, yet the advertisements in

0:36:01.529,0:36:07.009
Europe, deeply racist by this time, presented an insultingly different picture.

0:36:07.029,0:36:12.170
At the same time, African businessmen found that the trading positions they had

0:36:12.190,0:36:17.819
established in earlier times were now swept away.>> There's no doubt at all that

0:36:17.839,0:36:23.799
before the colonial period, Africans were playing a far more important and

0:36:23.819,0:36:27.360
dominant role in the economy than during the colonial period, with many of them

0:36:27.380,0:36:32.679
running their own import/export business. In the 1920s and 1930s, all these

0:36:32.699,0:36:37.019
African merchant princes eventually disappeared from the field, because the dice

0:36:37.039,0:36:45.019
were so much loaded against them under the colonial system. The banks were

0:36:45.039,0:36:48.980
discriminating against them in the granting of loans. The export trade firms and

0:36:49.000,0:36:53.549
particularly the inaudible firms were undercutting them. And they just could not

0:36:53.569,0:36:57.089
stand the challenge, and therefore many of them simply ran out of business. And

0:36:57.109,0:37:01.569
the children of these great merchant princes now became the employees of the

0:37:01.589,0:37:07.829
great African capitalist companies like UEC, UTC, SUA and so on.

0:37:07.849,0:37:14.299
>> Colonial trading companies, British, French, Belgian, Portuguese, monopolized

0:37:14.319,0:37:22.429
wholesale business with the full backing of their colonial governments. What

0:37:22.449,0:37:27.679
King Leopold had called "this magnificent African cake" was beginning to yield

0:37:27.699,0:37:34.289
its riches. Often those were painful days, but they have to be recalled by

0:37:34.309,0:37:42.299
anyone who wishes to understand the problems of Africa now. The turmoil of today

0:37:42.319,0:37:47.519
in the Congo, or Zaire, has its roots in the infamous Congo Free State of King

0:37:47.539,0:37:52.449
Leopold. Here the emphasis was on the growing of rubber, and the methods used to

0:37:52.469,0:38:00.130
extract it were no better than a reign of terror. Local people were forced to

0:38:00.150,0:38:05.799
collect rubber under the most cruel conditions, as these old photographs show.

0:38:05.819,0:38:10.759
If the rubber they collected was poor, or small in quantity, men, and sometimes

0:38:10.779,0:38:17.579
women too, could expect to lose a hand or foot in punishment. Terrible things

0:38:17.599,0:38:23.279
were done. An official British fact-finding commission reported, "The daily

0:38:23.299,0:38:28.420
agony of an entire people unrolled itself in all its repulsive, terrifying

0:38:28.440,0:38:37.389
details." Public opinion in Europe grew horrified. Gradually, the agonies were

0:38:37.409,0:38:43.380
reduced. Yet huge damage had been done, moral as well as physical, and was going

0:38:43.400,0:38:56.719
to cast a dark and violent shadow over the future of the Congo. Forced labor by

0:38:56.739,0:39:02.730
the 1920s was practiced on a wide scale in most of the colonies. All early roads

0:39:02.750,0:39:10.440
and railways were built by forced labor. Much was achieved, but the cost in life

0:39:10.460,0:39:18.289
and health was sometimes catastrophic. This spectacular railway in French

0:39:18.309,0:39:24.009
Equatorial Africa was built by 125,000 Africans to link the coast with

0:39:24.029,0:39:30.409
Brazzaville, the inland capital. Beyond doubt, a great feat of engineering, but

0:39:30.429,0:39:35.119
before a single passenger could travel on it, nearly 14,000 Africans were to die

0:39:35.139,0:39:44.880
in building it. Travel in comfort came at a price. By the 1920s, the colonial

0:39:44.900,0:39:50.110
railway map was complete. These lines had one central purpose: to ensure the

0:39:50.130,0:39:59.199
export of minerals and other wealth, most of all from Southern Africa. European

0:39:59.219,0:40:05.279
mining activity for gold, copper, zinc, diamonds transformed Southern Africa,

0:40:05.299,0:40:10.059
thanks again to African labor, acquired by the usual procedure of administrative

0:40:10.079,0:40:17.079
force and taxation. Conditions were hard to bear. Some 30,000 Africans died in

0:40:17.099,0:40:25.029
Southern Rhodesian mines between 1904 and 1933, mostly of disease. And wages at

0:40:25.049,0:40:32.319
the end of that period were lower than they'd been at the start. This labor

0:40:32.339,0:41:02.339
system was called chibaro. Very old men can still remember it. Gold mining

0:41:06.980,0:41:11.869
boomed. In those years of chibaro, the Southern Rhodesian mining industry

0:41:11.889,0:41:17.730
produced gold worth 87 million pounds sterling, at the cost of 20 dead African

0:41:17.750,0:41:28.699
miners each week, on average, for 30 years. Just as in the bigger mines of South

0:41:28.719,0:41:34.699
Africa, living conditions for miners were appalling. Safety provisions were

0:41:34.719,0:41:44.730
primitive. Discipline was often brutal, healthcare almost nonexistent. Prison

0:41:44.750,0:42:11.409
labor was used whenever available, and that was often, and child labor too.

