WHITE AFRICANS: THE EMERGENCE OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA 

Did you know that as at 1989, there were an estimated 4.6 million white people with European ancestry on the African continent, and that South Africa has the largest European descendant population numbering over 4.3 million people (over 7.7% of the population)?

During the Colonisation of Africa, European settlement patterns generally favoured territories with a substantial amount of land at least 910 metres (3,000 ft) above sea level, an annual rainfall of over 510 millimetres (20 in) but not exceeding 1,020 millimetres (40 in), and relative freedom from the Tsetse fly. In contrast to Western and Central Africa, the milder, drier climates of Northern, Eastern, and Southern Africa thus attracted substantial numbers of permanent European immigrants. A modest annual rainfall of under 1020 mm was considered especially suitable for the temperate farming activities to which many were accustomed.

Therefore, the first parts of Africa to be populated by Europeans were located at the northern and southern extremities of the continent; between these two extremes, disease and the tropical climate precluded most permanent European settlement until the late nineteenth century. The discovery of valuable resources in Africa's interior and the introduction of quinine as a cure for malaria altered this longstanding trend, and a new wave of European colonists arrived on the continent between 1890 and 1918.

Most European colonists granted land in African colonies cultivated cereal crops or raised cattle, which were far more popular among the immigrants rather than managing the tropical plantations aimed at producing export-oriented crops such as rubber and palm oil. A direct consequence of this preference was that the territories with a rainfall exceeding 1020 mm developed strong plantation-based economies but produced almost no food beyond what was cultivated by small-scale indigenous producers; drier territories with large white farming communities became more self-sufficient in food production. The latter often resulted in sharp friction between European colonists and black African tribes as they competed for land. 

By 1960, at least seven British, French, and Belgian colonies—in addition to the Union of South Africa—had passed legislation reserving a fixed percentage of land for white ownership. This allowed colonists to legitimise their land seizures and began a process that had the ultimate consequence of commodifying land in colonial Africa. Land distribution thus emerged as an extremely contentious issue in those territories with large numbers of permanent European colonists. During the 1950s, black Africans owned about 13.7% of the land in South Africa and a little under 33% of the land in Southern Rhodesia. An inevitable trend of this factor, exacerbated by high rates of population growth, was that large numbers of black farmers as well as their livestock began to be concentrated in increasingly overcrowded areas.

Before 1914, colonial governments encouraged European settlement on a grand scale, based on the assumption that this was a prerequisite to long-term development and economic growth. The concept lost popularity when it became clear that multinational corporations financed by overseas capital, coupled with cheap African labour, were far more productive and efficient at building export-oriented economies for the benefit of the metropolitan powers. During the Great Depression, locally owned, small-scale businesses managed by individual whites suffered immense losses attempting to compete with large commercial enterprises and the lower costs of black labour (South Africa being the sole exception to the rule, as its white businesses and labour were heavily subsidised by the state).

Unlike other former colonies such as those in the Americas and Australia, Europeans and their descendants on the African continent never outnumbered the indigenous people; nevertheless, they found ways to consolidate power and exert a disproportionate influence on the administrative policies of their respective metropolitan countries. Some lost their sense of identification with Europe and created their own nationalist movements, namely in South Africa and Rhodesia (now known as Zimbabwe). Permanent white residents were regarded as an increasing liability by colonial administrations as they sought to dominate their adopted African homelands. They were also likely to involve the government in conflict with Africans, which required expensive military campaigns and inextricably damaged relations between the latter and the metropolitan powers. 

This was a common trend throughout African colonies from the late eighteenth to early twentieth centuries. In the Dutch Cape Colony for instance, governor Joachim van Plettenberg demarcated the territory's boundaries around 1778 with approval from the Xhosa chiefdoms; the following year Dutch colonists violated the border and attacked the Xhosa, sparking the bloody Xhosa Wars. Disputes between German colonists and the Matumbi and Ngoni peoples contributed significantly to the Maji Maji Rebellion of 1905–07. During the same period, Colonial Kenya's European residents were largely responsible for provoking a revolt by the Masai.

White settlers wielded enormous influence over many colonial administrations; for example, they often occupied influential positions on elected legislatures and held most of the senior administrative posts in the civil service. Due to the relative poverty of most black Africans, whites of European ancestry also controlled the capital for development and dominated the import and export trade as well as commercial agriculture. They often represented a disproportionate percentage of the skilled workforce due to much higher educational attainment. This was heightened by the discriminatory practices of the colonial authorities, which devoted more public funding to their education and technical training. 

For example, in Tanganyika, the colonial authorities were estimated to have allocated up to twenty-six times more funding per year for white schools than black schools. In most of colonial Africa, local whites sought employment with foreign companies, often in technical or managerial positions, or with the public service. The exception were those colonies with large white farming populations, such as Kenya and Southern Rhodesia. The white residents there were likelier to form their own business communities and invest heavily in the economies of their adopted homelands.

The advent of global decolonisation ushered in a radical change of perspectives towards European settlement in Africa. Metropolitan governments began to place more emphasis on their relations with the indigenous peoples rather than the progressively independent colonist populations. In direct opposition to the growing tide of African nationalism, whites of European descent in colonies such as Algeria began to forge new nationalist identities of their own. Attitudes towards rapid decolonisation among individual white African communities were hardened by fears of irresponsible or incompetent postcolonial governments, coupled to a parallel decline in public infrastructure, service delivery, and consequently, their own standards of living.

On some occasions the granting of independence to African states under majority rule was influenced by the desire to preempt unilateral declarations of independence or secession attempts by white nationalists. Nevertheless, Rhodesia's white minority did succeed in issuing its own declaration of independence in 1965 and later retain power up until 1979. Less successful was an attempted coup d'état by white Mozambicans in 1974, which was forcibly crushed by Portuguese troops. White rule in South Africa ended with the country's first non-racial elections in 1994.

A white flight phenomenon accompanied regional decolonisation and to a lesser extent, the termination of white minority rule in Rhodesia and South Africa. A considerable reverse exodus of former colonials returning to Western Europe occurred; because they had controlled key sectors of many African economies prior to independence, their abrupt departure often resulted in devastating economic repercussions for the emerging states. Consequently, some African governments have made a concerted attempt to retain sizable white communities in the interests of preserving their capital and much-needed technical skills.

A few colonies had no permanent white populations at all, and in such cases the European powers preferred to construct forts rather than large settlements accordingly. Transient administrators and soldiers were posted there initially as deterrents to rival governments attempting to effectuate treaties concerning land and other resources with local African populations. Their numbers were sometimes bolstered by civilian expatriates employed as missionaries, public servants, or employees of large transnational companies with headquarters located aside the African continent. Few of these expatriates came to immigrate permanently, and typically worked in the colonies for a short period before returning to Europe. This made them less embedded in the economy and social structure, less interested in influencing local politics, and less likely to form cohesive communities than the colonist populations elsewhere.

Image: White squatter camp, S.A. Youtube/UnionMagazine