This paper attempts a reinterpretation of European colonisation of Africa with particular reference to settler and non-settler colonies in Africa. Colonial system whether it is “indirect rule” practiced by the British, the French “assimilation” and “association”, German “paternalism”, Portuguese “Luso-tropicalism” etc have the same motives and tendencies aimed at exploitation, peripherialisation and pauperisation of the African people in all parameters for their material benefits. The methodological approach adopted in this research is “qualitative method”. Secondary source materials have been utilised, which comprised mainly published books that have been critically analysed. In the findings, why some colonies have been inhabited by white settlers while others not and why the settlers did not vacate after independence and the implications of this development in Africa. This paper also attributed most of the present conditions and situations in Africa to be connected to colonial legacies. These include conflicts of different kinds, militancy, social dislocation, complexity in Africa as well as neocolonialism. It has been observed that colonial conquest of Africa resulted in strangulating the African societies and making them dwarf and the bereft of mental initiatives towards societal development.