History terms in Independence and identity

The claim of African leaders such as Nyerere, Senghor and Kenyatta that socialism grew from the communal values of African societies; in practice it ranged from Tanzania's ujamaa to Kenya's mixed, largely capitalist economy.

The policy of transferring jobs, businesses and property from Europeans and Asians to African citizens after independence.

Haitians who had been free before the general emancipation of 1793, many of them of mixed descent, literate and property-owning.

A joint declaration of war aims by Churchill and Roosevelt in August 1941, promising the right of all peoples to choose their own form of government.

The use of naval or military forces to stop goods and people entering or leaving an enemy's ports or territory, in order to weaken its economy and war effort.

An enslaved person in Saint-Domingue who had been born in Africa; most were field labourers.

The labour system in Saint-Domingue, especially under Toussaint Louverture, in which free cultivators were bound to plantations and supervised by army officers to keep exports flowing.

A system in which enslaved people are the legal property of their owners, can be bought, sold and inherited, and pass their status on to their children.

An official sent from revolutionary France with special powers to govern a colony and carry out the laws of the Assembly, above the governor.

The lobby of colonial planters formed in Paris in 1789 to defend slavery and oppose equal rights for free people of colour.

The code of laws issued by Henri Christophe in northern Haiti in 1812, which among other things enforced plantation labour.

The French royal edict of 1685 that defined slavery in the French colonies, making enslaved people the property of their owners and setting rules and punishments that were seldom enforced in their favour.

The Haitian law of 1826 under President Boyer that tried to bind rural workers to plantations and punish vagrancy.

British laws of 1940 and 1945 that provided money for economic development, education and health in the colonies.

Informal and legal racial segregation that excluded Africans from European hotels, clubs, schools, residential areas and better-paid jobs.

The pursuit of self-government through legal political methods such as petitions, delegations, elections and negotiation, rather than violence.

The military, political and social methods a government uses to defeat a guerrilla or insurgent movement, above all by separating it from the population.

Jean Casimir's term for the way of life rural Haitians built after independence, based on family land and food crops, in rejection of plantation labour.

A person born in a colony, as opposed to one born in Africa or Europe, and the mixed cultures and languages that grew up in such colonies, such as Kreyòl in Saint-Domingue.

Colonial laws of 1902 and 1915 that let the Kenyan government grant land to European settlers and declared all land in the colony, including African-occupied land, to be Crown land.

The name given to former slaves who worked on plantations after emancipation in Saint-Domingue; legally free, they were bound to their estates by labour regulations.

A formal statement that a territory has separated from the state that ruled it and become a sovereign state.

The statement of principles adopted by the French National Assembly on 26 August 1789, declaring that men are born and remain free and equal in rights.

The process by which colonies gained independence from imperial powers, in Africa mainly between the late 1950s and the 1970s.

A British government statement of 1923 that African interests in Kenya must be paramount where they conflicted with those of immigrant races; it blocked Indian demands but changed little for Africans.

The burden Haiti carried after 1825 of paying both the indemnity to France and loans, with interest, taken from French banks to pay it.

The French rule that colonies could trade only with France and in French ships, giving French merchants a protected market at the colonists' expense.

Free people of African or mixed descent in the French colonies; legally free and often property owners, but barred from many offices and professions by colonial regulations.

A member of the rich white elite of Saint-Domingue: planters, merchants and royal officials, many of whom lived in France.

Fighting by small, mobile, irregular groups using ambushes, raids and sabotage, relying on local support and avoiding pitched battles with a stronger regular army.

The revolution of 1791–1804 in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, in which enslaved people destroyed slavery and created the independent state of Haiti on 1 January 1804; the only successful slave revolution in history.

Swahili for “let us all pull together”: Kenyatta's national motto and a movement of community self-help projects.

A secondary school in Kenya built and run with money raised by the local community through fund-raising meetings.

The killing of 11 detainees by guards at Hola detention camp on 3 March 1959, which became a political scandal in Britain.

A force of loyalist Kikuyu, Embu and Meru raised by the colonial government from 1952 to fight Mau Mau and guard villages.

The army of black and coloured Haitians led by Jean-Jacques Dessalines from 1803, which defeated the French and won independence.

The Kenya African Democratic Union, founded in 1960 by leaders of smaller ethnic groups; it favoured regional government and merged into KANU in 1964.

The Kenya African National Union, founded in 1960 and led by Jomo Kenyatta, which won the 1963 election and ruled Kenya, from 1969 as the only party in practice.

Jomo Kenyatta, Bildad Kaggia, Kung'u Karumba, Fred Kubai, Paul Ngei and Achieng' Oneko, convicted in 1953 of managing Mau Mau after a trial at Kapenguria later shown to rest on false evidence.

Kenya's first colony-wide African political organisation, founded in 1944 and led by Jomo Kenyatta from 1947; it used constitutional methods and was banned in 1953.

The name Mau Mau fighters used for their own forces, reflecting their demands for land and freedom.

The opposition party founded by Oginga Odinga in 1966 on a more radical land and economic programme; it was banned in 1969.

