Resources for Schools

Key words: Empire; Identity; Migration; War; Religion; Government

In 1171, Henry II of England launched an invasion of Ireland. This was mainly prompted by Henry’s desire to limit the growing power of the Anglo-Norman lords who had begun to colonise south-east Ireland. This resource explores how negative stereotypes of the native Irish population were used to help justify the invasion as a civilising mission, in line with royal and papal arguments.

Key words: Migration; Empire; Identity; Liberty; Survival; War; Religion; Role of individuals in encouraging/inhibiting change; Race; Slavery; Revolution; America; Africa; Sierra Leone.

In the eighteenth century, black soldiers played a crucial role in the British military. During the American Revolutionary Wars (1776-1783), British commanders offered freedom to enslaved people willing to turn against their Patriot ‘masters’ and join the ‘Loyalist’ army. 

Key words: Africa, Nigeria, Empire, Identity, Liberty, Government, Ideas, Communication, Science and Technology

After World War II, the British empire was criticised as unfair and exploitative by African nationalists, the USA, and the USSR. The British government responded with a programme of colonial development that included in 1948 creating new universities in African colonies including Nigeria, Ghana, and Uganda. These universities have been debated ever since: did they bring development to the colonies, or not?

Key words: Migration, Empire, Business, Identity, Liberty, Religion, Ideas, Role of individuals in encouraging/inhibiting change

Samuel Ajayi Crowther was probably the most prominent African involved in missionary activity in the nineteenth-century, but he was not the only one who played an important role in ‘spreading the gospel’. Who were the Africans that joined missions in the nineteenth-century? Why were mission societies initially so keen to recruit them? And what were these Africans thinking about the future of Africa?

Key words: Empire, Liberty, Government, Ideas, Role of individuals in encouraging change, Africa, independence, decolonisation, nationalism, Ghana, Nkrumah

In 1957 the British colony of the Gold Coast became the independent nation of Ghana. Did Britain grant Ghanaian independence or was this the result of the actions of Ghanaian nationalists, led by Kwame Nkrumah?