Settlement, Migration, Colonization

Why here?

Kingdom of Axum [300-700]

Berbers

GOLD

SALT

Gold-Salt Trade

Gold “Money”, Ghana/Ivory Coast

Ghana Empire [4c-11c]

Salt

Mali Empire [13c-15c]

GOLD

SALT

Why here?

Timbuktu-”Heavenly Clay”

Marketplace near the Niger River

Songhai Empire [15c-16c]

GOLD

SALT

Benin Empire [15c-19c]

Bronze Heads from Benin (16c)

Benin Bronze Leopard

BantuMigration

s:

1000 BCETo

500 CE

IslamicInvasion

s

African Trade [15c-17c]

IndustrialRevolution

Source forRawMaterials

Markets forFinishedGoods

EuropeanNationalism

MissionaryActivity

Military& NavalBases

EuropeanMotivesFor Colonization

Places toDumpUnwanted/Excess Popul.

Soc. & Eco.Opportunities

HumanitarianReasons

EuropeanRacism

“WhiteMan’sBurden”

SocialDarwinism

European Explorers in Africa

19c Europeans Map the Interior of Africa

The “White Man’s Burden”?

Dealing with animismhttp://www.gosocialstudiesgo.com/african-animism#!__african-animism

belief that nature has soul: the belief that things in nature, e.g. trees, mountains, and the sky, have souls or consciousness

King Leopold II: The Belgian Congo (r. 1865 – 1909)

Harvesting Rubber

5-8 Million Victims! (50% of Popul.)

It is blood-curdling to see them (the soldiers) returning with the hands of the slain, and to find the hands of young children amongst the bigger ones evidencing their bravery...The rubber from this district has cost hundreds of lives, and the scenes I have witnessed, while unable to help the oppressed, have been almost enough to make me wish I were dead... This rubber traffic is steeped in blood, and if the natives were to rise and sweep every white person on the Upper Congo into eternity, there would still be left a fearful balance to their credit. -- Belgian Official

Belgium’s Stranglehold on the Congo

Berlin Conference of 1884-1885

Another point of view?

Africa1890

Berlin Conference of 1884-1885How to control the colonies? Used rival

tribe to help control regions

Separate traditional tribes and cultures

Lock economies into “one commodity” systems i.e.. cash crops and raw materials

Africain1914