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Ghana
Widely regarded as the first sub-Saharan African colony to win independence from European rule (Sudan, independent in 1956, is sometimes counted first), after the CPP's Positive Action campaign and successive election victories.
- Independence
- March 6, 1957
- Before
- Gold Coast & British Togoland
- Metropole
- United Kingdom
- Leader
- Kwame Nkrumah
- Transition
- Negotiated
- Movement
- Convention People's Party (CPP); earlier the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC)
“At long last, the battle has ended! And thus, Ghana, your beloved country is free forever!”
— Kwame Nkrumah, March 6, 1957
The Accra Riots, 1948
On February 28, 1948, colonial police at the Christiansborg crossroads in Accra fired on a march of ex-servicemen petitioning the governor over their grievances, killing Sergeant Cornelius Adjetey and two others. Coming on top of a boycott of European imported goods, the shooting set off days of rioting. The Watson Commission blamed the unrest partly on the colony's outdated constitution, exposing the fragility of British rule in the Gold Coast, then the world's leading cocoa producer.
Nkrumah, the CPP and Positive Action
Kwame Nkrumah, a co-organiser of the 1945 Manchester Pan-African Congress, returned in 1947 as general secretary of the United Gold Coast Convention but broke with its leaders to found the Convention People's Party on June 12, 1949, demanding 'Self-Government Now'. His 'Positive Action' campaign of strikes and boycotts from January 1950 led to his imprisonment. While he was in jail, the CPP won the February 1951 election decisively; Governor Sir Charles Arden-Clarke released him to become Leader of Government Business, and he became prime minister in 1952.
The Road to 6 March 1957
Further CPP victories in the elections of 1954 and 1956, the latter held amid opposition from the Asante-based National Liberation Movement, persuaded Britain to set a date for independence. In a UN-supervised plebiscite on May 9, 1956, a majority in British Togoland voted to join the Gold Coast. At midnight on March 5–6, 1957, Nkrumah told crowds at the Old Polo Ground in Accra that Ghana was free forever, and that its independence was meaningless unless linked to the total liberation of Africa.
Chronology
- February 28, 1948 — Christiansborg crossroads shooting and Accra riots
- June 12, 1949 — Nkrumah founds the Convention People's Party
- January 1950 — Positive Action campaign begins; Nkrumah imprisoned
- February 1951 — CPP wins the general election; Nkrumah released
- July 10, 1953 — Nkrumah's 'Motion of Destiny' speech
- May 9, 1956 — British Togoland votes to join the Gold Coast
- March 6, 1957 — Ghana becomes independent under the Ghana Independence Act 1957
Aftermath
Accra hosted the Conference of Independent African States and the All-African Peoples' Conference in 1958, becoming a hub of continental liberation. Ghana became a republic on July 1, 1960, with Nkrumah as president, and a one-party state after a 1964 referendum. Nkrumah was overthrown in a military and police coup on February 24, 1966, while on a visit abroad.
Legacy
Ghana's independence made it a trailblazer for sub-Saharan Africa and placed Pan-Africanism at the centre of the continent's politics. The hopes of 1957, followed by one-party rule and the 1966 coup, prefigured a pattern seen in many post-colonial states.