Full transcript
0:24[Music]
0:44Where we go?
0:48[Music]
1:00Africa.
1:02Here we go.
1:06[Music]
1:13[Music]
1:28The west coast of Africa looking today
1:31much as it did a 100 years ago. At that
1:34time the old evils of the slave trade
1:36had become a distant though disgraceful
1:38memory. But there now opened a new
1:41chapter of confrontation along these
1:43tropical shores. In past years,
1:46Europeans had come here for profitable
1:48business. Now they wanted more, much
1:52more. Old trading posts like this one
1:56had long been the scene of a partnership
1:59between maritime traders from Europe and
2:01local Africans. By the 1880s, that old
2:05partnership was being swept away in a
2:07dramatic change. the outcome of a new
2:11European drive for overseas empire.
2:14Industrialized countries led by France
2:17and Britain had begun to invade the
2:19black continent. Each hoping for new
2:22sources of raw materials for its
2:24factories, new markets for its
2:27manufacturers, and new positions of
2:29advantage against its
2:31rivals. This was called the scramble for
2:34Africa. By 1914, only two countries
2:37remained outside European possession.
2:40Liberia in the west and Ethiopia in the
2:43east. Britain had seized the lion share
2:46of control. Egypt and the Sudan in the
2:48north, the immense wealth of South
2:50Africa, valuable colonies like Rhodesia
2:53and Kenya, and richly populated
2:57territories such as Nigeria and the Gold
2:59Coast.
3:02France had invaded Algeria in the
3:041830s. Now, after new wars of conquest,
3:08she added more colonies to her empire
3:10south of the Sahara, including the
3:12island of
3:14Madagascar. Little Portugal carved out
3:17two vast colonies, Angola and
3:20Mosmbique, while Imperial Germany took
3:23the Cameroons and Southwest Africa, and
3:26on the east coast, Tangana.
3:30The vast Congo basin felt kingly upold
3:33of the
3:34Belgians. Italy and Spain completed the
3:38enclosure. The fate of the continent was
3:41utterly
3:44changed. Between the colonizing powers
3:47themselves, the carve up was peaceful,
3:49but their rivalry was intense. In 1884,
3:53a congress of the competing governments
3:55met in Berlin to settle their disputes.
3:59Germany's iron chancellor Bismar was
4:03there and active behind the scenes was
4:06the ambitious Belgian king. He spoke for
4:09them all when he said, "I am determined
4:11to get my share of this magnificent
4:13African
4:15cake. Any power that could occupy
4:17African soil could effectively claim it.
4:21[Music]
4:30Now the task was to stake out frontiers
4:33in utterly uncharted land. Said the
4:36French prime minister, we have embarked
4:38on a gigantic steeplechase into the
4:40unknown. The British Prime Minister Lord
4:43Salsbury was to say of this period,
4:46"We've been engaged in drawing lines on
4:48maps where no man's foot has ever trod.
4:51We've been giving away mountains and
4:52rivers and lakes to each other, only
4:54hindered by the small impediment that we
4:57never knew exactly where we
4:59[Music]
5:04were. The great game was to get hold of
5:07places and positions of advantage over
5:09rivals, no matter what irrational
5:12frontiers might result. One of the most
5:14absurd cases was the magnificent Gambia
5:17River.
5:22Britain had long held Ba'athst Banjul
5:24today and was determined to keep this
5:26river route to the
5:28interior. But France invading from the
5:31west coast enclosed all the territory
5:33surrounding the Gambia River in her new
5:35colony of
5:37Seneagal. So the French were naturally
5:39eager to obtain the Gambia River. They
5:42offered Britain in exchange the much
5:44larger and richer Ivory Coast. But the
5:47British Parliament insisted on keeping
5:49the Gambia, thus dividing the peoples of
5:52the region. And the result was and is a
5:57country that is 300 miles
5:59long, but never more than 30 m
6:09wide. What the African inhabitants might
6:12think of this colonial carve up was
6:14never asked. The European idea, in the
6:17words of one British governor, was to
6:19seize African territory and then as much
6:22as possible rule the country as if there
6:24were no
6:29inhabitants. In fact, European contempt
6:31for Africans now reached new depths. And
6:34no wonder, for how otherwise than by
6:36asserting that Africans were helpless
6:39children, lazy savages, could Christian
6:41Europe justify taking their countries
6:44away from them.
