WEBVTT
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(African music: drums, marimba, vocals)
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♪ Africa ♪
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(dramatic music)
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The west coast of Africa, looking today
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much as it did a hundred years ago.
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At that time, the old evils
of the slave trade
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had become a distant,
though disgraceful, memory.
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But there now opened a new chapter of
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confrontation along these tropical shores.
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In past years, Europeans had come here
for profitable business;
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now they wanted more, much more.
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Old trading posts like this one had long
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been the scene of a partnership between
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Maritime traders from Europe,
and local Africans.
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By the 1880s, that old partnership
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was being swept away in a dramatic change,
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the outcome of a new European drive
for overseas empire.
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Industrialized countries led by
France and Britain
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had begun to invade the black continent,
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each hoping for new sources
of raw materials for its factories,
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new markets for its manufacturers,
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and new positions of advantage
against its rivals.
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This was called the Scramble for Africa.
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By 1914, only two countries remained
outside European possession:
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Liberia in the west,
and Ethiopia in the east.
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Britain had seized the lion's share
of control:
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Egypt and the Sudan in the north,
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the immense wealth of South Africa,
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valuable colonies like Rhodesia and Kenya,
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and richly populated territories
such as Nigeria and the Gold Coast.
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France had invaded Algeria in the 1830s;
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now, after new wars of conquest,
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she added more colonies to her empire
south of the Sahara,
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including the island of Madagascar.
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Little Portugal carved out two vast
colonies, Angola and Mozambique,
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while imperial Germany took the Cameroons
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in southwest Africa, and,
on the east coast, Tanganyika.
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The vast Congo basin fell to King Leopold
of the Belgians.
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Italy and Spain completed the enclosure.
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The fate of the continent
was utterly changed.
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Between the colonizing powers themselves,
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the carve-up was peaceful,
but their rivalry was intense.
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In 1884, a congress of
the competing governments
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met in Berlin to settle their disputes.
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Germany's Iron Chancellor, Bismarck,
was there,
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and active behind the scenes was the
ambitious Belgian king.
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He spoke for them all when he said,
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"I am determined to get my share of
this magnificent African cake."
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Any power that could occupy African soil
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could effectively claim it.
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(music)
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Now the task was to stake out frontiers
in utterly uncharted land.
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Said the French prime minister,
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"We have embarked on a gigantic
steeplechase into the unknown."
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The British prime minister,
Lord Salisbury,
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was to say of this period,
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"We've been engaged in drawing lines on
maps where no man's foot has ever trod.
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We've been giving away mountains and rivers
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and lakes to each other, only hindered by
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the small impediment that we never knew
exactly where we were."
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(music)
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The great game was to get hold of places
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and positions of advantage over rivals,
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no matter what irrational frontiers
might result.
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One of the most absurd cases was the
magnificent Gambia River.
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Britain had long held Bathurst,
Banjul today,
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and was determined to keep this
river route to the interior,
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but France, invading from the west coast,
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enclosed all the territories surrounding
the Gambia River
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in her new colony of Senegal.
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So the French were naturally eager
to obtain the Gambia River.
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They offered Britain in exchange the much
larger and richer Ivory Coast.
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But the British parliament insisted
on keeping the Gambia,
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thus dividing the peoples of the region,
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and the result was, and is, a country
that is 300 miles long,
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but never more than 30 miles wide.
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(voices, waves breaking)
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What the African inhabitants might think
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of this Colonial carve-up was never asked.
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The European idea, in the words of one
British governor,
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was to seize African territory, and then,
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as much as possible, rule the country
as if there were no inhabitants.
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In fact, European contempt for Africans
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now reached new depths, and no wonder,
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for how otherwise than by asserting that
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Africans were helpless children,
lazy savages,
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could Christian Europe justify
taking their countries away from them?
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(singing)
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The helpless children, meanwhile, sang
their own version of a famous hymn:
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"Onward Christian soldiers,
into heathen lands,
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prayerbooks in your pockets,
rifles in your hands.
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Take the happy tidings
where trade can be done,
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spread the peaceful Gospel
with the Gatling gun."
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The European invasions were widely resisted.
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Conquest was never easy, and sometimes,
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as these old drawings
and photographs testify,
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conquest led to a ruthless killing that
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later generations would prefer to forget.
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(drum)
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(call to prayer)
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Resistance took many shapes:
in French West Africa,
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a focal point was found in Muslim loyalties.
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Many heroes, still unforgotten,
came on that scene.
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Some, like the Senegalese religious leader
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Amadou Bamba, offered the way of peace,
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but were still sent into exile.
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Others, like the fierce warrior leader
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Samori, fought off French attack
after attack,
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and was crushed and exiled only after
years of war.
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Death took many, strong or weak.
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With the skulls of earlier wars displayed
in their capital, Kumasi,
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the powerful Ashanti nation ruled over
most of modern Ghana.
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Led by their kings, who had
the title of Asantehene,
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they'd long defended their country
against Britain.
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But now they desperately wanted
a peaceful settlement.
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In 1895, fearing a disastrous war
with Britain,
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King Prempeh made a strong bid for peace
from his palace here at Kumasi.
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He offered the British the right to
establish in Ashanti
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a chartered company with all the
concessions, the privilege,
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that such a company could possibly desire.
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But it wasn't enough, for the British
now wanted
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territorial possession
as well as privilege.
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(gunfire)
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The Ashanti nation had already fought
long, hard battles against the British,
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but this time, in 1896, they decided
to surrender.
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(gunfire)
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In a ceremony of deliberate humiliation,
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the king was made to kiss the British
commander's boot,
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and then sent into exile.
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But it wasn't the end of the story.
The British now blundered.
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A new British governor,
Sir Frederick Hodgson,
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decided that he had to get possession
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of the sacred golden stool,
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symbol of the Ashanti Nation's soul.
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Arriving at the British fort
here in Kumasi,
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he ordered the assembled chiefs
to hand the stool over.
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Worse still, he demanded the right
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to sit on it, something that no person
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had ever been allowed to do,
not even the king himself.
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(gunfire)
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To Hodgson's final insult, the Ashanti
replied with war.
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This little fort at Kumasi is what the
British had built, just in case,
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and now they sorely needed it.
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The few dozen British inmates of the fort
were besieged for months,
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and had to eat rats to stay alive.
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Hodgson's act of folly had exacted
a bitter price.
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Efforts to send in relief from the coast
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were repeatedly frustrated
by Ashanti resistance,
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until finally, the governor and his wife
got away to the coast,
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and the absurd but tragic affair
could be closed.
