Talk:Colonisation of Africa

Untitled

Half of the article is the stuff that 172 pasted everywhere And that "stuff" pertains to the "colonization of Africa".

172

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Maybe we could merge all the article you edited in just one ;). I'm not historian do you feel to write something in Algerian War of Independence it's a major lack in Wikipedia. Ericd

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A succint page on colonization of Africa is essential. Ericd’s that a separate article on the Algerian War of Independence is needed as well.

172: Go to my user page. There’s a surprise there.

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Including Madeira as a colony is absurd, it had no previous indeginous population, present day population is of european descent and it is an autonumous region of Portugal

It's often counted as part of Africa, and it was colonised. Including it make clear sense. Warofdreams talk 01:32, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

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This article is an absolute mess as far as organization, sentence structure, and clarity. Like in the Walter Rodney section -- "Africa was being underdeveloped through the resources taken." What does this even mean??? And the article starts refering to someone named "Khapoya" out of nowhere, with no introduction. Anyone know how to add a flag to the page as being in need of revisions? -- JJWWiki 22:45, 11 April 2021

Spelling

Why is the American spelling of colonization used? Most English-speaking countries in Africa use commonwealth English, so why American?? Aaker 14:02, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I am American, but I agree. It just seems weird to me to see "Colonisation of Africa" with a "z" instead of an "s". The manual of style seems to agree. I'm going to rename the page. --Tea and crumpets 15:46, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I have changed all instances of "z" to "s", except in the interwiki links. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 16:16, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

The Manual of Style suggests that we avoid the the word "colonization" or "colonisation" altogether in the title. Therefore, i suggest we retitle the article "Colonialism in Africa."

I second that "Colonialism in Africa" would avoid any confusion or debate in the title and retain the the same meaning, but I'll leave that for someone else to change. I am going to update the 17 uses of "colonization" to "colonisation." JJWWiki 22:08, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Germany?

Nice twist to blame The Scramble for Africa on the Germans. Lars T. 20:22, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

In response to the above comment: The reference to Bismarck's Berlin Conference and the policy of New Imperialism as the impetus for The Scramble for Africa does not appear a biased claim in this article nor a nationalist attack on Germany by any means; it is generally acknowledged that the Conference and Bismarck's dominant role in European politics during that period culminated in the era's rapid colonization of Africa (for example, as in college-level/AP European History textbooks). --Tpugliese01 (talk) 16:04, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

"It is generally acknowledged...", by whom? The publisher for those history books? Some recent historians? It's not exactly uncommon for the anglosphere to engage in historical revisionism, especially when it comes to textbooks for schools, via framing things a certain way and/or omitting facts (apparently Americans don't even learn about their concentration camps on The Philippines, as an example). One can easily look up the data from the time (colonization, treaties etc) to see what was happening. Something like Germany claiming Cameroon five days before a British ship arrived and could do so could certainly give you an indication on how things were already before the "Congo Conference". And that's aside from the fact that it was a general "grab everything as fast as you can" which applied to other non-African non-influenced territory as well. Otherwise, one can look at older history books, more close to the time and possibly from people who lived through it, to get a less framed picture.

Granted though, this is Wikipedia which is often used as a propaganda tool and full of wrong information. There are even pages straight up contradicting each other with written text like: "The man chiefly responsible for the Triple Alliance was Otto von Bismarck, the Chancellor of Germany.", in contrast to, "Italy became part of the Triple Alliance, an event which upset Bismarck's carefully laid plans and led Germany to join the European invasion of Africa." (which is, of course, utter nonsense, on so many levels even). That's also why Wikipedia itself wasn't (and hopeyfully still isn't) allowed as a source for any school work. Lucumo (talk) 14:02, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

UK/US edit notice

I made a failed attempt to create an edit notice using the {{British-English-editnotice}} template. Sorry about the mistake, but this notice is now moved to the top of the article. Can an admin please create this edit notice? --Fama Clamosa (talk) 18:42, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

 Done. JohnCD (talk) 20:18, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! --Fama Clamosa (talk) 20:32, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Map Substitute

Does anyone else think that the map under "The Scramble for Africa" on the right, should be replaced with this larger one? —Preceding unsigned comment added by GameSlayerGS (talk • contribs) 14:42, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Vincent Khapoya

Way too much of this article Is based on the opinion of one person, Vincent Khapoya, a modern day person. Is Khapoya widely acknowledged as 'the Einstein of the history of the colonization of Africa?" It seems to me that since so many assertions of fact made in the article are based on the views of this person, there should be a section vetting his credibility as a widely recognized and respected authority. Without it, It seems less an encyclopedic article on the colonization of Africa than a presentation of the views of Vincent Khapoya, which may be biased. This strikes me as odd and typical of the sort of things that make people consider Wikipedia at best a good starting point for seeking info about something but nothing you could ever 'take to the bank' without external verification.