6:48[Music]
6:52The helpless children, meanwhile, sang
6:55their own version of a famous hymn.
6:57Onward Christian soldiers into heathen
7:00lands, prayer books in your pockets,
7:02rifles in your hands. Take the happy
7:04tidings where trade can be done. Spread
7:07the peaceful gospel with the Gatling
7:09gun.
7:13The European invasions were widely
7:16resisted. Conquest was never easy. And
7:20sometimes, as these old drawings and
7:22photographs testify, conquest led to a
7:24ruthless killing that later generations
7:27would prefer to
7:40forget.
7:45Resistance took many shapes. In French
7:48West Africa, a focal point was found in
7:50Muslim loyalties. Many heroes still
7:53unforgotten came on that
7:58scene. Some like the Seneagalles
8:00religious leader Ahmmed Bamba offered
8:03the way of peace but were still sent
8:05into exile.
8:11Others like the fierce warrior leader
8:13Samuri fought off French attack after
8:15attack and was crushed and exiled only
8:18after years of
8:21war. Death took many strong or weak with
8:25the skulls of earlier wars displayed in
8:27their capital Kumasi. The powerful
8:29Ashanti nation ruled over most of modern
8:32Ghana.
8:34Led by their kings who had the title of
8:36a Santahini, they'd long defended their
8:39country against Britain. But now they
8:42desperately wanted a peaceful
8:45settlement. In 1895, fearing a
8:47disastrous war with Britain, King Prempe
8:50made a strong bid for peace from his
8:52palace here at Kumasi. He offered the
8:55British the right to establish an
8:56atranti a chartered company with all the
8:59concessions, the privilege that such a
9:01company could possibly desire.
9:04But it wasn't enough for the British now
9:07wanted territorial possession as well as
9:13privilege. The Ashanti nation had
9:16already fought long hard battles against
9:18the British. But this time in
9:211896 they decided to
9:28surrender. In a ceremony of deliberate
9:31humiliation, the king was made to kiss
9:33the British commander's boot and then
9:36sent into exile. But it wasn't the end
9:38of the story. The British now blundered.
9:41A new British governor, Sir Frederick
9:42Hodson, decided that he had to get
9:44possession of the sacred golden stool,
9:47symbol of the Ashanti nation's soul.
9:50Arriving at the British fort here in
9:52Kumasi, he ordered the assembled chiefs
9:54to hand the stool over. Worse still, he
9:57demanded the right to sit on it,
9:59something that no person had ever been
10:02allowed to do, not even the king
10:09himself. To Hudson's final insult, the
10:12Ashanti replied with war. This little
10:16fort at Kumasi is what the British had
10:18built just in case, and now they sorely
10:21needed it. The few dozen British inmates
10:24of the fort were besieged for months and
10:26had to eat rats to stay
10:33alive. Hodson's act of folly had exacted
10:37a bitter price. Efforts to send in
10:39relief from the coast were repeatedly
10:41frustrated by Ashanti resistance until
10:44finally the governor and his wife got
10:47away to the coast and the absurd but
10:49tragic affair could be closed.
10:52This ended war between Britain and the
10:54Shanti. And a year later in 191, the
10:56British quietly annexed the country
10:58which became part of the colony of the
11:00Gold
11:02Coast. All over Africa, the new military
11:05technology of automatic guns gave easy
11:08victories to the
11:11[Music]
11:14invaders. Y
11:19countless resistors died. Many thousands
11:22at the single battle of Omdurman in
11:24Britain's conquest of the
11:28Sudan. Meanwhile, in another part of the
11:30Sudan, the French were also scoring
11:33victories.
11:35For the most part, public opinion
11:37rejoiced. For were these not victories
11:40over an inferior species, a kind of joke
11:43humanity?
11:47There were some critics, but not many,
11:49and their voice was ignored or silenced.
11:55What really mattered was to do down
11:57one's European rivals.
12:00If you were British, to get the better
12:02of the French in West Africa or of the
12:05Germans in East Africa.
12:08While orphans like little Uganda were
12:11left on the protective doorstep of
12:13Father John Bull.
12:18Even before 1900 there came a new source
12:21of conflict. Settlers from Europe.