0:42:11.429,0:42:16.269
After 1930, the whole labor system in large regions had come to depend on people

0:42:16.289,0:42:22.089
having to abandon their villages and go far away to work in colonial mines or on

0:42:22.109,0:42:28.699
plantations. This was called migrant labor, a huge upheaval which soon began to

0:42:28.719,0:42:34.819
destroy the old stabilities of rural Africa. An official British committee in

0:42:34.839,0:42:39.679
1935 reported that the old order of society was being completely undermined by

0:42:39.699,0:42:50.130
migrant labor. The years ahead were going to confirm it. But it was in the

0:42:50.150,0:42:56.769
Portuguese colonies, especially Angola and Mozambique, that forced labor was at

0:42:56.789,0:43:02.489
its worst. Here in Mozambique, and by brutal methods, African farmers were

0:43:02.509,0:43:09.039
forced to grow cotton and to sell it at prices fixed by the colonial government,

0:43:09.059,0:43:14.699
prices kept so low that the farmers used to say of the cotton that they were

0:43:14.719,0:43:23.329
forced to grow, that cotton was the mother of poverty.

0:43:23.349,0:43:29.130
Singing The raw cotton was sent to textile factories in Portugal, and returned

0:43:29.150,0:43:36.440
in the form of shirts for Africans to buy. All the profits were Portuguese. The

0:43:36.460,0:43:40.909
more the farmers learned to hate cotton, the more they were forced to grow it,

0:43:40.929,0:44:10.929
on pain of severe punishment.Singing The farmers in this old film had no legal

0:44:34.739,0:44:39.480
means of protest, but they could express their anger by singing anti-colonial

0:44:39.500,0:44:48.359
songs in their own language. There seemed, then, no way out, no hope ahead. And

0:44:48.379,0:44:53.579
before long, the same disaster struck here as elsewhere. Food crops

0:44:53.599,0:45:23.599
disappeared, and once-prosperous areas were hit by famine.

0:45:34.549,0:45:49.420
Music In spite of African suffering, settlers arrived in growing numbers. Some

0:45:49.440,0:45:54.400
were political exiles from the Portuguese dictatorship. Many were poor people,

0:45:54.420,0:46:00.329
hoping for a better life. Sent out to be farmers, most preferred the easier life

0:46:00.349,0:46:06.099
of the towns. They opened shops and businesses, and aimed at the success which

0:46:06.119,0:46:12.690
had eluded them at home. This actually suited the official colonial doctrine.

0:46:12.710,0:46:20.909
The Portuguese dictator, Marcelo Caetano, laid it down in plain words:"The

0:46:20.929,0:46:48.109
blacks are to be organized and enclosed," he said, "in an economy directed by

0:46:48.129,0:47:11.239
whites."Music Mass resistance was to develop later, but already even the poorest

0:47:11.259,0:47:16.480
and least educated Africans could see that colonial rule had much more to take

0:47:16.500,0:47:28.039
than to give. Whatever good may have come from colonial rule, has to be

0:47:28.059,0:47:32.619
measured,unfortunately, against the essential aims of each of the colonial

0:47:32.639,0:47:37.989
systems. These aims were frankly stated: They were to extract wealth. We've

0:47:38.009,0:47:42.759
looked at some of the ways in which wealth was extracted, by the use of forced

0:47:42.779,0:47:47.779
or cheap labor, by the seizure of land, by the incessant pressure on growing

0:47:47.799,0:47:53.500
crops for export,rather than crops for local food needs, and always, by the

0:47:53.519,0:47:59.589
deliberate treatment of Africans as inferior beings. Whatever appearances might

0:47:59.609,0:48:04.069
suggest, Africans in fact were no longer prepared to accept their permanently

0:48:04.089,0:48:08.929
inferior status. All over the continent, the first signs of a new political

0:48:08.949,0:48:14.449
dissent had already begun to appear. In the 1920s, for example, was the protest

0:48:14.469,0:48:19.099
action of Harry Thuku in Kenya. At the same time, with Casely Hayford and his

0:48:19.119,0:48:24.139
companions in British West Africa. And perhaps above all, with Herbert

0:48:24.159,0:48:28.949
Macaulay, often called the father of Nigerian nationalism. But their demands

0:48:28.969,0:48:35.099
were small.>> Some of these inaudible were completely taken in by the British

0:48:35.119,0:48:39.750
system, which they thought was a good thing, and that we should become part of

0:48:39.769,0:48:45.269
that good thing. The real pressure was for the British to become a bit more

0:48:45.289,0:48:50.690
liberal.>> During the 1930s, and notably with the rise to prominence of the

0:48:50.710,0:48:56.429
firey but very effective Nigerian nationalist, Nnamdi Azikiwe, much stronger and

0:48:56.449,0:49:02.299
more far-reaching demands began to be made. Men like Azikiwe used the press

0:49:02.319,0:49:07.170
where this was possible, as it was in British West Africa. They now sought a

0:49:07.190,0:49:11.779
mass audience. Politics moved out of polite drawing rooms into the clamor of the

0:49:11.799,0:49:17.650
streets.>> So the resistance movement took many forms and it was not confined

0:49:17.670,0:49:22.309
only to the elite, as some people tend to think. In fact it was also evident in

0:49:22.329,0:49:28.079
the rural area, and even among the ordinary farmers and the ordinary workers.

