Although most African colonies became independent between the late 1950s and early 1960s, Western Sahara remained a Spanish Colony until 1976.
In February 1976, Spanish handed over the territory to Morocco and Mauritania instead of following the course of decolonization mapped out by the United Nations General Assembly and affirmed by the International Court in an Advisory Opinion rendered in 1975.
The article attempts to clarify why the Western Sahara nationalist movement for decolonization was formed much later than most other African nationalist movements, which had achieved their independence in the 1960s.
This time gap in contemporary African context is analyzed in the light of the historical relationship between the Western Sahara people and Spanish colonization.
Three major findings which resulted from examining the socio-economic aspects of the region are stressed;
1) the Spanish government, which had previously administered only the Atlantic littoral, extend their effective control throughout the Western Sahara, when it was discovered that it possessed substantial mineral potential in the early 1960s. This discovery, in turn, aroused the acquisitive instance of both Morocco and Mauritania.
2) Although Western Sahara nomade people had a conception of territory in the forme of grazing grounds, the concept of a linear boundary was foreign to them.
3) Western Sahara society, which had enjoyed relative autonomy because of the ineffective Spanish colonial administration and the mobility of its nomade society was awakened to its national identity as Spanish colonization was accelerated in order to exploit the area's natural resources.
Therefore, it could be argued that the time required for the Western Sahara people to achieve independence will depend upon the rate at which the nomade society looses its relative autonomy through their contact with the world economy.