British West Africa (1900s — 1930s)

Nationalist movements, which employed various forms of protest against “foreign domination”, began to emerge in British West Africa immediately after the establishment of colonial governance in the region. The first phase of these movements’ development, for instance in Ghana and Nigeria, dates back to the final decades of the 19th century, but their aims became more or less clearly articulated during the 1920s and 1930s. Groups represented by intellectuals, students, traditional chiefs, and workers beginning to unite into trade unions initially campaigned against economic exploitation, racial discrimination, and advocated for the establishment of a “more just” order within the colonial system. It was not until the late 1930s that West Africans came to recognize the necessity of political liberation. Leaders of the earliest anti-colonial movements competed with one another for influence over the “hearts and minds” of colonial subjects; some were drawn to communist ideas, while others sharply condemned them. Nevertheless, the often spontaneous African protests against colonial oppression in the 1940s evolved into systematic struggles for national liberation, ultimately leading to the independence of African colonies. The authors of the present article focus on the hitherto understudied forms and nature of anti-colonial movements that took shape in British West Africa in the early 20th century

Colonialism · Communism · Decolonization · Oppression · Politics · African history and culture studies · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Colonial History and Postcolonial Studies