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This ended war between Britain and Ashanti,
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and a year later, in 1901, the British
quietly annexed the country,
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which became part of the colony
of the Gold Coast.
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All over Africa, the new military technology
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of automatic guns gave easy victories
to the invaders.
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(African singing)
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Countless resisters died,
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many thousands at the single battle
of Omdurman,
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in Britain's conquest of the Sudan.
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Meanwhile, in another part of the Sudan,
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the French were also scoring victories.
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For the most part, public opinion rejoiced,
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for were these not victories over
an inferior species,
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a kind of joke humanity?
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There were some critics, but not many,
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and their voice was ignored or silenced.
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What really mattered was to do down
one's European rivals:
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if you were British, to get the better
of the French in West Africa,
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or of the Germans in East Africa,
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while orphans like little Uganda were left
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on the protective doorstep of
Father John Bull.
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Even before 1900, there came a new
source of conflict:
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settlers from Europe.
French in the far north,
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Dutch, and then British in the far south,
and some Germans.
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Other settlers were attracted to the
good farming land of the east,
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to Tanganyika, northern and southern
Rhodesia,
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and the British territories of Uganda
and Kenya.
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Once again, nobody asked permission.
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An early French governor had laid down
the Golden Rule:
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"Wherever good water and fertile land
are found," he said,
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"settlers must be installed without
questioning whose land it may be."
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The settlers, not surprisingly, agreed.
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The next step in East Africa was
to build a railway
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from the coast to the interior.
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The line was completed in 1901,
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and millions of acres of good farming land
in Kenya
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were opened to white ownership
and settlement
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for the buying price of next to nothing.
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These white strangers, oddly enough,
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were at first welcomed by the
African inhabitants.
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But the welcome didn't last for long,
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for they soon discovered that
colonial government
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wanted them to give things,
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above all their land and their labor.
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These colonial demands provoked
a repeated resistance,
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and against that resistance,
the colonial government,
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with white settlers arriving in ever
larger numbers from Britain,
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waged a war with little mercy,
and of course
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with rifles and machine guns
against spears and arrows.
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(narrator)
This beating down of a sometimes violent
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and desperate African protest
was called pacification,
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or less politely, hammering.
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A British officer then fighting in Kenya
kept a sadly instructive diary:
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(male voice)
"Marched into Fort Hall,
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and the expedition comes to an end.
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To my mind, the people of the Embu
have not been sufficiently hammered,
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and I should like to go back at once
and have another go at them.
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During the first phase of our expedition
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against the Iriani, we killed 797 niggers,
and during the second phase,
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against the Embu, we killed about 250."
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(narrator)
There was, in fact, much more of the same thing.
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In a sixth campaign against
the Kenya Nandi, for example,
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British troops reported killing
1117 people,
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besides seizing all their livestock.
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In 1906, a junior British minister in
London cabled this protest:
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"Surely it cannot be necessary to go on
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killing these defenseless people
on such an enormous scale."
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The minister's name was Winston Churchill,
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but on that occasion, his intervention
had no effect.
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(silent movie music fades in and out)
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(narrator)
By 1915, about four million acres
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of African farming land in central Kenya
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had been given to about one thousand
British settlers.
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By the 1920s, about half of
the able-bodied men
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of Kenya's two largest founding peoples,
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the Kikuyu and the Luhya, were working
00:16:34.215 --> 00:16:38.874
as laborers for British newcomers.
00:16:38.874 --> 00:16:41.632
How was that done?
The answer, once again,
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was something new in Kenya:
taxation.
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To cultivate these splendid acres,
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it was necessary to make Africans
pay taxes in cash.
00:16:51.728 --> 00:16:54.192
Having no money economy of their own,
00:16:54.192 --> 00:17:01.777
Africans could pay tax in cash only if
they went to work for a European wage.
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An old Masai recalls those early days:
00:17:37.626 --> 00:17:39.941
(narrator)
The Masai proved particularly good
00:17:39.941 --> 00:17:42.615
at dodging the payment of the new taxes,
00:17:42.615 --> 00:17:44.715
so the colonial government thought
00:17:44.715 --> 00:17:48.914
it should send some of these apparently
idle warriors to school,
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so as to turn them, if possible,
00:17:50.644 --> 00:17:54.733
into tax collectors among their own people.
00:17:54.733 --> 00:17:58.813
Small boys were seized for this purpose.
00:18:23.357 --> 00:18:25.541
(narrator)
On the other side of the continent,
00:18:25.541 --> 00:18:29.940
in northern Nigeria, the colonial
scene was very different.
00:18:29.940 --> 00:18:32.830
With no white settlers, life was peaceful.
00:18:32.830 --> 00:18:35.517
Things continued much as before.
00:18:35.517 --> 00:18:38.381
The British had conquered this huge region
far from the sea
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for no real reason other than to
keep it from the French,
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so the British were content with
a supervision,
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which allowed them to take a back seat.
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Under the direction of Lord Lugard,
this was called indirect rule.
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This was the residence of
the British official
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who governed the northern Nigerian
province of Kano.
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Indirect rule meant ruling through
local kings,
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in this case the local emir, who,
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after defeat,
accepted British overlordship.
00:19:06.934 --> 00:19:08.862
On condition that nothing was done
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to modernize or democratize the
conquered system,
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indirect rule was cheap
and highly effective.
00:19:16.415 --> 00:19:20.418
Local kings and princes kept the peace
and law and order,
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in their own interest as well as in that
of the British.
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Both sides, at the top, had much to gain.
00:19:28.824 --> 00:19:32.306
So kings like this one,
the Emir of Katsina,
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were able to stay in power and even add to
their personal privileges.
00:19:38.472 --> 00:19:41.411
They were able to call on their own
local retainers
00:19:41.411 --> 00:19:47.162
to govern the everyday affairs
of the country.
00:19:47.162 --> 00:19:49.203
In this way, the native governing class,
00:19:49.203 --> 00:19:53.359
as the doctrine said, was to remain
a real living force,
00:19:53.359 --> 00:19:57.381
as well as being a curious
and interesting pageantry.
00:19:58.271 --> 00:20:03.521
(chanting)
00:20:04.724 --> 00:20:06.772
(newsreel voice-over)
The ceremonies are the same
00:20:06.772 --> 00:20:10.266
as a thousand years ago.There were kings
in northern Nigeria
00:20:10.266 --> 00:20:15.761
when Richard Lionheart set out on crusade.