0:49:28.099,0:49:32.500
>> One form of mass resistance took shape in a big cocoa hold-up, in the Gold

0:49:32.519,0:49:38.920
Coast, when farmers demanded fairer prices. Once again, the press could be used

0:49:38.940,0:49:44.190
to good effect.>> But unfortunately, in the 1930s there was never any

0:49:44.210,0:49:50.359
coordination between the protests of the rural folk and the farmers, and the

0:49:50.379,0:49:56.339
protests being organized by the elite. And this is why the resistance movement

0:49:56.359,0:50:02.989
was not very successful.>> But now, in 1935, came a new and savage challenge to

0:50:03.009,0:50:08.170
African hopes of progress: another colonial invasion, Fascist Italy's brutal

0:50:08.190,0:50:15.339
assault on Ethiopia,then called Abyssinia.>> No power on earth now seems able to

0:50:15.359,0:50:20.373
hold up Italy's sweeping advance across Abyssinia's rain-swept mountains. Now

0:50:20.393,0:50:24.554
Dessie has been captured. From there a direct road leads to Addis Ababa, so

0:50:24.574,0:50:27.940
perhaps it's only a question of time as to when the victorious Italian troops

0:50:27.940,0:50:34.319
will march into the capital, and the emperor will have to sue for peace.

0:50:34.339,0:50:38.429
>> With the colonial powers sounding quite pleased about this invasion, Italy's

0:50:38.449,0:50:42.549
armies pushed on, against afar weaker adversary, explosions and bombed and

0:50:42.569,0:50:50.239
shelled their way to success. But Africans were outraged.

0:50:50.259,0:50:55.989
>> For the first time, the blacks all over the world, not even Africa alone, but

0:50:56.009,0:51:03.539
the blacks all over the world felt that they have been attacked. You know,

0:51:03.559,0:51:09.199
Ethiopia and Liberia, were the only two countries in Africa that were able to

0:51:09.219,0:51:13.389
maintain their sovereign existence during the period of the scramble and the

0:51:13.409,0:51:17.289
occupation of the continent by the imperial powers. And Ethiopia therefore

0:51:17.309,0:51:21.519
became the symbol of hope, not only for Africa but for all the black people all

0:51:21.539,0:51:28.500
over. Ethiopia was looked upon as the symbol of the revival and the regaining of

0:51:28.519,0:51:33.170
the independence and sovereignty of Africa. And therefore when this invasion

0:51:33.190,0:51:42.329
took place, it meant the complete snuffing out of this last beam of hope.

0:51:42.349,0:51:47.829
>> Italy's troops entered Addis Ababa, capital of a now subjected Ethiopia, and

0:51:47.849,0:51:54.609
still there came no more than verbal protest from outside powers. Yet Ethiopia's

0:51:54.629,0:51:59.480
defeat, painfully confirmed when her people laid down their arms, sent out a

0:51:59.500,0:52:06.579
call for action to Africans everywhere.>> Indeed for some of us, 1935 now is

0:52:06.599,0:52:12.989
being considered as the more appropriate date for the beginning of the modern

0:52:13.009,0:52:20.710
nationalist period of African history,rather than 1939, or even 1945. Because we

0:52:20.730,0:52:25.940
believe that, but for the breakout of the, outbreak of the Second World War, in

0:52:25.960,0:52:32.500
1939, probably the struggle for independence would have begun from 1935, as a

0:52:32.519,0:52:39.199
result of the indignation, as a result of the anger, as a result of the

0:52:39.219,0:52:44.750
emotions, as a result of the strong feelings of anti-imperialism that were

0:52:44.769,0:52:51.029
aroused by the Italian invasion of Ethiopia.>> Those feelings were aroused above

0:52:51.049,0:52:56.829
all among the few who could win a modern education at schools like this one:

0:52:56.849,0:53:01.279
Achimota in the Gold Coast, where Kwame Nkrumah, future leader of the country's

0:53:01.299,0:53:06.639
independence movement had been a student. Young people began to read whatever

0:53:06.659,0:53:11.230
anti-colonial newspapers they could find. Even in the midst of discouraging

0:53:11.250,0:53:19.480
years, hope flourished afresh. A new generation of educated Africans, some of

0:53:19.500,0:53:24.949
them trained here at Achimota, was reaching maturity. And then came the

0:53:24.969,0:53:29.509
tremendous upheavals of the Second World War, surging with revolutionary force

0:53:29.529,0:53:35.699
through the entire colonial world. By 1945, as we shall see in our next

0:53:35.719,0:54:05.719
program, the scene was set for great dramas in a struggle for independence.

0:54:35.065,0:54:35.980
Music