Cape Verde becomes independent after PAIGC-led struggle

The Armed Forces Movement overthrew Portugal’s Estado Novo dictatorship. Portugal’s prolonged and increasingly costly wars against African liberation movements were a major cause of the coup. The...

The General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order. Newly independent states argued that political independence without control over trade,...

Portugal recognized the Republic of Guinea-Bissau following years of armed struggle led by PAIGC and the unilateral independence declaration of 1973. The recognition marked a major victory for a...

The OAU’s Dar es Salaam Declaration called for support to consolidate liberation and reconstruct territories emerging from Portuguese rule. The document reflected a continental strategy:...

Mozambique became independent after FRELIMO’s long armed and political struggle against Portuguese colonial rule. Portugal transferred power to a FRELIMO-led government under the Lusaka agreement....

The Comorian Chamber of Deputies declared independence from France. Mayotte’s voters had chosen to remain linked to France, and France treated the islands separately, leaving the archipelago...

São Tomé and Príncipe became independent after Portugal’s Carnation Revolution opened negotiations with African liberation movements. The islands’ colonial economy had relied on plantation labor under...

Papua New Guinea became independent after being administered by Australia, first as a League of Nations mandate and then as a UN trust territory. Independence involved hundreds of language communities...

Angola became independent as Portuguese rule ended, but rival liberation movements—the MPLA, FNLA, and UNITA—contested control and foreign powers intervened. Independence followed a long war against...

Suriname left the Kingdom of the Netherlands and became a sovereign republic. The transition followed decades of anticolonial debate and the 1954 Charter’s limited autonomy; it was accelerated by...