00:20:15.761 --> 00:20:18.407
Today, he and all the emirs
of northern Nigeria,
00:20:18.407 --> 00:20:21.854
play their part as subjects of
the king of England,
00:20:21.854 --> 00:20:24.112
but their subjects still show their loyalty
00:20:24.112 --> 00:20:27.462
as in the days when Katsina was warring
with her neighbors.
00:20:27.462 --> 00:20:31.115
(horn)
00:20:31.115 --> 00:20:34.002
(hoofbeats)
00:20:34.002 --> 00:20:36.561
Katsina still keeps her way of life,
00:20:36.561 --> 00:20:40.417
still resists new influences from
the world outside.
00:20:40.417 --> 00:20:43.774
(narrator)
In short, no modernization of any kind,
00:20:43.774 --> 00:20:47.067
and therefore, big problems for the future.
00:20:47.067 --> 00:20:50.715
I talked to Nigerian Professor Obaro Ikime.
00:20:50.715 --> 00:20:53.381
For the larger part of Nigeria,
00:20:53.381 --> 00:20:59.074
British rule did not mean anything,
for many years.
00:20:59.074 --> 00:21:02.758
In other words, although at the
centres of administration
00:21:02.758 --> 00:21:04.519
there was a change which could be
00:21:04.519 --> 00:21:07.186
seen by the people
and felt by the people.
00:21:07.186 --> 00:21:12.727
In the upland areas, life went on
as if the British did not exist.
00:21:12.727 --> 00:21:17.332
If you take a look at one particular
area, the north, for example,
00:21:17.332 --> 00:21:21.861
the seat of the emir, and the seats
of the district heads,
00:21:21.861 --> 00:21:25.634
may have felt the immediate impact
of the British presence,
00:21:25.634 --> 00:21:31.003
but the villages were ordered and run
just as before --
00:21:31.003 --> 00:21:34.430
with one important difference, though:
taxation.
00:21:34.430 --> 00:21:38.971
That the people had to pay tax
to a new power.
00:21:38.971 --> 00:21:43.053
The British built up a corps of Africans,
00:21:43.053 --> 00:21:45.215
who became known as native administrators,
00:21:45.215 --> 00:21:50.653
and developed some commitment
to the system.
00:21:50.653 --> 00:21:55.494
The salaries were comfortable,
they had power,
00:21:55.494 --> 00:21:58.360
which they used to enrich themselves
00:21:58.360 --> 00:22:02.135
at the expense of their followers,
of their subjects.
00:22:02.135 --> 00:22:04.799
Consequently, the British were able
to succeed
00:22:04.799 --> 00:22:13.204
largely by developing a corps of people
who became partners with them.
00:22:13.204 --> 00:22:15.841
(newsreel voice-over)
British officers, headed by a Resident,
00:22:15.841 --> 00:22:17.689
are there in every emirate to advise
00:22:17.689 --> 00:22:20.714
and assist the emir and his ministers
in their day-to-day work.
00:22:20.714 --> 00:22:23.465
And each month, the Resident presides
00:22:23.465 --> 00:22:25.864
at a full meeting with the emir's council.
00:22:27.004 --> 00:22:30.241
There may be words from Nigeria's governor
in Lagos,
00:22:30.241 --> 00:22:32.386
or from the colonial office in London.
00:22:32.386 --> 00:22:38.188
Or the council may discuss
the repatriation of pilgrims from Mecca.
00:22:40.046 --> 00:22:43.261
The dignity of the past, the traditions
of Katsina,
00:22:43.261 --> 00:22:46.229
are present in the council chamber.
00:22:46.229 --> 00:22:48.976
(narrator)
Here once more, this time behind polite words,
00:22:48.976 --> 00:22:53.954
was the essence of colonial paternalism.
00:22:53.954 --> 00:22:59.720
(European accordion music)
00:23:00.320 --> 00:23:02.607
In the French colonies along the coast,
00:23:02.607 --> 00:23:06.192
the scene was both the same and different.
00:23:06.192 --> 00:23:10.655
Dakar, capital of Senegal,
actually the little suburb of Rufisque,
00:23:10.655 --> 00:23:13.469
a charmingly nostalgic place.
00:23:13.469 --> 00:23:17.292
Senegal was France's oldest colony
in tropical Africa,
00:23:17.292 --> 00:23:19.028
and one where the French presence,
00:23:19.028 --> 00:23:21.841
like that of the British in northern Nigeria,
00:23:21.841 --> 00:23:24.066
could easily be absorbed.
00:23:24.066 --> 00:23:26.140
Generally, the French ran their colonies
00:23:26.140 --> 00:23:28.488
on much the same system as the British.
00:23:28.488 --> 00:23:31.567
But there was one important difference:
00:23:31.567 --> 00:23:33.824
the British thought that their Africans
00:23:33.824 --> 00:23:37.955
could never become anything but Africans,
and certainly not British.
00:23:37.955 --> 00:23:40.037
The French idea, on the contrary, was that
00:23:40.037 --> 00:23:42.387
in the end, at some distant time,
00:23:42.387 --> 00:23:46.521
all their Africans would become
black Frenchmen.
00:23:46.521 --> 00:23:48.540
The culture and the language of France
00:23:48.540 --> 00:23:52.789
were offered as the eventual
supreme blessings.
00:23:52.789 --> 00:23:56.778
This idea was called assimilation.
00:23:56.778 --> 00:23:59.621
Originally, this was a generous idea,
00:23:59.621 --> 00:24:03.510
but colonial rule reduced it
to little or nothing.
00:24:03.510 --> 00:24:06.861
Yet in four municipalities
of coastal Senegal,
00:24:06.861 --> 00:24:09.364
assimilation did take effect.
00:24:09.364 --> 00:24:11.752
This picturesque island of Goree,
00:24:11.752 --> 00:24:14.693
just off the port of Dakar, was one.
00:24:14.693 --> 00:24:20.406
Here you could go to school, and even
become a French citizen.
00:24:20.406 --> 00:24:23.567
But you belonged to a tiny minority.
00:24:23.567 --> 00:24:28.320
By 1926, only 48,000 Senegalese had
become assimilated,
00:24:28.320 --> 00:24:32.328
out of a total of one and a half million.
00:24:32.328 --> 00:24:36.202
The Senegalese historian
Professor Cheikh Anta Diop explains.