12:24French in the far north, Dutch and then
12:26British in the far south and some
12:28Germans. Other settlers were attracted
12:30to the good farming land of the east to
12:34Tangana, northern and southern Rodesia
12:36and the British territories of Uganda
12:38and
12:40Kenya. Once again, nobody asked
12:43permission. An early French governor had
12:45laid down the golden rule. Wherever good
12:48water and fertile land are found, he
12:51said, settlers must be installed without
12:54questioning whose land it may be. The
12:57settlers not surprisingly
13:00agreed. The next step in East Africa was
13:04to build a railway from the coast to the
13:08interior. The line was completed in
13:11191 and millions of acres of good
13:14farming land in Kenya were opened to
13:17white ownership and settlement for the
13:19buying price of next to nothing. These
13:22white strangers, oddly enough, were at
13:25first welcomed by the African
13:27inhabitants. But the welcome didn't last
13:30for long, for they soon discovered that
13:33colonial government wanted them to give
13:36things, above all their land and their
13:39labor. These colonial demands provoked a
13:43repeated resistance. And against that
13:45resistance, the colonial government,
13:47with white settlers arriving in ever
13:49larger numbers from Britain, waged a war
13:52with little mercy, and of course with
13:55rifles and machine guns against spears
13:58and arrows.
14:11[Music]
14:16This beating down of a sometimes violent
14:18and desperate African protest was called
14:21pacification or less politely hammering.
14:24A British officer then fighting in Kenya
14:26kept a sadly instructive
14:29diary. Marched into Fort Hall and the
14:32expedition comes to an end. To my mind,
14:35the people of the Embu have not been
14:36sufficiently hammered, and I should like
14:38to go back at once and have another go
14:40at
14:41them. During the first phase of our
14:43expedition against the Irani, we killed
14:46797 [ __ ] And during the second phase
14:49against the Embu, we killed about 250.
14:54There was in fact much more of the same
14:57thing. In a sixth campaign against the
14:59Kenya Nandi, for example, British troops
15:02reported killing 1117 people besides
15:06seizing all their
15:09livestock. In 196, a junior British
15:13minister in London cabled this protest.
15:16Surely it cannot be necessary to go on
15:19killing these defenseless people on such
15:21an enormous
15:23scale. The minister's name was Winston
15:26Churchill. But on that occasion, his
15:28intervention had no effect.
15:41Miss
15:51[Music]
16:38By 1915, about 4 million acres of
16:42African farming land in central Kenya,
16:45had been given to about 1,000 British
16:48settlers. By the 1920s, about half of
16:51the able-bodied men of Kenya's two
16:53largest farming peoples, the Kikuyu and
16:55the Lu, were working as laborers for
16:58British newcomers.
17:01How was that done? The answer once again
17:04was something new in Kenya.
17:06Taxation. To cultivate these splendid
17:09acres, it was necessary to make Africans
17:11pay taxes in
17:13cash. Having no money economy of their
17:16own, Africans could pay tax in cash only
17:19if they went to work for a European
17:23wage. An old Masai recalls those early
17:27days.
17:40money.
17:52[Music]
18:00The Masai proved particularly good at
18:03dodging the payment of the new taxes. So
18:06the colonial government thought it
18:07should send some of these apparently
18:09idle warriors to school so as to turn
18:12them if possible into tax collectors
18:14among their own
18:16people. Small boys were seized for this
18:19purpose.
18:26[Music]
18:32[Music]
18:46On the other side of the continent in
18:48northern Nigeria, the colonial scene was
18:51very different. With no white settlers,
18:54life was peaceful. Things continued much
18:56as before. The British had conquered
18:59this huge region far from the sea for no
19:01real reason other than to keep it from
19:03the French. So the British were content
19:05with a supervision which allowed them to
19:07take a back seat. Under the direction of
19:11Lord Lugard, this was called indirect
19:15rule. This was the residence of the
19:17British official who governed the
19:19northern Nigerian province of Caro.
19:21Indirect rule meant ruling through local
19:24kings, in this case the local Emir, who
19:26after defeat accepted British
19:28overlordship, on condition that nothing
19:31was done to modernize or democratize the
19:33conquered system, indirect rule was
19:36cheap and highly effective. Local kings
19:39and princes kept the peace and law and
19:42order in their own interest, as well as
19:44in that of the British. Both sides at
19:47the top had much to gain.
19:51So kings like this one, the Amir of
19:54Katsina, were able to stay in power and
19:57even add to their personal
19:59privileges. They were able to call on
20:02their own local retainers to govern the
20:04everyday affairs of the
20:08country. In this way, the native
20:11governing class, as the doctrine said,
20:13was to remain a real living force as
20:16well as being a curious and interesting
20:20[Music]
20:26pageantry. The ceremonies are the same
20:28as a thousand years
20:30ago. There were kings in northern
20:32Nigeria when Richard Lionheart set out
20:34on crusade.
