1960: The Year of Africa and the Terms of Independence

At the start of 1960, most of Africa remained under European rule, although decolonisation had accelerated after the Second World War. Libya became independent in 1951; Sudan, Morocco and Tunisia followed in 1956; Ghana in 1957; Guinea in 1958. Algeria’s war against France, begun in 1954, exposed the violence required to preserve settler colonialism. Britain detained approximately 80,000 Kikuyu and other suspects at the peak of the Kenyan Emergency in 1954, according to historian Caroline Elkins; her broader estimate of people passing through detention and emergency villages is much higher and remains debated.

European rule had reorganised economies around export commodities and metropolitan needs. In the Belgian Congo, copper, cobalt, diamonds and uranium enriched concessionary companies while political preparation for Congolese rule was deliberately restricted. At independence on 30 June 1960, the Congo had only about 30 African university graduates, a figure commonly reported by contemporary observers and later historians, though definitions of degree-level education vary.

France’s 1958 constitution replaced the French Union with the French Community. In the referendum of 28 September 1958, Guinea alone voted “no” and chose immediate independence under Ahmed Sékou Touré. France withdrew officials and equipment, signalling the possible cost of rejecting a managed settlement.

“We prefer freedom in poverty to riches in slavery.” — Ahmed Sékou Touré, address to Charles de Gaulle in Conakry, 1958

The sequence began with French Cameroon and ended with Mauritania. Fourteen new states emerged from French rule, reflecting President Charles de Gaulle’s decision to negotiate transfers while preserving French networks of defence, finance, diplomacy and business—later associated with Françafrique. Nigeria and British Somaliland came from British rule; the latter united with the former Italian Somaliland on 1 July 1960 to form the Somali Republic. Belgium granted Congolese independence after only about 5 months of formal preparation following the Brussels Round Table of January–February 1960.

Date	Event	Consequence
1 January 1960	French Cameroon becomes independent as Cameroon	Ahmadou Ahidjo leads a state still fighting the UPC insurgency.
27 April 1960	Togo becomes independent from French UN trusteeship	Sylvanus Olympio becomes prime minister of a sovereign republic.
26 June 1960	Madagascar becomes independent	French cooperation agreements preserve defence and economic links.
26 June 1960	British Somaliland becomes independent	It exists separately for 5 days before union with Italian Somaliland.
30 June 1960	Congo becomes independent from Belgium	Army mutiny begins on 5 July 1960; Belgian intervention and secession follow.
1 July 1960	Somali Republic is formed	British and Italian-administered territories unite.
1 August 1960	Dahomey, now Benin, becomes independent	Hubert Maga inherits a fragile regional political settlement.
3 August 1960	Niger becomes independent	French military and monetary influence continues.
5 August 1960	Upper Volta, now Burkina Faso, becomes independent	Maurice Yaméogo establishes a centralised presidency.
7 August 1960	Côte d’Ivoire becomes independent	Félix Houphouët-Boigny retains close French economic ties.
11 August 1960	Chad becomes independent	François Tombalbaye governs a territorially divided state.
13 August 1960	Central African Republic becomes independent	David Dacko succeeds within a French security sphere.
15 August 1960	Congo-Brazzaville becomes independent	Fulbert Youlou becomes president.
17 August 1960	Gabon becomes independent	French oil, timber and military interests remain powerful.
20 August 1960	Senegal leaves the Mali Federation	The federation, independent since 20 June 1960, breaks apart after 2 months.
22 September 1960	Mali declares separate independence	Modibo Keïta pursues socialist and pan-African policies.
1 October 1960	Nigeria becomes independent	Africa’s most populous colony enters federal sovereignty.
28 November 1960	Mauritania becomes independent	Morocco initially disputes its sovereignty.

Madagascar and the Mali Federation were each counted within the conventional total of 17 independence outcomes in 1960; Senegal and Mali’s subsequent separation explains why simple lists can appear inconsistent.