00:24:53.912 --> 00:24:55.991
(narrator)
One man from Goree Island
00:24:55.991 --> 00:24:59.247
who did make it, and carved out
for himself a brilliant career,
00:24:59.247 --> 00:25:01.621
was Blaise Diagne.
00:25:01.621 --> 00:25:04.216
Of humble origins, Diagne became the first
00:25:04.216 --> 00:25:09.119
black man to be elected to the French
national parliament in Paris.
00:25:09.119 --> 00:25:13.262
He campaigned for black rights,
and began to win concessions.
00:25:13.262 --> 00:25:15.994
That was in 1914.
00:25:15.994 --> 00:25:18.833
(military music)
00:25:18.833 --> 00:25:20.865
During the First World War,
00:25:20.865 --> 00:25:25.063
an embattled France called for tens
of thousands of African troops,
00:25:25.063 --> 00:25:27.446
as Flanders swallowed its victims.
00:25:27.446 --> 00:25:30.096
Blaise Diagne agreed to be France's
recruiting sergeant,
00:25:30.096 --> 00:25:35.921
and his African reputation vanished
in the slaughter.
00:26:12.891 --> 00:26:15.621
(narrator)
France had long relied on African mercenaries,
00:26:15.621 --> 00:26:18.326
even as far back as the Crimean War,
00:26:18.326 --> 00:26:21.459
but now it was different, in scale
and in suffering.
00:26:21.459 --> 00:26:23.681
More than 200,000 African troops,
00:26:23.681 --> 00:26:26.397
mostly conscripts, were sent to France,
00:26:26.397 --> 00:26:33.091
and at least 170,000 were thrown into the
Holocaust of the trenches.
00:26:33.091 --> 00:26:38.274
(military music)
00:26:38.274 --> 00:26:40.656
Thousands never came home.
00:26:40.656 --> 00:26:47.350
Others returned with an experience that
survivors have still not forgotten.
00:27:33.850 --> 00:27:35.950
(narrator)
Shoulder to shoulder,
00:27:35.950 --> 00:27:39.018
white men and black men,
equal in the trenches.
00:27:39.018 --> 00:27:42.722
Were they now to become equal
in the colonies?
00:27:42.722 --> 00:27:46.781
Only the monuments suggested that.
00:27:46.781 --> 00:27:51.547
♪ Africa ♪
00:29:06.700 --> 00:29:10.540
♪ Africa ♪
00:29:12.513 --> 00:29:15.025
With the coming of peace in 1918,
00:29:15.025 --> 00:29:17.755
victorious colonial systems looked more
00:29:17.755 --> 00:29:20.701
strongly entrenched than ever before,
00:29:20.701 --> 00:29:25.011
though military rule now gave way
to civilian government.
00:29:25.011 --> 00:29:27.061
This led to a far more thorough system
00:29:27.061 --> 00:29:30.228
of tax collection,
to pay for the government.
00:29:30.228 --> 00:29:34.802
The linchpin of the British system
was the District Officer.
00:29:34.802 --> 00:29:37.314
(newsreel voice-over)
I'm the District Officer in this particular area.
00:29:37.314 --> 00:29:39.948
The native authority treasurer sends
his figures to me
00:29:39.948 --> 00:29:42.851
for checking against last year's.
00:29:43.871 --> 00:29:46.436
When it's decided what the tax is to be
this year,
00:29:46.436 --> 00:29:52.185
I go up to tell the chiefs and people
what they're to pay, and why.
00:29:52.185 --> 00:29:55.585
That's my wife. I spend so much time
doing the rounds
00:29:55.585 --> 00:29:59.381
that if she didn't come, we wouldn't
see much of each other.
00:29:59.381 --> 00:30:01.209
We take our beds and everything else,
00:30:01.209 --> 00:30:07.446
as the rest huts where we spend the nights
have no furniture.
00:30:08.537 --> 00:30:10.547
Y'know, we're very ordinary people,
00:30:10.547 --> 00:30:15.668
but the pagans still find us a bit of a
puzzle with our fuss and bother.
00:30:15.668 --> 00:30:22.304
That's the local chief. We ask news
of the crops and the children.
00:30:25.233 --> 00:30:27.381
It's like sitting in a shop window:
00:30:27.381 --> 00:30:30.387
we come here every year,
and follow the same ritual,
00:30:30.387 --> 00:30:33.812
but they always behave as though
it was the first time.
00:30:33.812 --> 00:30:36.141
Peace is all very well, but it is dull,
00:30:36.141 --> 00:30:39.024
and they love a bit of a row.
00:30:39.024 --> 00:30:41.222
(narrator)
Many colonial officials were good,
00:30:41.222 --> 00:30:46.245
practical, hardworking people devoted
to their ideals.
00:30:46.245 --> 00:30:49.416
They were sure that the strong paternal
arm of colonial rule
00:30:49.416 --> 00:30:51.622
must be a blessing for Africans,
00:30:51.622 --> 00:30:53.897
and would have to be
continued for centuries.
00:30:53.897 --> 00:30:56.990
They firmly believed that if
left to themselves,
00:30:56.990 --> 00:30:59.653
Africans would simply go on living
as before,
00:30:59.653 --> 00:31:04.567
and that, they thought, would be
a thoroughly bad thing.
00:31:04.567 --> 00:31:10.789
An old film tells the story as the
colonial officials saw it:
00:31:14.122 --> 00:31:16.756
(male voice)
This simple life under the hot African sky
00:31:16.756 --> 00:31:20.117
was once a life of fear and uncertainty.
00:31:20.117 --> 00:31:23.105
British rule has brought peace.
00:31:23.105 --> 00:31:26.907
The enterprise of European officials
and settlers, and of Indian traders,
00:31:26.907 --> 00:31:28.641
has opened up the country.
00:31:28.641 --> 00:31:30.788
But there is still a long battle
to be fought
00:31:30.788 --> 00:31:35.671
with ignorance, poverty and disease.
00:31:35.671 --> 00:31:38.451
In these lands, where there are so many
changes to be made,
00:31:38.451 --> 00:31:42.899
much can be achieved by money,
and the initiative of the white man.
00:31:42.899 --> 00:31:44.243
(narrator)
In the more favored colonies,
00:31:44.243 --> 00:31:46.396
those were the hopes of the 1920s,
00:31:46.396 --> 00:31:49.665
and in some respects they were fulfilled.
00:31:49.665 --> 00:31:52.186
There came the founding of the first
modern hospitals,
00:31:52.186 --> 00:31:56.253
veterinary services, and other benefits
of Western life.