20:38Today he and all the emir of northern
20:40Nigeria play their part as subjects of
20:42the king of England. But their subjects
20:45still show their loyalty as in the days
20:47when Katsina was waring with her
20:49[Music]
20:55neighbors. Catsina still keeps her way
20:58of life, still resists new influences
21:00from the world outside.
21:03In short, no modernization of any kind
21:06and therefore big problems for the
21:08future. I talked to Nigerian professor
21:11Oaro Ikime. For the larger part of
21:15Nigeria, British rule did not mean
21:19anything for many years. In other words,
21:23although at the centers of
21:24administration, there was a change which
21:26could be seen by the people and felt by
21:28the people in the outlying areas. Life
21:31went on as if the British did not
21:35exist. If you take Logad's own
21:37particular area, the north for example,
21:40the seat of the
21:41Amir and the seats of the district heads
21:44may have felt the immediate impact of
21:46the British presence. But the villages
21:50were ordered and run just as before with
21:53one important difference though,
21:56taxation. that the people had to pay tax
21:59to a new power. The British built up a
22:03core of Africans who became known as
22:06native administrators. Um developed some
22:10commitment to the system. Uh the um
22:14salaries were comfortable. They had
22:17power which they used to enrich
22:20themselves at the expense of their
22:22followers and their subjects.
22:24Consequently, the British were able to
22:26succeed
22:28um largely by developing a core of
22:31people who became partners with them.
22:36British officers headed by a resident
22:38are there in every emirate to advise and
22:40assist the emir and his ministers in
22:42their day-to-day
22:43work. And each month the resident
22:46presides at a full meeting with the
22:47emir's council.
22:50There may be word from Nigeria's
22:51governor in Lagos or from the colonial
22:53office in London. Or the council may
22:55discuss the repatriation of pilgrims
22:57from Mecca.
23:02The dignity of the past, the traditions
23:04of Katsina are present in the council
23:07chamber.
23:08Here once more, this time behind polite
23:11words was the essence of colonial
23:13paternalism.
23:17[Music]
23:22In the French colonies along the coast,
23:25the scene was both the same and
23:27different. Dhaka, capital of Seneagal,
23:31actually the little suburb of Rufisk, a
23:33charmingly nostalgic
23:35place. Senagal was France's oldest
23:38colony in tropical Africa and one where
23:40the French presence, like that of the
23:42British in northern Nigeria, could
23:44easily be absorbed. Generally, the
23:47French ran their colonies on much the
23:49same system as the British. But there
23:51was one important
23:53difference. The British thought that
23:55their Africans could never become
23:57anything but Africans and certainly not
24:00British. The French idea, on the
24:02contrary, was that in the end, at some
24:04distant time, all their Africans would
24:07become black Frenchmen. The culture and
24:09the language of France were offered as
24:12the eventual supreme blessings. This
24:16idea was called
24:18assimilation. Originally this was a
24:20generous idea but colonial rule reduced
24:24it to little or
24:25nothing. Yet in four municipalities of
24:28coastal sine assimulation did take
24:31effect. This picturesque island of Gore
24:34just off the port of Dha was one. Here
24:37you could go to school and even become a
24:40French citizen.
24:43But you belonged to a tiny minority. By
24:461926, only 48,000 Seneagalles had become
24:50assimilated out of a total of one and a
24:52half
24:53million. The Seneagalles historian,
24:56Professor Shikop, explains
25:16One man from Gore Island who did make it
25:19and carved out for himself a brilliant
25:21career was Bla1 Dana of humble origins.
25:25But Dana became the first black man to
25:28be elected to the French National
25:29Parliament in Paris. He campaigned for
25:32black rights and began to win
25:35concessions. That was in 1914.
25:38[Music]
25:41During the first world war, an embattled
25:44France called for tens of thousands of
25:46African troops as Flanders swallowed its
25:49victims. Bla1 agreed to be France's
25:52recruiting sergeant and his African
25:54reputation vanished in the slaughter.
25:57[Music]
26:18How much? How much?
26:36France had long relied on African
26:37mercenaries, even as far back as the
26:39Crimean War. But now it was different in
26:42scale and in suffering. More than
26:44200,000 African troops, mostly
26:47conscripts, were sent to France, and at
26:50least 170,000 were thrown into the
26:53Holocaust of the trenches.
