Editing Decolonization (section)

====Violence, civil warfare, and partition====
[[Image:Surrender of Lord Cornwallis.jpg|thumb|Surrender of [[Lord Cornwallis]] at [[Siege of Yorktown|Yorktown]] in 1781]]
Significant violence was involved in several prominent cases of decolonization of the British Empire; partition was a frequent solution. In 1783, the North American colonies were divided between the independent United States, and [[British North America]], which later became Canada.

The [[Indian Rebellion of 1857]] was a major uprising in India against British [[East India Company]]. It was characterized by massacres of civilians on both sides. It was not a movement for independence, however, and only a small part of India was involved. In the aftermath, the British pulled back from modernizing reforms of Indian society, and the level of organised violence under the [[British Raj]] was relatively small. Most of that was initiated by repressive British administrators, as in the [[Amritsar#Jallianwala Bagh massacre|Amritsar massacre of 1919]], or the police assaults on the [[Salt March]] of 1930.<ref>On the nonviolent methodology see {{Cite journal |doi = 10.1080/00856408508723067|title = Audiences, actors and congress dramas: Crowd events in Bombay city in 1930|journal = South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies|volume = 8|issue = 1–2|pages = 71–86|year = 1985|last1 = Masselos|first1 = Jim}}</ref> Large-scale communal violence broke out between Hindus and Muslims and between Muslims and Sikhs after the British left in 1947 in the newly independent [[dominion]]s of India and Pakistan. Much later, in 1970, further communal violence broke out within Pakistan in the detached eastern part of East Bengal, which became independent as [[Bangladesh]] in 1971.

[[History of Cyprus since 1878|Cyprus]], which came under full British control in 1914 from the Ottoman Empire, was culturally divided between the majority [[Greek Cypriots|Greek element]] (which demanded "[[enosis]]" or union with Greece) and the minority Turks. London for decades assumed it needed the island to defend the Suez Canal; but after the Suez crisis of 1956, that became a minor factor, and Greek violence became a more serious issue. Cyprus became an independent country in 1960, but ethnic violence escalated until 1974 when Turkey invaded and partitioned the island. Each side rewrote its own history, blaming the other.<ref>{{Cite journal | jstor=10.2979/his.2008.20.2.128| doi=10.2979/his.2008.20.2.128| title=Narrative, Memory and History Education in Divided Cyprus: ''A Comparison of Schoolbooks on the 'History of Cyprus'<nowiki/>''| journal=History and Memory| volume=20| issue=2| pages=128–148| year=2008| last1=Papadakis|first1=Yiannis | s2cid=159912409}}</ref>

[[Mandatory Palestine|Palestine]] became a [[Mandate for Palestine|British mandate]] from the [[League of Nations]] after World War I, initially including [[Emirate of Transjordan|Transjordan]]. During that war, the British gained support from Arabs and Jews by making promises to both (see [[McMahon–Hussein Correspondence]] and [[Balfour Declaration]]). Decades of [[Intercommunal conflict in Mandatory Palestine|ethno—religious violence]] reached a climax with the [[UN Partition Plan]] and the [[1948 Palestine War|ensuing war]]. The British eventually pulled out, and the former Mandate territory was divided between [[Israel]], [[Jordanian annexation of the West Bank|Jordan]] and [[All-Palestine Protectorate|Egypt]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Laqueur|first1=Walter|author-link1=Walter Laqueur|last2=Schueftan|first2=Dan|author-link2=Daniel Schueftan|title=The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict: 8th edition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=akGXCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA49|year=2016|publisher=Penguin |isbn=978-1-101-99241-8}}</ref>