00:31:56.253 --> 00:32:01.226
But all the money to pay for these good
things had to come from Africans,
00:32:01.226 --> 00:32:06.095
so there now began a drive for
the export of crops to yield cash.
00:32:09.005 --> 00:32:13.190
The cash crop era got into its stride.
00:32:13.190 --> 00:32:15.243
Groundnuts, as here in Senegal, were
00:32:15.243 --> 00:32:17.174
a crop that brought cash to farmers and
00:32:17.174 --> 00:32:20.461
to colonial purchasing companies.
00:32:27.441 --> 00:32:31.581
But the cash crops' success also
brought problems.
00:33:31.807 --> 00:33:34.034
(narrator)
So long as their crops were bought,
00:33:34.034 --> 00:33:37.122
African growers could be
reasonably content.
00:33:37.122 --> 00:33:39.252
But in 1929, there began the huge and
00:33:39.252 --> 00:33:44.073
long disaster of the world Depression,
and prices collapsed.
00:33:44.073 --> 00:33:45.753
Food production for local people,
00:33:45.753 --> 00:33:49.393
already badly hit because of land taken
for cash crops,
00:33:49.393 --> 00:33:54.787
became a subject of major crisis.
00:33:56.761 --> 00:34:02.861
What is true of the French Empire was just
as true of all the others.
00:34:02.861 --> 00:34:05.816
Here in the Gold Coast, the big cash crop
was cocoa,
00:34:05.816 --> 00:34:08.685
providing the bulk of the colony's exports.
00:34:08.685 --> 00:34:12.380
The crop was grown and harvested entirely
by African farmers,
00:34:12.380 --> 00:34:16.773
who had to sell it to British and other
foreign buying companies.
00:34:16.773 --> 00:34:18.839
These companies banded together so as to
00:34:18.839 --> 00:34:23.345
pay the farmers an artificially low price.
00:34:24.965 --> 00:34:27.236
The farmers of Ghana, then the Gold Coast,
00:34:27.236 --> 00:34:29.834
nonetheless worked so well that they became
00:34:29.834 --> 00:34:32.940
the world's biggest producers of cocoa,
00:34:32.940 --> 00:34:37.008
and so of chocolate, which Africans
didn't eat.
00:34:37.008 --> 00:34:39.742
But the gains were far from equally shared.
00:34:39.742 --> 00:34:43.299
The Ghanaian historian,
Professor Adu Boahen:
00:34:43.299 --> 00:34:47.590
There's no doubt at all that the farmers
were being cheated.
00:34:47.590 --> 00:34:50.671
The prices that were being paid for
the cocoa
00:34:50.671 --> 00:34:53.122
bore no relationship to the prices
00:34:53.122 --> 00:34:56.221
that we had to pay
for the imported goods.
00:34:56.221 --> 00:34:58.745
We had no say in the pricing
of our own commodities,
00:34:58.745 --> 00:35:02.204
we had no say in what we paid
for what was imported.
00:35:02.204 --> 00:35:04.161
This was in fact one of the greatest
00:35:04.161 --> 00:35:07.641
indictments against the colonial
economic policies,
00:35:07.641 --> 00:35:09.596
the fact that so much emphasis was placed
00:35:09.596 --> 00:35:14.442
on a single cash crop,
and we had to import rice,
00:35:14.442 --> 00:35:17.822
we had to import oil, palm oil,
and so on,
00:35:17.822 --> 00:35:20.594
y'know, to feed ourselves, because
so much emphasis
00:35:20.594 --> 00:35:24.595
and so much attention was paid to this
single cash crop, cocoa.
00:35:24.595 --> 00:35:26.605
The colonial governors were just concerned
00:35:26.605 --> 00:35:30.694
with obtaining raw materials to feed
their factories abroad.
00:35:30.694 --> 00:35:33.025
(narrator)
The raw materials were produced by the
00:35:33.025 --> 00:35:36.887
skill and enterprise of hard-working
African men and women,
00:35:36.887 --> 00:35:41.677
yet the advertisements in Europe,
deeply racist by this time,
00:35:41.677 --> 00:35:44.941
presented an insultingly different picture.
00:35:44.941 --> 00:35:48.856
At the same time, African businessmen
found that the trading positions
00:35:48.856 --> 00:35:53.751
they had established in earlier times
were now swept away.
00:35:53.751 --> 00:35:55.798
There's no doubt at all that before the
00:35:55.798 --> 00:35:57.606
colonial period, Africans were playing
00:35:57.606 --> 00:36:00.405
a far more important and dominant role
00:36:00.405 --> 00:36:03.994
in the economy than during the
colonial period,
00:36:03.994 --> 00:36:06.922
with many of them running their own
import/export business.
00:36:06.922 --> 00:36:10.184
In the 1920s and 1930s, all these African
00:36:10.184 --> 00:36:13.397
merchant places eventually disappeared
from the field,
00:36:13.397 --> 00:36:15.520
because the dice were so much loaded
00:36:15.520 --> 00:36:17.393
against them under the colonial system.
00:36:17.393 --> 00:36:19.347
The banks were discriminating against them
00:36:19.347 --> 00:36:22.601
in the granting of loans,
the export trade firms
00:36:22.601 --> 00:36:25.263
and particularly the [unclear] firms,
00:36:25.263 --> 00:36:31.007
were undercutting them,
and they just could not stand the challenge,
00:36:31.007 --> 00:36:34.007
and therefore many of them simply
ran out of business,
00:36:34.007 --> 00:36:36.503
and the children of these great
merchant princes
00:36:36.503 --> 00:36:38.781
now became the employees of the great
00:36:38.781 --> 00:36:46.007
African capitalist companies like UEC,
UTC, SUA and so on.
00:36:46.007 --> 00:36:48.282
(narrator)
Colonial trading companies, British,
00:36:48.282 --> 00:36:52.441
French, Belgian, Portuguese,
monopolized wholesale business
00:36:52.441 --> 00:36:58.723
with the full backing
of their colonial governments.
00:36:59.913 --> 00:37:03.545
What King Leopold had called "this
magnificent African cake"
00:37:03.545 --> 00:37:07.941
was beginning to yield its riches.
00:37:07.941 --> 00:37:09.934
Often those were painful days,
00:37:09.934 --> 00:37:11.817
but they have to be recalled by anyone
00:37:11.817 --> 00:37:16.113
who wishes to understand the problems
of Africa now.