27:00Thousands never came home. Others
27:03returned with an experience that
27:05survivors have still not forgotten.
27:39Huh?
27:45Do
27:56Shoulderto-sh shoulder, white men and
27:58black men equal in the trenches. Were
28:01they now to become equal in the
28:04colonies? Only the monuments suggested
28:07that.
28:12[Music]
29:31[Music]
29:35With the coming of peace in 1918, the
29:38victorious colonial systems looked more
29:40strongly entrenched than ever before.
29:43Though military rule now gave way to
29:45civilian governments, this led to a far
29:48more thorough system of tax collection
29:51to pay for the government. The lynchpin
29:53of the British system was the district
29:55officer. That's where I come in. I'm the
29:57district officer in this particular
29:59area. The Native Authority treasurer
30:01sends his figures to me for checking
30:02against last year's figures.
30:06When it's decided what the tax is to be
30:08this year, I go off to tell the chiefs
30:10and people what they're to pay and
30:13why. That's my wife. I spend so much
30:17time doing the rounds that if she didn't
30:19come, we wouldn't see much of each
30:21other. We take our beds and everything
30:23else as the rest houses where we spend
30:25the nights have no furniture.
30:31You know, we are very ordinary people,
30:33but the pagans still find us a bit of a
30:35puzzle with our us and
30:37father. That's the local chief. We ask
30:40news of the crops and the
30:46children. It's like sitting in a shop
30:49window. We come here every year and
30:51follow the same ritual, but they always
30:53behave as though it was the first time.
30:56Peace is all very well, but it is dull
30:58and they love a bit of variety.
31:01Many colonial officials were good,
31:04practical, hardworking people devoted to
31:07their
31:07ideals. They were sure that the strong
31:10paternal arm of colonial rule must be a
31:13blessing for Africans and would have to
31:14be continued for centuries.
31:17They firmly believed that if left to
31:19themselves, Africans would simply go on
31:21living as before, and that they thought
31:23would be a thoroughly bad
31:26thing. An old film tells the story as
31:29the colonial officials saw it.
31:36This simple life under the hot African
31:38sky was once a life of fear and
31:41uncertainty.
31:43British rule has brought peace. The
31:46enterprise of European officials and
31:47settlers and of Indian traders has
31:49opened up the country. But there is
31:51still a long battle to be fought with
31:53ignorance, poverty and disease.
31:56[Music]
31:58In these lands where there are so many
32:00changes to be made, much can be achieved
32:02by money and the initiative of the white
32:04man. In the more favored colonies, those
32:07were the hopes of the 1920s and in some
32:10respects they were fulfilled. There came
32:12the founding of the first modern
32:14hospitals, veterinary services, and
32:16other benefits of western life. But all
32:20the money to pay for these good things
32:21had to come from Africans. So there now
32:24began a drive for the export of crops to
32:27yield
32:30cash. The cash crop era got into its
32:33stride.
32:35Ground nuts as here in Sagal were a crop
32:38that brought cash to farmers and to
32:40colonial purchasing
32:49companies. But the cash crop success
32:51also brought problems.
33:34[Music]
33:37Fabric function.
33:54So long as their crops were bought,
33:57African growers could be reasonably
33:58content. But in 1929, there began the
34:01huge and long disaster of the world
34:04depression and prices collapsed. Food
34:07production for local people, already
34:09badly hit because of land taken for cash
34:11crops, became a subject of major
34:18crisis. What was true of the French
34:20Empire was just as true of all the
34:24others. Here in the Gold Coast, the big
34:27cash crop was cocoa, providing the bulk
34:29of the colony's exports. The crop was
34:31grown and harvested entirely by African
34:34farmers who had to sell it to British
34:36and other foreign buying companies.
34:39These companies banded together so as to
34:41pay the farmers an artificially low
34:46price. The farmers of Ghana, then the
34:49Gold Coast, nonetheless worked so well
34:51that they became the world's biggest
34:54producers of cocoa and so of chocolate
34:57which Africans didn't eat. But the gains
35:00were far from equally shared. The
35:02Ghanaian historian, Professor Ado Buen.