Totally agree, there are more than enough relevant historians so that we can have multiple points of view and sources for this article, which is an important one.

-- Edmond8674 — Preceding undated comment added 00:03, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

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Earliest European Colony?

Phoenicians are mentioned, but they are from Asia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenicia — Preceding unsigned comment added by TurnerValley (talk • contribs) 04:06, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

The article indicates that the earliest European colony inAfrica was Cape Town in 1652, but the Portuguese founded Luanda in 1576. FelipeVO (talk) 12:47, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

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Unclear Use of "Colonisation"

Pretty simple contention here - I'm not sure the totality of subject material covered under this article should be placed in the same article, at least not without much further clarification. There are a few main contentions motivating this:

• The unexpected & unexplained decision to center this article on external "colonisation"
• The unclear bounds & definitions to delineate what, exactly qualifies as "colonisation" under the tenants of the article.
• The clearly uneven distribution of efforts & energies between discussing different topics.

The article, all in all, comes across entirely incohesive, unified only by a vague sense that all its subject matter may be described with the same term, without consideration for how said term is employed differently in each topic. Put differently, this article has little discussion on how topics relate, calling into question whether topics are better placed on dedicated articles that already exist.

Part of this comes down to the mere ambiguity of words, especially those such as "colonisation". Simply put, it does not seem to me that this term has any consistent 'meaning', nor is one clearly given, articulated, maintained, or justified by the article. While we obviously refer to migration of human populations to a region in order to exploit resources (for subsistence) as "colonisation" in the literal sense, we lack an article on "Colonisation of Europe" because we clearly draw some mental difference between mere migration to a region in a pre-historic or at least pre-modern sense (think, the movement of human populations into Europe, the spread of Near Eastern farmers and their offspring across Europe) and the Imperial efforts driven by (mostly) European states (say, the events from the early-modern era onwards). For that matter, I also would advocate excluding Medieval expansion into the African continent by Arabs/Muslims from "Colonisation" for the same reason we typically do not refer to the unification of Arabia or conquest of Persia as "Colonisation", or the Ottoman annexation of Anatolia, or even the Crusades as such. I reckon the article should have its contents divided between:

• (Prehistoric) Migrations Within and Into Africa (including such topics as Back To Africa migrations, Inter-African Migrations (i.e. Bantu Expansion)
• Imperialism in Africa (including such topics as Portuguese activity on the Swahili Coast, the Zimbabwe Plateau, Colonization of the Guanches peoples, all the way to the Scramble for Africa and potentially the "Neo-Colonialism" that people like to discuss. Under the latter we may include such topics as Arab or Roman conquests into Africa, though at that point I personally would question why we should then exclude imperialism executed by African-rooted Empires as well (Mali, Songhai, Luba, Ethiopia, &.c.), at which point the article simply becomes one about empires in Africa.

The place of "settler-colonies" (ie: founding cities by populations who move to an area in order to gain some edge from its resources, usually location & trade) within this schema is unclear here, but note that we already have such an article, "Colonies in antiquity", for discussing many such instances in antiquity. One such article may be made for a broader set of use-cases, which could then also encompass Swahili settler-colonies in places like Madagascar, and various "colony" communities founded by traders in / from West African regions (ie: "Tukrir" settlements in East/Central Africa, historic Hausa communities without Hausaland)...

"Colonisation of Africa" may then be made into a Disambiguation to refer to any of these potential uses of the term. HiddenHistoryPedia (talk) 17:25, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

This seems a decent analysis. The article is very undeveloped, likely a function of the ambiguities you identify. If you have sources that could help elucidate these distinctions and conceptual frameworks, that would greatly help the article. I wouldn't split it into a disambiguation though, at least not before the context here is developed enough that a split is clear from the existing content. CMD (talk) 03:06, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree that a precise definition of "colonisation" must be selected at the outset. The article would demand heavy modification once this necessary first step is accomplished. Chino-Catane (talk) 12:05, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

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lead section

Moved from Article:

"...and potentially the Malays as it is pertaining to distinguishing between immigration and settler colonialism..."