00:37:18.423 --> 00:37:21.241
The turmoil of today in the Congo,
or Zaire,
00:37:21.241 --> 00:37:26.256
has its roots in the infamous
Congo Free State of King Leopold.
00:37:26.256 --> 00:37:28.640
Here the emphasis was on
the growing of rubber,
00:37:28.640 --> 00:37:30.342
and the methods used to extract it
00:37:30.342 --> 00:37:34.828
were no better than a reign of terror.
00:37:35.238 --> 00:37:38.211
Local people were forced to collect rubber
00:37:38.211 --> 00:37:39.792
under the most cruel conditions,
00:37:39.792 --> 00:37:43.419
as these old photographs show.
00:37:43.419 --> 00:37:46.918
If the rubber they collected was poor,
or small in quantity,
00:37:46.918 --> 00:37:54.001
men, and sometimes women too, could expect
to lose a hand or foot in punishment.
00:37:54.001 --> 00:37:56.197
Terrible things were done.
00:37:56.197 --> 00:37:58.953
An official British fact-finding
commission reported,
00:37:58.953 --> 00:38:02.232
"The daily agony of an entire people
00:38:02.232 --> 00:38:09.481
unrolled itself in all its repulsive,
terrifying details."
00:38:10.521 --> 00:38:13.134
Public opinion in Europe grew horrified.
00:38:13.134 --> 00:38:16.360
Gradually, the agonies were reduced.
00:38:16.360 --> 00:38:18.461
Yet huge damage had been done,
00:38:18.461 --> 00:38:20.927
moral as well as physical, and was
going to cast
00:38:20.927 --> 00:38:26.884
a dark and violent shadow over the
future of the Congo.
00:38:26.884 --> 00:38:33.072
(clank, crash)
00:38:33.072 --> 00:38:35.607
Forced labor by the 1920s was practised on
00:38:35.607 --> 00:38:39.099
a wide scale in most of the colonies.
00:38:39.099 --> 00:38:42.392
All early roads and railways were built
by forced labor.
00:38:44.442 --> 00:38:47.681
Much was achieved, but the cost in life
00:38:47.681 --> 00:38:52.778
and health was sometimes catastrophic.
00:38:53.378 --> 00:38:56.775
This spectacular railway in French
Equatorial Africa
00:38:56.775 --> 00:39:00.676
was built by 125,000 Africans to link the
00:39:00.676 --> 00:39:04.085
coast with Brazzaville,
the inland capital.
00:39:04.085 --> 00:39:07.585
Beyond doubt, a great feat of engineering,
00:39:07.585 --> 00:39:09.896
but before a single passenger could
travel on it,
00:39:09.896 --> 00:39:14.301
nearly 14,000 Africans were to die
in building it.
00:39:14.301 --> 00:39:17.993
Travel in comfort came at a price.
00:39:17.993 --> 00:39:20.638
(sound of train)
00:39:20.638 --> 00:39:24.801
By the 1920s, the colonial railway map
was complete.
00:39:24.801 --> 00:39:26.861
These lines had one central purpose:
00:39:26.861 --> 00:39:29.891
to ensure the export of minerals
and other wealth,
00:39:29.891 --> 00:39:34.456
most of all from Southern Africa.
00:39:35.862 --> 00:39:38.641
European mining activity for gold, copper,
00:39:38.641 --> 00:39:42.659
zinc, diamonds, transformed
Southern Africa,
00:39:42.659 --> 00:39:44.967
thanks again to African labor, acquired by
00:39:44.967 --> 00:39:50.362
the usual procedure of administrative
force and taxation.
00:39:50.362 --> 00:39:52.220
Conditions were hard to bear.
00:39:52.220 --> 00:39:55.637
Some 30,000 Africans died in Southern
Rhodesian mines
00:39:55.637 --> 00:40:01.107
between 1904 and 1933,
mostly of disease,
00:40:01.107 --> 00:40:03.491
and wages at the end of that period
00:40:03.491 --> 00:40:08.167
were lower than they'd been at the start.
00:40:09.047 --> 00:40:13.003
This labor system was called chibaro.
00:40:13.003 --> 00:40:18.306
Very old men can still remember it.
00:40:40.983 --> 00:40:43.429
(loud machinery)
00:40:43.429 --> 00:40:45.411
(narrator)
Gold mining boomed.
00:40:45.411 --> 00:40:48.502
In those years of chibaro, the Southern
Rhodesian mining industry
00:40:48.502 --> 00:40:52.895
produced gold worth 87 million
pounds sterling,
00:40:52.895 --> 00:40:55.312
at the cost of 20 dead African miners
00:40:55.312 --> 00:41:00.451
each week, on average, for 30 years.
00:41:04.365 --> 00:41:06.786
Just as in the bigger mines of South Africa,
00:41:06.786 --> 00:41:10.886
living conditions for miners
were appalling.
00:41:10.886 --> 00:41:13.009
Safety provisions were primitive.
00:41:13.009 --> 00:41:15.076
Discipline was often brutal,
00:41:15.076 --> 00:41:18.267
healthcare almost non-existent.
00:41:21.387 --> 00:41:24.856
Prison labor was used whenever available,
and that was often,
00:41:24.856 --> 00:41:30.022
and child labor too.
00:41:46.161 --> 00:41:48.375
(heavy machinery)
00:41:48.375 --> 00:41:50.773
(narrator)
After 1930, the whole labor system
00:41:50.773 --> 00:41:53.061
in large regions had come to depend on
00:41:53.061 --> 00:41:55.524
people having to abandon their villages
00:41:55.524 --> 00:42:01.566
and go far away to work in colonial mines
or on plantations.
00:42:01.566 --> 00:42:04.732
This was called migrant labor,
a huge upheaval
00:42:04.732 --> 00:42:10.148
which soon began to destroy the
old stabilities of rural Africa.
00:42:10.148 --> 00:42:12.408
An official British committee in 1935
00:42:12.408 --> 00:42:14.869
reported that the old order of society
00:42:14.869 --> 00:42:18.992
was being completely undermined
by migrant labor.
00:42:18.992 --> 00:42:24.132
The years ahead were going to confirm it.
00:42:26.607 --> 00:42:28.648
But it was in the Portuguese colonies,
00:42:28.648 --> 00:42:31.681
especially Angola and Mozambique,
00:42:31.681 --> 00:42:35.469
that forced labor was at its worst.
