Yes, I was 12 years old. It was the first week of school. The whole time I was in class I felt like there was something wrong. I had no motivation to do any school work. I was confused as to why I felt like this. Later that day I got called to the office saying I was going home early. Now, I was sooo lost at this point because I would never leave school early. So, I went to the the office and my uncle was there waiting for me and my brother. We were both confused and in shocked. I has asked my uncle what he was doing here and he stayed silent. Then, we went to my little sister’s school to pick her up too. While we were waiting for her in the office I saw that my uncle had my mother’s phone. I was asking questions but my uncle kept saying “It’s okay.” After we got my sister we went back to my house. The house was a mess. So, I started to clean. Our house would always be nice and clean. So many thoughts went through my mind right then. 30 minutes later my cousin came over and started making us food. I started to worry because neither my dad or mom were home. I started to worry but not in front of family of course. Then, my aunts and uncles came to my house and gathered around and started to cry. I was getting even more confused and went to my laundry room and hid there. My aunt saw me and asked me “Are you okay?” I replied “ I just want my mom and dad to be okay.” All that my aunt said after that was “I Love You.” And that’s when I knew one of them passed away. That night my cousin told me my mom had passed away. ( My family tried to hide it from us because they thought it was best to not know yet but I knew)

Edit: You guys been wondering where my dad was during this time. My dad was home that morning too. My mom was yelling for help that she couldn’t breathe. My dad came rushing downstairs and called 911. They told my dad to give her CPR. My mom was taking care of 2 little boys and my youngest brother who was 4 at that time. So, while my dad was trying to revive my mother the little kids were making a mess with toys and things. That is why the house was a mess when I got there. When the ambulance got there my dad called my uncle to take care of the little kids so my dad can go to the hospital with my mom.

Here’s the thing. This is an impossible question to answer “properly”. The methods adopted by Africans in the colonial era is literally thousands of pages worth. There is the battle of Zanzibar that lasted all of 38 seconds, but also Abd el-Qadir’s resistance, which lasted 17 years.

There were retreats, but, all retreats aren’t equal. Caliph Attahiru of Sokoto believing that the end was nigh, tried fleeing to Mecca to await the end of days. He was chased and gunned down by Lugard anyways. But then, there was Samori Toure, Cassandra to his neighbours and Hannibal to his foes. His idea of retreat was to create strategic depth.

Facing the French, he divided his army in three, his crack troops fought a rear-guard action, his second best conquered new territories to the East, in an ultimately vain effort to link up with the Asante in what he hoped would be the common front, the Tukulor had spurned. The final set of troops burned every single resource in the evacuated territories as well as shepherding his factories and bureaucracy eastwards. The dying gasps of his resistance were the creation of a second empire and victory over the French at Owe.

The British fought the Asante 4 times, after the 4th war, their victory was total, the men broken. When a foreigner deigned to sit on the Golden Stool, the very symbol of the Asante nation, it was the women who led the final resistance of that great nation. Similarly, in 1929, British Columns gunned down crowds of women protesting the British attempt to tax their sphere and the imposition of “Kings”.

There were many victories, too many to recount here. How the era saw those, however, is a guide to what the ultimate resistance battle was.

Note the European, certain of the inevitable, even in the face of defeat. These are not invaders, but rather gods! Prometheus bringing fire and civilisation to the savages.

Motifs of tragedy and loss in war were solely reserved for equals.

Okay tangent wandering time. I’m a big fan of Imperial eras, the paintings, the music. But see enough, and you realise that besides scale, the Europeans were playing an old game, a very old one.

You see it too right?

Colonialism was different from earlier episodes of Imperialism, merely in scale. Think of imperialism as a Cuckoo’s egg, a singular event from the periphery which soon takes over the whole.

Just as it takes the Mother Bird’s absence for the Cuckoo’s switch to occur, similarly, Imperialism occurred in the context of internecine conflicts in the future imperial province(s). In many ways, the conquest of Africa may be said to have been a continental civil war. Africa in many ways, was conquered by Africans, from translators and missionaries to Riflemen. There were even Rulers who themselves invited European intervention.

The colonial era was the quintessential “clash of civilisations”, between, the rulers and the ruled, the Metropole and the provinces. Colonial rule was not tranquil, resistance never truly ended and pacification campaigns in the interior were part and parcel of the era. It was from these campaigns that one can trace the beginnings of the idea of “asymmetrical warfare”. It, however, was underpinned by the implicit acceptance of European superiority. It was that idea that held Empire together, and unless broken across all the provinces, independence was doomed to failure, crushed by Sepoy, Gurkha and Hausa Riflemen.

That was the final battleground of the resistance.

The leading characters in that Resistance victory are justly famous.

Gandhi

Nasser

Nkrumah

Nyerere

Khama

Fanon

TL;DR: They tried resisting with guns and failed, the true battle was always going to be for the liberation of the mind. That was won, briefly, by a new generation of freedom fighters, who wielded the pen with skill and when necessary, the gun too.

Inevitable P.S(es?)

• Yes, yes, I’ve heard the arguments. “Gandhi has no place in Africa’s history” e.t.c. Thing is, I’ve read of the ferociousness of British India too. Gandhi took away 3 million Bayonets from the British kitty. If you think that had no impact, look at Angola, Kenya, Algeria e.t.c note that the colonialists were willing to hold on to Empire, then attempt counter-factuals but with India army a steamship away. One might as well say, Stalin had no place in the salvation of Western Europe.
• No Mandela because he wasn’t an ideological forebear.
• Yes, Fanon is Carribean. He however was one of the ideological Lodestars of the independence/Liberation movement.

P.S If you’re interested in an in-depth retelling of the continent’s history, do check out my Patreon page. I’m still 19th centuries away from the colonial era, but we’ll get there…eventually.