The most visible figure is 17 independent states in 1960. The continental total rose from 9 independent African UN member states at the start of 1960 to 26 by year’s end, depending on whether transcontinental or disputed classifications are included; the UN admitted 16 African states on 20 September 1960, while Mauritania’s admission was delayed until 27 October 1961 by a Soviet veto linked to Mongolia’s membership.

Sovereignty came with structural constraints. France maintained the CFA franc, created in 1945, and required member states’ monetary institutions to hold substantial foreign-exchange reserves through arrangements tied to the French Treasury; the precise deposit requirement changed repeatedly after 1960. Defence and cooperation treaties enabled French troops, advisers and officials to remain. Governments that accepted these terms gained budgetary and military support but surrendered room for independent monetary and foreign policy.

In the Congo, the Force Publique’s approximately 25,000 soldiers in 1960 had no African commissioned officers at independence, according to standard historical accounts. Katanga, source of roughly 60% of Congolese export revenue in 1960 in contemporary estimates, seceded on 11 July 1960 under Moïse Tshombe with Belgian backing and mining-company support. These arrangements form part of the history traced at /neocolonies.

The central question is not whether flags changed in 1960, but which institutions still controlled money, minerals, armed force and external recognition.

The new states changed multilateral politics. On 14 December 1960, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 1514, the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, by 89 votes to 0, with 9 abstentions. It declared colonial rule incompatible with fundamental human rights and strengthened campaigns against Portuguese empire, settler rule in Southern Rhodesia, South African control of Namibia and apartheid.

The Congo showed how quickly formal independence could be attacked. Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was dismissed in September 1960, captured and murdered in Katanga on 17 January 1961 by Congolese and Katangan personnel in the presence of Belgian officers. A Belgian parliamentary inquiry reported in 2001 that particular Belgian officials bore “moral responsibility”; declassified evidence also documents CIA plots against Lumumba in 1960, although the operatives who killed him were not American. The Congo crisis became a Cold War battleground and helped Joseph-Désiré Mobutu seize power in 1965.

In South Africa, police killed 69 people and wounded 180 at Sharpeville on 21 March 1960, according to the official inquest figures. The apartheid state banned the African National Congress and Pan Africanist Congress on 8 April 1960. The ANC and PAC subsequently created armed organisations in 1961, connecting Southern Africa’s liberation wars to the wider decolonisation era.

Continental cooperation advanced through the Organisation of African Unity, founded by 32 states on 25 May 1963. Its defence of inherited borders reduced interstate territorial revision but preserved boundaries drawn by imperial powers. Explore these connected events on the /timeline.

Official commemorations often present 1960 as a parade of flags, anthems and founding presidents. That memory captures a real victory: millions ceased to be colonial subjects, African governments acquired votes in international institutions, and explicit European sovereignty became politically indefensible. It can also obscure women organisers, trade unionists, rural rebels and exiles whose campaigns forced imperial concessions.

The phrase “Year of Africa” should not imply that empire ended uniformly. Algeria remained at war until 1962; Portuguese colonies fought until 1974–1975; Zimbabwe achieved internationally recognised independence in 1980; Namibia in 1990. In 1960 itself, France’s war in Cameroon continued after the independence ceremony, while Britain declared a State of Emergency in Nyasaland in 1959 before Malawi’s independence in 1964.

A critical remembrance distinguishes sovereignty from economic emancipation without dismissing independence as cosmetic. The transfers of 1960 created legal and political tools later used to nationalise resources, support liberation movements and demand a New International Economic Order. They also left successor governments operating states designed for extraction, with narrow tax bases, coercive security services and economies exposed to commodity prices. The relationship between these inheritances and present extraction is examined in /neocolonies.

• United Nations: Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples
• Frederick Cooper, Africa Since 1940: The Past of the Present
• Martin Meredith, The State of Africa
• Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, The Congo from Leopold to Kabila
• United Nations: History of Peacekeeping in the Congo
• South African History Online: Sharpeville Massacre, 21 March 1960