00:42:36.109 --> 00:42:38.761
Here in Mozambique, and by brutal methods,
00:42:38.761 --> 00:42:42.289
African farmers were forced to grow cotton
00:42:42.289 --> 00:42:46.351
and to sell it at prices fixed by
the colonial government,
00:42:46.351 --> 00:42:49.290
prices kept so low that the farmers
00:42:49.290 --> 00:42:53.187
used to say of the cotton that they were
forced to grow,
00:42:53.187 --> 00:42:57.181
that cotton was the mother of poverty.
00:42:58.243 --> 00:43:02.380
(call-and-response singing)
00:43:02.380 --> 00:43:05.747
The raw cotton was sent to
textile factories in Portugal,
00:43:05.747 --> 00:43:09.801
and returned in the form of shirts
for Africans to buy.
00:43:09.801 --> 00:43:13.330
All the profits were Portuguese.
00:43:13.330 --> 00:43:15.673
The more the farmers learned
to hate cotton,
00:43:15.673 --> 00:43:17.921
the more they were forced to grow it,
00:43:17.921 --> 00:43:20.613
on pain of severe punishment.
00:44:04.833 --> 00:44:07.829
(singing)
00:44:08.933 --> 00:44:10.879
(narrator)
The farmers in this old film
00:44:10.879 --> 00:44:15.153
had no legal means of protest, but they
could express their anger
00:44:15.153 --> 00:44:20.035
by singing anti-colonial songs
in their own language.
00:44:20.035 --> 00:44:24.377
There seemed, then, no way out,
no hope ahead.
00:44:24.377 --> 00:44:30.092
And before long, the same disaster struck
here as elsewhere:
00:44:30.092 --> 00:44:36.395
food crops disappeared, and once-
prosperous areas were hit by famine.
00:45:17.707 --> 00:45:21.965
(music)
00:45:21.965 --> 00:45:24.153
(narrator)
In spite of African suffering,
00:45:24.153 --> 00:45:26.757
settlers arrived in growing numbers.
00:45:26.757 --> 00:45:30.468
Some were political exiles from
the Portuguese dictatorship.
00:45:30.468 --> 00:45:33.594
Many were poor people,
hoping for a better life.
00:45:33.594 --> 00:45:38.519
Sent out to be farmers, most preferred
the easier life of the towns.
00:45:38.519 --> 00:45:41.969
They opened shops and businesses,
00:45:41.969 --> 00:45:45.922
and aimed at the success which had
eluded them at home.
00:45:47.002 --> 00:45:52.738
This actually suited the official
colonial doctrine.
00:45:53.067 --> 00:45:55.527
The Portuguese dictator, Marcelo Caetano,
00:45:55.527 --> 00:45:57.841
laid it down in plain words:
00:45:57.841 --> 00:46:01.689
"The blacks are to be organized
and enclosed," he said,
00:46:01.689 --> 00:46:07.860
"in an economy directed by whites."
00:46:38.841 --> 00:46:43.406
(rattling of wheels)
00:46:43.884 --> 00:46:46.781
(narrator)
Mass resistance was to develop later,
00:46:46.781 --> 00:46:50.728
but already even the poorest and least
educated Africans could see
00:46:50.728 --> 00:46:59.291
that colonial rule had much more to take
than to give.
00:47:02.069 --> 00:47:04.666
Whatever good may have come from
colonial rule,
00:47:04.666 --> 00:47:06.577
has to be measured, unfortunately,
00:47:06.577 --> 00:47:10.492
against the essential aims of each
of the colonial systems.
00:47:10.492 --> 00:47:14.901
These aims were frankly stated:
they were to extract wealth.
00:47:14.901 --> 00:47:18.720
We've looked at some of the ways in which
wealth was extracted,
00:47:18.720 --> 00:47:21.132
by the use of forced or cheap labor,
00:47:21.132 --> 00:47:24.333
by the seizure of land,
by the incessant pressure
00:47:24.333 --> 00:47:29.384
on growing crops for export,
rather than crops for local food needs,
00:47:29.384 --> 00:47:35.436
and always, by the deliberate treatment
of Africans as inferior beings.
00:47:35.436 --> 00:47:37.639
Whatever appearances might suggest,
00:47:37.639 --> 00:47:39.746
Africans in fact were no longer prepared
00:47:39.746 --> 00:47:42.970
to accept their permanently inferior status.
00:47:42.970 --> 00:47:45.115
All over the continent, the first signs
00:47:45.115 --> 00:47:49.205
of a new political dissent had already
begun to appear.
00:47:49.205 --> 00:47:54.264
In the 1920s, for example, was the protest
action of Harry Thuku in Kenya.
00:47:54.264 --> 00:47:59.914
At the same time, with Casely Hayford
and his companions in British West Africa.
00:47:59.914 --> 00:48:02.041
And perhaps above all, with
Herbert Macaulay,
00:48:02.041 --> 00:48:05.261
often called the father of
Nigerian nationalism.
00:48:05.261 --> 00:48:08.120
But their demands were small.
00:48:08.120 --> 00:48:10.557
Some of these [unclear]
00:48:10.557 --> 00:48:13.573
were completey taken in
by the British system,
00:48:13.573 --> 00:48:15.745
which they thought was a good thing,
00:48:15.745 --> 00:48:18.704
and they wished to become part
of that good thing.
00:48:18.704 --> 00:48:24.469
The real pressure was for the British
to become a bit more liberal.
00:48:24.469 --> 00:48:26.648
(narrator)
During the 1930s, and notably
00:48:26.648 --> 00:48:28.665
with the rise to prominence of the firy
00:48:28.665 --> 00:48:32.754
but very effective Nigerian nationalist,
Nnamdi Azikiwe,
00:48:32.754 --> 00:48:37.542
much stronger and more far-reaching
demands began to be made.
00:48:37.542 --> 00:48:40.712
Men like Azikiwe used the press
where this was possible,
00:48:40.712 --> 00:48:43.683
as it was in British West Africa.
00:48:43.683 --> 00:48:45.885
They now sought a mass audience.
00:48:45.885 --> 00:48:47.881
Politics moved out of polite drawing rooms
00:48:47.881 --> 00:48:50.772
into the clamor of the streets.
00:48:50.772 --> 00:48:53.341
So the resistance movement took many forms
00:48:53.341 --> 00:48:55.902
and it was not confined only to the elite,
00:48:55.902 --> 00:48:58.081
as some people tend to think.
00:48:58.081 --> 00:49:00.653
In fact it was also evident in the
rural area,
00:49:00.653 --> 00:49:05.447
and even among the ordinary farmers and
the ordinary workers.
