ABSTRACT
Difficult and violent as the end of empire often was, it was particularly so in the settler colonial states of Africa. The presence of European settler populations with disproportionate amounts of socioeconomic privilege and political influence greatly complicated the process of withdrawal. Where “kith and kin” ties with metropolitan populations remained strong, or where settlers had managed to infiltrate local colonial governments or organize metropolitan political lobbies, nationalist movements found themselves facing the combined forces of entrenched settler interests and metropolitan military might. Imperial retreat, in these cases, was anything but a gradual or planned affair. Instead, great powers made a sustained effort to uphold settler power and “hang on,” fighting a series of costly and violent wars against increasingly powerful nationalist movements. Moreover, when metropolitan governments finally decided to cut their losses and pull out, they often found themselves coping with intransigent settler communities or even terrorist cells determined to go it alone.
