Nationalist

was born on 25 May 1855 in the town of El Cobre in the Oriente region of Cuba to Librada Sánchez and Francisco Cebreco. He emerged as a prominent figure in the struggle for Cuban independence. Before reaching fifteen years of age, he joined Cuban forces during the Ten Years’ War (1868–1878), alongside at least two of his brothers, Juan Pablo (Pedro) and Juan Bautista. He served under prominent insurgent chiefs, including José Maceo, Antonio Maceo, and Calixto García Iñíguez, ascending to the rank of commandant by 1876. In 1878, like many of his black compatriots, he signed on to the Protest of Baraguá, a demonstration of discontent with the Pact of Zanjón, in which insurgents agreed to lay down weapons without achieving independence or the abolition of slavery.

Cebreco then a lieutenant colonel along with other prominent black officers in the East including the Maceo ...

Ethiopian resistance fighter and patriot, was born in the village of Ya-Ya Qecama, in Selale, Shewa. An alternate version of his name is Lej Hayla-Maryam Mammo. As a young boy, he attended a traditional church school in his own village and then the modern Tafari Mekonnen School in Addis Ababa. Before the Italian invasion of 1935–1936, he did not hold any significant government post. During the Italian invasion, he actively participated in the battle of Maychew on 31 March 1936 and was wounded, though not seriously.

With the defeat of the Ethiopian forces at Maychew, Haile Mariam Mammo came to his native area. When the Fascist Italian forces were advancing to the capital Addis Ababa, he ambushed and attacked the advancing Italian column at Chacha, near Debre Berhan, on 4 May 1936 He thus became a pioneer in initiating the patriotic struggle against the invading Italian forces In ...

Egyptian soldier, rebel, and nationalist symbol, was born in Cairo of Circassian and Arab ancestry (“al-Misri,” “the Egyptian,” was the name he adopted when resident in Istanbul to designate his non-Turkish ethnic origins). Graduating from the Tawfiqiyya Secondary School in 1896, he entered the Ottoman Military Academy. He was commissioned into the Ottoman Army in 1904.

ʿAziz ʿAli al-Misri is an important figure in the history of both Arab and Egyptian nationalism. His main involvement with Arab nationalism occurred immediately before and during World War I. An Ottoman Army officer, he was initially a supporter of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) that led the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 Misri served with distinction in the Ottoman military resistance to the Italian invasion of Libya in 1911 1913 where he is reported to have incurred the enmity of Enver Pasha of the CUP who saw him ...

Best known for his attempt in the 1930s to develop a fascist mass movement in Britain, Mosley ended his political career in the late 1950s and 1960s by attacking West Indian and other non‐white immigrants to Britain. He served on the Western Front in the First World War. This experience shaped his outlook: he tried to avoid war, to build a society fit for heroes, and used the military as his template for solving social problems. He was elected to Parliament as a Unionist candidate in December 1918 but rebelled against the violence of the pro‐Unionist irregulars (the Black and Tans). He left his party in 1920 and eventually joined the Labour Party in 1924, attempting to outline new economic policies. In the 1929 election which brought Labour to power again he became Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster but felt that only a new political movement ...

founder and leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), was born on 10 April 1957 in Gitarama, Rwanda. His name is also rendered as Rwigema. In 1960, Rwigyema’s Tutsi parents fled persecution in Rwanda in the aftermath of the 1959 Hutu revolution and settled in refugee camps in southern Uganda. They were among tens of thousands of Tutsis who were no longer welcome in the country. Rwigyema was among a generation of Tutsi refugees, known as “59ers,” who came of age in the camps with no clear citizenship of their own. By the 1970s, the Tutsi refugees were no longer welcome in Uganda either.

Seeing a chance to gain citizenship under a new Ugandan government, many of the second-generation refugees, Rwigyema included, joined Ugandan rebels in fighting against the regimes of Idi Amin and Milton Obote. By 1980 when Obote came to power a second time Rwigyema Paul ...

