Awaiting the Coming of the White Man: The Spectre of Settlement in West Africa, 1930–39

This paper explores the translation and adoption of the concept of settler colonialism in British-controlled West Africa from 1930-39. During this period, journalists and activists across West Africa observed with consternation what the Gold Coast Leader called 'the vigorous rush of the white races to Africa.' African political observers noted that, in addition to the extensive land alienation taking place across the eastern and southern parts of the continent, a 'booster' literature encouraging settlement in Africa was even suggesting mass European settlement in West Africa, previously thought inhospitable to Europeans. When Fascist Italy invaded and occupied Ethiopia in 1935, West African fears seemed to be vindicated: a European power had embarked upon a major settlement project in a previously sovereign African state, with tacit acquiescence from the major western powers. West African political figures expressed alarm at the possible 'East-Africanisation’ of West Africa; wrote extensively about the history of settler colonialism and its relationship to other forms of colonial domination; and organised politically against the threat of land alienation. Drawing on research in West African archives, with a focus on anglophone newspapers and books published in Cape Coast, Accra, Lagos and Freetown, I explore the ways in which the 'settler' dimension to colonial rule came to be understood, theorised and localised within a West African setting, precipitating a body of comparative writing that represents an important moment in the globalisation of anticolonial praxis, with significant repercussions for attitudes toward colonialism across the region.