35:06There's no doubt at all that the farmers
35:08were being cheated. The prices that were
35:11being paid for the cocoa bore no
35:14relationship to the prices that they had
35:16to pay for the imported goods. We had no
35:19say in the pricing of our own
35:20commodities. We had no say in what we
35:23paid for what was imported. This was in
35:25fact one of the greatest indictments
35:27against the colonial economic policies.
35:30The fact that so much emphasis was
35:32placed on a single cash crop and we had
35:35to import rice. We have to import oil
35:38pal oil and so on you know to feed
35:41ourselves because so much emphasis and
35:43so much attention was paid to this
35:45single cash crop coco. The colonial
35:48governments were just concerned with
35:49obtaining raw materials to feed their
35:51factories abroad. The raw materials were
35:54produced by the skill and enterprise of
35:57hardworking African men and women. Yet
36:00the advertisements in Europe deeply
36:02racist by this time presented an
36:05insultingly different picture. At the
36:07same time, African businessmen found
36:10that the trading positions they had
36:12established in earlier times were now
36:14swept away.
36:16There's no doubt at all that before the
36:18colonial period, Africans were playing a
36:21far more important and dominant dominant
36:23role in the economy than during the
36:25colonial period. There were many of them
36:27running their own import export
36:29businesses in the 1920s and 1930s. All
36:32these African merchant princes virtually
36:34disappeared from the field because the
36:37dice was so much loaded against them as
36:38a result of the colonial system. The
36:40banks were discriminating against them
36:41in the granting of loans. the the expert
36:44rate firms and particularly the Syrian
36:46and Lebanese firms were undercutting
36:49them and they just could not stand the
36:52challenge and therefore many of them
36:55they simply ran out of business and the
36:57children of these great merchant princes
36:59now became the employees of the great
37:02African uh capitalist companies like
37:04UAC, UTC, SUA and so on.
37:08Colonial trading companies, British,
37:10French, Belgian, Portuguese, monopolized
37:14wholesale business with the full backing
37:16of their colonial
37:21governments. What King Leopold had
37:23called this magnificent African cake was
37:26beginning to yield its
37:28riches.
37:30Often those were painful days, but they
37:33have to be recalled by anyone who wishes
37:35to understand the problems of Africa.
37:40Now the turmoil of today in the Congo or
37:43Za has its roots in the infamous Congo
37:45Free State of King Leopold. Here the
37:49emphasis was on the growing of rubber
37:51and the methods used to extract it were
37:53no better than a reign of
37:56terror.
37:58Local people were forced to collect
38:00rubber under the most cruel conditions
38:02as these old photographs
38:04show. If the rubber they collected was
38:07poor or small in quantity, men and
38:10sometimes women too could expect to lose
38:12a hand or foot in
38:15punishment. Terrible things were done.
38:18An official British factf finding
38:20commission reported, "The daily agony of
38:23an entire people unrolled itself in all
38:26its repulsive, terrifying
38:32details. Public opinion in Europe grew
38:34horrified. Gradually the agonies were
38:38reduced. Yet huge damage had been done,
38:41moral as well as physical, and was going
38:43to cast a dark and violent shadow over
38:45the future of the Congo.
38:49[Music]
38:55Forced labor by the 1920s was practiced
38:58on a wide scale in most of the
39:00colonies. All early roads and railways
39:03were built by forced
39:06labor. Much was achieved, but the cost
39:10in life and health was sometimes
39:11catastrophic.
39:13[Music]
39:16This spectacular railway in French
39:18equatorial Africa was built by 125,000
39:22Africans to link the coast with
39:24Brazville, the inland capital. Beyond
39:27doubt, a great feat of
39:29engineering. But before a single
39:31passenger could travel on it, nearly
39:3314,000 Africans were to die in building
39:35it. Travel in comfort came at a price.
39:43By the 1920s, the colonial railway map
39:45was complete. These lines had one
39:48central purpose, to ensure the export of
39:50minerals and other wealth, most of all
39:53from southern
39:57Africa. European mining activity for
40:00gold, copper, zinc, diamonds transformed
40:04southern Africa thanks again to African
40:06labor acquired by the usual procedure of
40:09administrative force and taxation.
40:12Conditions were hard to bear. Some
40:1530,000 Africans died in southern Roesian
40:18mines between 194 and 1933, mostly of
40:23disease. And wages at the end of that
40:25period were lower than they'd been at
40:27the
40:30start. This labor system was called
40:34chibarro. Very old men can still
40:37remember it.