Cameroonian military officer and resistance leader, was born in the village of Metundu Engong, a village of Bulu-speaking people located close to Ebolowa, one of the larger towns in southern Cameroon. Samba’s mother died almost immediately after his birth. Samba was raised by his paternal uncle Ada Mbo.

When a German expedition led by a Lieutenant Kund entered Samba s village Kund selected Samba to be a guide realizing that he could not safely advance further in the rainforests of southern Cameroon without detailed information about routes and settlements Samba already had been baptized by American Presbyterian missionaries who had established a chain of missions among Bulu communities in southern Cameroon The young man impressed his German superiors particularly the high ranking officer Curt von Morgen to the point that they recommended that Samba receive further training in Germany Since Bulu and Beti communities actively resisted the advanced of German ...

Like many early African nationalists, Martin-Paul Samba in his relationship with colonial authorities progressed from initial cooperation to determined resistance. Born Mebenga-M’Ebono, he became familiar with German settlers during his childhood in what would soon become the German colony of Kamerun (present day Cameroon). After serving on an expedition led by German explorer Kurt von Morgan, he traveled to Berlin with von Morgan for education and military training. He ultimately reached the rank of captain in the German Imperial Army. In 1895 Samba returned home, and throughout the next fifteen years participated in several expeditions into the hinterland to further German colonial ambitions.

By 1910 Samba had grown acquainted with early nationalists such as Rudolph Douala Manga Bell and had begun to share their grievances Two years later Samba became chief of the Ebolowa and the leader and strategist of the local anticolonial resistance movement Pretending to be a ...

Ethiopian military officer of Oromo origin, was born in Salale, Shewa province, to a deeply religious family. He received Ethiopian Orthodox Church education. His father, Birru, was killed by poison gas while fighting against the invading Italian forces in 1935. Heartbroken, Taddese’s mother died just three months after her husband’s death.

Taddese joined his uncle, Beka, who was one of the resistance leaders in Shewa province. Taddese was captured together with many others by the Italian forces and was sentenced for the first time to life imprisonment with hard labor in Mogadisho. The outbreak of World War II shortened Taddese’s misery and changed the course of his life. When the British captured Mogadisho in 1940, Taddese was freed and recruited into the British forces. He was given military training in Kenya and returned to Ethiopia in 1941. In 1942 Taddese was promoted to the rank of ...

Egyptian military officer and Minister of War, and leader and namesake of the “Urabi Revolt” against the Ottoman-Egyptian ruling class of the military in 1881–1882, was born in Huriya, a village near the Nile Delta city of Zaqaziq, on 1 April 1841. Because of the changing norms of Arabic-English transliteration, his name is also written as “Ahmed Orabi” and “Ahmed Arabi.” While his village belonged to the agricultural (fellah) class of Egyptian society, his father was a religious elder (shaykh) of the village, and a man of some means relative to the community. His family’s resources afforded ʿUrabi the opportunity to receive an excellent early education, culminating at the age of eight in the completion of his primary education at the prestigious al-Azhar University in Cairo.

It was ʿUrabi s conscription into the Egyptian army at the age of thirteen however that set him on the ...

Eritrean military leader and nationalist, was born in Hazzega. His father was the eldest son of Kentiba Zeray, a descendent of Bahri-Negasi Gabrat of the eighteenth century, and his mother was named Ilen; both played active political and military roles in the region in the 1830s and 1840s. His title was “ras,” and he was popularly known as Woldenkel, Gomida, and Embiyale-Woldu. His name is also spelled Woldemichael Selomon or Solomon.

A descendent of a chain of rulers of Hamasen, Welde Mikael was born and brought up in Hazzega. The exact date of his birth is unknown, and the sources give different dates, ranging from 1810 to 1827 Equally little is known about his early life and education apart from the fact that he grew up in an arena of conflict At home there was incessant rivalry for power between his parents and a cousin who had ...