00:49:05.447 --> 00:49:07.796
(narrator)
One form of mass resistance took shape
00:49:07.796 --> 00:49:10.305
in a big cocoa hold-up, in the Gold Coast,
00:49:10.305 --> 00:49:14.048
when farmers demanded fairer prices.
00:49:14.048 --> 00:49:17.758
Once again, the press could be used
to good effect.
00:49:17.758 --> 00:49:21.080
But unfortunately, in the 1930s there was
00:49:21.080 --> 00:49:24.620
never any coordination between
the protests
00:49:24.620 --> 00:49:27.001
of the rural folk and the farmers,
00:49:27.001 --> 00:49:30.940
and the protests being organized
by the elite.
00:49:30.940 --> 00:49:36.241
And this is why the resistance movement
was not very successful.
00:49:36.241 --> 00:49:39.520
(narrator)
But now, in 1935, came a new and savage
00:49:39.520 --> 00:49:42.210
challenge to African hopes of progress:
00:49:42.210 --> 00:49:44.895
another colonial invasion, Fascist Italy's
00:49:44.895 --> 00:49:50.540
brutal assault on Ethiopia, then called
Abyssinia.
00:49:50.540 --> 00:49:52.738
(newsreel voice-over)
No power on earth now seems able
00:49:52.738 --> 00:49:56.846
to hold up Italy's sweeping advance across
Abyssinia's rainswept mountains.
00:49:56.846 --> 00:49:58.954
Now Dessie has been captured.
00:49:58.954 --> 00:50:01.401
From there a direct road leads to
Addis Ababa,
00:50:01.401 --> 00:50:03.366
so perhaps it's only a question of time
00:50:03.366 --> 00:50:06.359
as to when the victorious Italian troops
will march into the capital,
00:50:06.359 --> 00:50:10.563
and the emperor will have to
sue for peace.
00:50:10.563 --> 00:50:12.725
(narrator)
With the colonial powers sounding
00:50:12.725 --> 00:50:15.083
quite pleased about this invasion,
00:50:15.083 --> 00:50:19.057
Italy's armies pushed on, against a
far weaker adversary,
00:50:19.057 --> 00:50:22.936
and bombed and shelled their way to success.
00:50:22.936 --> 00:50:27.715
But Africans were outraged.
00:50:27.715 --> 00:50:32.562
For the first time, the blacks all over
the world
00:50:32.562 --> 00:50:34.941
-- not even Africa alone, but the blacks
00:50:34.941 --> 00:50:39.944
all over the world -- felt that they
have been attacked.
00:50:39.944 --> 00:50:41.974
You know, Ethiopia and Liberia, were
00:50:41.974 --> 00:50:45.347
the only two countries in Africa that were
00:50:45.347 --> 00:50:47.880
able to maintain their sovereign existence
00:50:47.880 --> 00:50:49.850
during the period of the Scramble and the
00:50:49.850 --> 00:50:53.341
occupation of the continent by the
imperial powers.
00:50:53.341 --> 00:50:55.988
And Ethiopia therefore became the
symbol of hope,
00:50:55.988 --> 00:51:00.320
not only for Africa but for all the
black people all over.
00:51:00.320 --> 00:51:03.116
Ethiopia was looked upon as the symbol
00:51:03.116 --> 00:51:05.953
of the revival and the regaining of the
00:51:05.953 --> 00:51:08.285
independence and sovereignty of Africa.
00:51:08.285 --> 00:51:11.181
And therefore when this invasion
took place,
00:51:11.181 --> 00:51:19.051
it meant the complete snuffing out
of this last beam of hope.
00:51:19.551 --> 00:51:22.098
(narrator)
Italy's troops entered Addis Ababa,
00:51:22.098 --> 00:51:24.727
capital of a now subjected Ethiopia,
00:51:24.727 --> 00:51:30.866
and still there came no more than verbal
protest from outside powers.
00:51:30.866 --> 00:51:33.691
Yet Ethiopia's defeat, painfully confirmed
00:51:33.691 --> 00:51:36.302
when her people laid down their arms,
00:51:36.302 --> 00:51:40.559
sent out a call for action
to Africans everywhere.
00:51:40.559 --> 00:51:44.117
Indeed for some of us, 1935 now is being
00:51:44.117 --> 00:51:47.825
considered as the more appropriate date
00:51:47.825 --> 00:51:50.084
for the beginning of the modern
00:51:50.084 --> 00:51:53.730
nationalist period of African history,
00:51:53.730 --> 00:51:57.282
rather than 1939, or even 1945.
00:51:57.282 --> 00:51:59.713
Because we believe that, but for the
00:51:59.713 --> 00:52:02.255
breakout of the ... outbreak of the
00:52:02.255 --> 00:52:04.011
Second World War, in 1939,
00:52:04.011 --> 00:52:09.573
probably the struggle for independence
would have begun from 1935,
00:52:09.573 --> 00:52:14.513
as a result of the indignation, as a
result of the anger,
00:52:14.513 --> 00:52:18.067
as a result of the emotions, as a result
00:52:18.067 --> 00:52:21.287
of the strong feelings of anti-imperialism
00:52:21.287 --> 00:52:26.688
that were aroused by the Italian invasion
of Ethiopia.
00:52:26.688 --> 00:52:28.943
(narrator)
Those feelings were aroused above all
00:52:28.943 --> 00:52:33.918
among the few who could win a modern
education at schools like this one:
00:52:33.918 --> 00:52:37.721
Achimota in the Gold Coast, where
Kwame Nkrumah, future leader of
00:52:37.721 --> 00:52:42.462
the country's independence movement,
had been a student.
00:52:42.462 --> 00:52:46.974
Young people began to read whatever
anti-colonial newspapers they could find.
00:52:46.974 --> 00:52:52.766
Even in the midst of discouraging years,
hope flourished afresh.
00:52:54.046 --> 00:52:56.632
A new generation of educated Africans,
00:52:56.632 --> 00:53:01.281
some of them trained here at Achimota,
was reaching maturity.
00:53:01.281 --> 00:53:04.684
And then came the tremendous upheavals
of the Second World War,
00:53:04.684 --> 00:53:09.925
surging with revolutionary force
through the entire colonial world.
00:53:09.925 --> 00:53:13.717
By 1945, as we shall see in
our next program,
00:53:13.717 --> 00:53:19.005
the scene was set for great dramas
in a struggle for independence.
00:53:20.095 --> 00:53:22.316
(music)
00:53:39.541 --> 00:53:43.442
♪ Africa ♪