40:56[Music]
41:05Oh, gold mining boomed. In those years
41:08of Chibbarro, the southern Rhodesian
41:10mining industry produced gold worth87
41:13million pounds sterling at the cost of
41:1620 dead African miners each week on
41:19average for 30
41:26years. Just as in the bigger mines of
41:28South Africa, living conditions for
41:31miners were
41:32appalling. Safety provisions were
41:34primitive. Discipline was often brutal.
41:38Health care almost
41:43non-existent. Prison labor was used
41:45whenever available, and that was often.
41:48And child labor, too.
41:53[Music]
42:01[Music]
42:11After 1930, the whole labor system in
42:13large regions had come to depend on
42:16people having to abandon their villages
42:18and go far away to work in colonial
42:21mines or on plantations.
42:24This was called migrant labor, a huge
42:26upheaval which soon began to destroy the
42:29old stabilities of rural
42:31Africa. An official British committee in
42:341935 reported that the old order of
42:37society was being completely undermined
42:39by migrant labor. The years ahead were
42:42going to confirm it.
42:49But it was in the Portuguese colonies,
42:51especially Angola and Mosambique, that
42:55forced labor was at its
42:57worst. Here in Mozambique and by brutal
43:01methods, African farmers were forced to
43:04grow cotton and to sell it at prices
43:07fixed by the colonial government. Prices
43:09kept so low that the farmers used to say
43:13of the cotton that they were forced to
43:15grow, that cotton was the mother of
43:17poverty.
43:21[Applause]
43:21[Music]
43:24The raw cotton was sent to textile
43:27factories in Portugal and returned in
43:29the form of shirts for Africans to buy.
43:32All the profits were
43:34Portuguese. The more the farmers learned
43:37to hate cotton, the more they were
43:39forced to grow it on pain of severe
43:41punishment.
43:43[Music]
43:54I meanchech.
44:2515 days jail.
44:29[Music]
44:32The farmers in this old film had no
44:34legal means of protest, but they could
44:36express their anger by singing
44:38anti-colonial songs in their own
44:40language.
44:42There seemed then no way out, no hope
44:45ahead,
44:48and before long the same disaster struck
44:50here as
44:51elsewhere. Food crops disappeared and
44:55once prosperous areas were hit by
44:57famine.
45:16I told you.
45:44In spite of African suffering, settlers
45:47arrived in growing numbers. Some were
45:50political exiles from the Portuguese
45:52dictatorship. Many were poor people
45:54hoping for a better
45:56life. Sent out to be farmers. Most
45:58preferred the easier life of the towns.
46:02They opened shops and businesses and
46:04aimed at the success which had eluded
46:06them at
46:07[Music]
46:08home. This actually suited the official
46:11colonial
46:12[Music]
46:14doctrine. The Portuguese dictator
46:17Marcelo Katano laid it down in plain
46:19words. The blacks are to be organized
46:22and enclosed, he said, in an economy
46:25directed by whites.
46:28[Music]
46:51Secretary Africa.
47:06Mass resistance was to develop later,
47:09but already even the poorest and least
47:11educated Africans could see that
47:13colonial rule had much more to take than
47:16to give.
47:24Whatever good may have come from
47:26colonial rule has to be measured
47:28unfortunately against the essential aims
47:31of each of the colonial systems. These
47:33aims were frankly stated. They were to
47:36extract wealth. We've looked at some of
47:38the ways in which wealth was extracted.
47:41by the use of forced or cheap labor, by
47:44the seizure of land, by the incessant
47:46pressure on growing crops for export
47:49rather than crops for local food needs,
47:52and always by the deliberate treatment
47:54of Africans as inferior
47:57beings. Whatever appearances might
47:59suggest, Africans, in fact, were no
48:01longer prepared to accept their
48:03permanently inferior status. All over
48:06the continent, the first signs of a new
48:08political disscent had already begun to
48:10appear in the 1920s, for example, with
48:13the protest action of Harry Thuku in
48:16Kenya. At the same time, with Quesley
48:18Hayford and his companions in British
48:20West
48:21Africa, and perhaps above all with
48:23Herbert McCauley, often called the
48:25father of Nigerian nationalism. But
48:28their demands were small.
48:31uh some of these early nationalists were
48:32completely taken in by the British
48:35system. They thought it was a good thing
48:38and that we should become part of that
48:40good thing and the real pressure was for
48:43the British to become a bit more
48:45liberal.
