Decolonization of Africa quiz: 5 questions

The transfer of power had already begun under France’s 1956 loi-cadre, which gave African ministers authority. Independence was the final step in a process largely under way. When de Gaulle’s Community collapsed, autonomy gave way to full independence across French Africa at once.

A million European settlers considered Algeria their home. Their roots, property and political power gave them much to lose under majority rule, and they fought it. This same logic contributed to violence in Kenya, Rhodesia and South Africa. Ghana had few settlers and achieved independence peacefully.

The OAU’s leaders chose to retain the borders inherited from empire. Keeping them almost certainly prevented continent-wide secession wars, but it also left peoples inside artificial states. Whether that bargain was worth its cost remains a matter of debate.

The Congo was ill-prepared for independence, and powerful outside interests soon shaped its crisis. Belgian mining interests financed the secession of copper-rich Katanga; the elected premier, having turned to Moscow, was murdered with Western connivance. African self-rule was subordinated to Cold War and corporate interests in an especially clear case.

South Africa’s largest offensive was fought to a standstill at Cuito Cuanavale in 1987–88, shattering the myth of white military invincibility. Negotiators then linked Cuban withdrawal from Angola to Namibian independence. That agreement freed the last colony in 1990.