A Kikuyu political organisation founded in 1924 that campaigned over land and colonial controls; Jomo Kenyatta was its general secretary from 1928, and it was banned in 1940.

An organisation of African-run schools founded after the female circumcision controversy of 1929–1931, combining Western education with Kikuyu cultural values.

The British colonial army regiment recruited from East and Central Africa, in which tens of thousands of Kenyans served in the Second World War.

A registration certificate with fingerprints and employment record that every African man over 15 in colonial Kenya had to carry from 1920, used to control movement and labour.

The three conferences in London (1960, 1962 and 1963) at which the British government, settlers and African parties negotiated Kenya's constitutions and independence.

The decree of the French National Convention of 4 February 1794 that abolished slavery in all French colonies and made all men living there French citizens.

The French army sent by Napoleon under General Charles Leclerc (1801–1803) to restore French authority in Saint-Domingue; its defeat led to Haitian independence.

The law-making body of a British colony, made up of officials and nominated and elected members; in Kenya Africans had no elected members until 1957.

In the Kenya Emergency, an African who sided with the colonial government against Mau Mau, such as chiefs, Home Guards and many Christians.

The spirits served in Vodou, honoured through song, drumming, dance and possession.

Kenya's constitution of 1954, which created a Council of Ministers with three European, two Asian and one African unofficial minister.

1 June, the anniversary of Kenya's internal self-government in 1963, a national holiday.

Swahili for “regions”: KADU's plan for a federal Kenya with regional assemblies, partly adopted in the 1963 constitution and abolished soon after.

The flight of enslaved people from their owners, either for a short time (petit marronnage) or permanently to free communities in remote areas (grand marronnage).

The settlement programme of 1962 to about 1970 that bought over a million acres of European farms and divided them into smallholdings for about 35,000 African families.

The colonial policy of the 1950s of sharing power among Europeans, Asians and Africans in separate, unequal blocs rather than by majority rule.

An area of colonial Kenya set aside for a particular African ethnic group, outside which Africans could not own land.

Haitians freed from slavery by the revolution; the great majority of the population, mostly rural and Kreyòl-speaking.

The swearing of solemn oaths, based on Kikuyu ritual, that bound people to secrecy and loyalty to the Mau Mau movement and, in later oaths, to fight.

The Kenya Education Commission of 1964–1965, chaired by Simeon Ominde, which planned a national, non-racial school system to build unity and train Kenyans.

A state in which only one political party holds power, either by law (de jure) or in practice (de facto).

The British military operation of April 1954 that sealed off Nairobi and screened its African population, detaining tens of thousands of suspected Mau Mau supporters.

The mass arrest of Jomo Kenyatta and about 180 other African leaders on the night the State of Emergency was declared, 20–21 October 1952.

The movement for the unity, dignity and liberation of all people of African descent, which by 1945 demanded independence for African colonies.

A poorer white colonist in Saint-Domingue, such as an artisan, shopkeeper, overseer or sailor, whose status depended above all on being white.

The system of detention camps in the Kenya Emergency through which detainees were classified and moved towards release as they confessed oaths and accepted rehabilitation.

A large agricultural estate producing one cash crop for export, such as sugar, tobacco, coffee or cloves, with a large, closely controlled labour force, which in the Americas and Zanzibar was mostly enslaved.

The interrogation of suspects in the Kenya Emergency to decide whether they had taken Mau Mau oaths and where they should be detained.

The right of a people to decide its own political future, including whether to form an independent state.

The Kenyan government's policy paper African Socialism and its Application to Planning in Kenya (1965), which committed the state to a mixed economy and Africanisation.

A colony in which Europeans settled permanently, owned land and claimed political power, such as Kenya, Southern Rhodesia or Algeria.

The guerrilla war of 1963–1967 in which Somalis of north-eastern Kenya sought to join Somalia; the government called the fighters shifta, “bandits”.

A French society founded in 1788 that campaigned for the abolition of the slave trade, equal rights for free people of colour and the gradual end of slavery.

An African family living and working on a European-owned farm in colonial Kenya, allowed to cultivate a plot and graze livestock in return for labour, but with no legal right to the land.

A legal declaration giving a government special powers, such as detention without trial and bans on organisations; Kenya's lasted from October 1952 to January 1960.

A colonial programme of 1954 to consolidate African landholdings, register them with individual title deeds and allow Africans to grow cash crops such as coffee and tea.

The forced resettlement of more than a million Kikuyu, Embu and Meru into guarded fortified villages in 1954–1955 to cut Mau Mau off from civilian support.

A religion that developed among the enslaved in Saint-Domingue, combining West and Central African traditions with elements of Catholicism and centred on the service of spirits (lwa).

The war of 1799–1800 between Toussaint Louverture and André Rigaud for control of Saint-Domingue, which deepened divisions between black and coloured people.

The fertile central uplands of Kenya reserved for European ownership between 1902 and 1961, covering about 31,000 square kilometres.

The principle that land would be transferred only by voluntary sale at market prices, without confiscation.