48:47During the 1930s and notably with the
48:49rise to prominence of the fiery but very
48:51effective Nigerian nationalist Nami
48:54Azaki, much stronger and more
48:56far-reaching demands began to be made.
49:00Men like Aziki used the press where this
49:02was possible as it was in British West
49:05Africa. They now sought a mass audience.
49:08Politics moved out of polite drawing
49:10rooms into the clamor of the
49:12streets. So the resistance movement took
49:15many forms and it was not confined only
49:17to the elite as some people tend to
49:20think. In fact, it was also evident in
49:22the rural areas and even among the
49:24ordinary farmers and the ordinary
49:26workers.
49:28One form of mass resistance took shape
49:30in a big cocoa holdup in the Gold Coast
49:32when farmers demanded fairer
49:35prices. Once again, the press could be
49:38used to good
49:39effect. But unfortunately, in the 1930s,
49:43there was never any coordination between
49:46the protests of the rural folk and the
49:49farmers and the protests being organized
49:52by the elite. And this is why the
49:55resistance movement was not very
49:56successful.
49:58But now in
50:001935 came a new and savage challenge to
50:03African hopes of progress. Another
50:05colonial invasion. Fascist Italy's
50:07brutal assault on Ethiopia then called
50:10Abbiscinia.
50:11[Music]
50:13No power on earth now seems able to hold
50:15up Italy's sweeping advance across
50:17Abbyinia's rainswept mountains. Now,
50:19Desier has been captured, and from
50:21there, a direct road leads to Adis
50:23Ababar. So, perhaps it's only a question
50:25of time as to when the victorious
50:27Italian troops will march into the
50:28capital, and the emperor will have to
50:30sue for peace.
50:33With the colonial powers sounding quite
50:36pleased about this invasion, Italy's
50:38armies pushed on against a far weaker
50:40adversary and bombed and shelled their
50:43way to
50:44success. But Africans were outraged.
50:50For the first
50:52time the blacks all over the world, not
50:55this are not even Africa alone but the
50:57blacks all over the world felt that they
51:01have been attacked. You know Ethiopia
51:03and Liberia were the only two countries
51:06in Africa that were able to maintain
51:09their sovereign existence during the
51:11period of the scramble and the
51:12occupation of the continent by the
51:14imperial powers. And Ethiopia therefore
51:17became the symbol of hope not only for
51:19Africa but for the all the black peoples
51:22all over. Ethiopia was looked upon as
51:25the symbol of the revival and the
51:27regaining of the independence and
51:29sovereignty of Africa. And therefore
51:31when this invasion took place, it meant
51:35the the the complete snuffing out of
51:38this last beam of hope.
51:42Italy's troops entered Addis Ababa,
51:44capital of a now subjected Ethiopia. And
51:47still there came no more than verbal
51:50protest from outside
51:52powers. Yet Ethiopia's defeat painfully
51:56confirmed when her people laid down
51:57their arms, sent out a call for action
52:00to Africans everywhere.
52:03Indeed, for some of us, 1935 now is
52:06being considered as the more
52:09appropriate date for the beginning of
52:12the modern nationalist period of African
52:15history rather than 1939 or even 1945
52:20because we believe that but for the
52:23breakout of the outbreak of the Second
52:25World War in 1939 probably the struggle
52:28for independence would have begun from
52:311935.
52:32as a result of the of the of the
52:35indignation, as a result of the anger,
52:37as a result of the of the uh emotions,
52:40as a result of the strong feelings of
52:43anti-imperialism that were aroused by
52:45the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. Those
52:50feelings were aroused above all among
52:52the few who could win a modern education
52:54at schools like this one at the Gold
52:57Coast wherewami and Krummer future
53:00leader of the country's independence
53:02movement had been a
53:04student young people began to read
53:06whatever antic-colonial newspapers they
53:08could find even in the midst of
53:10discouraging years hope flourished
53:15aresh a new generation of educ educated
53:18Africans, some of them trained here at
53:21Achimoto, was reaching maturity. And
53:24then came the tremendous upheavalss of
53:26the Second World War, surging with
53:28revolutionary force through the entire
53:30colonial
53:31world. By 1945, as we shall see in our
53:35next program, the scene was set for
53:37great dramas in a struggle for
53:40independence.
53:45[Music]
54:01Where
54:06Africa
54:08[Music]
54:12Africa Africa
54:16[Music]
54:30Hoa, Africa.
54:35[Music]