The places with puppet governments would qualify under the Oxford dictionary definition of a colony: "a country or area under the full or partial political cont

The places with puppet governments would qualify under the Oxford dictionary definition of a colony: "a country or area under the full or partial political control of another country, typically a distant one, and occupied by settlers from that country." The only wrinkle is the "occupied" part. But most European colonies in Africa didn't have a huge number of settlers either and nobody questions whether these colonies were colonies.