Is there any evidence that Malays established colonies in Africa? If they simply migrated to Africa freely, this does not need to be mentioned in the lead section of an article concerning the colonisation of Africa. Chino-Catane (talk) 11:33, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

This entire article needs a rework. See my criticism. "Unclear Use of "Colonisation". HiddenHistoryPedia (talk) 03:42, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Arab colonisation

@Remsense I suppose we could remove the question mark, as it would still make sense as the Arab brand of settler colonialism. To be clear, migrations alone are not colonisation, but a state inviting tribes to migrate and settle is reminiscent of settler colonialism Kowal2701 (talk) 21:16, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

The question mark is a surface-level problem, but the deeper issue is having a blank section with a leading premise and no content nor citations—only links to what you personally think is relevant. Write a sourced section, or have no section. The alternative is irresponsible, unacceptable original research on your part. Remsense诉 21:17, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

This article is start class, it's structure for someone to stumble upon and write it. That's why it had a question mark, so has to avoid a leading premise. There's a citation in the note, I don't understand your position Kowal2701 (talk) 21:20, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Then write a sourced section. What was there was unacceptable: "it's bad so who cares" is not an excuse for it being bad. Remsense诉 21:21, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

This entire article needs a rework. See my criticism. "Unclear Use of "Colonisation". HiddenHistoryPedia (talk) 03:42, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Scope

The only semi-recent work I can find with this wide of a scope is Don Nardo's The European colonization of Africa (2011), which is more of a popular history book targeted at teens. Unsurprisingly, the only other work I could find was from 1899. I can’t even find sources with a scope that just discusses early modern period onwards. Thinking this should be merged into History of Africa per WP:PAGEDECIDE or just a redirect to Scramble for Africa? Happy to hear thoughts Kowal2701 (talk) 08:59, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

My reasoning re PAGEDECIDE is that if scholarly sources only discuss this in the context of history more broadly then that’s what we should do Kowal2701 (talk) 09:24, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

Added a merge tag to History of Africa Kowal2701 (talk) 22:38, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

@Kowal2701 Oppose, well established topic which is the subject of many academic articles, merging into History of Africa would make that article even longer, probably give undue weight to this topic in that article, and given the chronological approach of both articles would split up this topic so it is no longer presented in a coherent manner. Merging to Scramble for Africa would clearly be inappropriate as it is a sub topic. Warofdreams talk 18:28, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

Warofdreams, my main concern is that without decent RSs with this scope, we can't get the framing right since it'd be synthesised, and the first few sentences of the lead are going to be OR. Specifically linking ancient Rome and Greece to modern colonialism, which no sources I've seen do (apart from this journal article which I can't access and isn't about Africa AFAICT), there are lots of colonial ones because they wanted to portray themselves as successors to Roman/Greek civilisations. It'd be easier if this article were just on modern colonialism, since plenty of sources on history more broadly discuss that evolution from early modern to the Scramble. Thoughts? Kowal2701 (talk) 19:05, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

I watched this convo unfolding, and my initial feelings were of resistance to your suggestion, but having done some digging for sources, I'm no longer so dug in, though I remain skeptical.

Finding sources on the colonization of Africa as an overarching topic seems easy enough, but the issue is that all of them seem to start with the scramble for Africa. Some sources, such as one NatGeo site I found, explicitly state this.

On the other hand, every subsection of this article links to other articles, which are unarguably about colonialism (at least in part), except for the Phoenician section, which links to Roman Africans and Romans in Sub-Saharan Africa, neither of which are really about colonial practices. However, there exists Roman colonies in North Africa , which would be a better see-also link than what's there.

I understand the synth argument, but I'm still not entirely convinced it's a valid one. European enclaves in North Africa before 1830, European exploration of Africa, Scramble for Africa, Decolonization of Africa and the other see-also links are all at least partially about colonization. So yes, without sources covering the scope, it's technically synthesis for us to have this article, but that synthesis is absolutely inescapable, once one understands the various sources used in the other articles.

I'm not entirely convinced that your argument is without merit, but neither am I convinced that you're wrong. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:49, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

To clarify, when I say modern colonialism I mean 15th century onwards. I think we could have an {{About}} hatnote saying this is about modern colonialism, and pointing to Colonies in antiquity and Roman colonies in North Africa? Kowal2701 (talk) 20:06, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

I think we might improve this article by trimming down a lot of the history and working on the 'theoretical framework' section some. Having this article as being about the effects of colonization on Africa neatly sidesteps your synth concerns, because the sources that section is built from are about just that (even if they tend to focus on colonization taking place from the 1870's forward). ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:32, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

Effects of 'colonisation' or 'colonialism'? I like that idea a lot, although we have Analysis of European colonialism and colonization which does a decent job at this (and seems to largely focus on Africa). Irdk Kowal2701 (talk) 21:54, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

I've replaced the tag with one about moving "Ancient colonies" into Colonies in antiquity, but open to other suggestions. Kowal2701 (talk) 13:30, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

The triangular trade

Meaning ~2026-12207-69 (talk) 16:29, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

See Triangular trade, which points to the African slave trade as the most famous example. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:04, 24 February 2026 (UTC)