Experimentation, Consolidation and Deadlock in British Africa

One of the outstanding characteristics of European empires in Africa during the decade after 1945 was how little they were affected by the backwash from the demise of colonialism in Asia. R. Robinson and J. Gallagher pointed out some years ago that Europe’s acquisition of African territories in the latter part of the nineteenth century was simply ‘scraping the bottom of the barrel’ following more important seizures elsewhere;1 but any expectation that when the barrel of empire began to be emptied of its Asian contents in the late 1940s the African flotsam would be simultaneously ejected proved to be misplaced. In fact the late 1940s and early 1950s were the heyday of African empire, when it seemed to have a coherence and dynamic of its own. This coherence and dynamic was merely the reflection of the passing utility which Africa appeared to have for western Europe in its struggle for post-war economic survival; by the mid-1950s the appearance had faded because one set of metropolitan crises had, as we shall see later, been replaced by another. But these fissiparities were not evident at the time. ‘Development and welfare’ was the theme of the moment circa 1950, and it seemed that within this framework Euro-African relationships were bound to become tighter, not looser, over time.