Africa in World History
° Benin
° Cameroon
° Congo
° Cote d'Ivoire
° Gabon
° Ghana
° Guinea
° Kenya
° Liberia
° Mauritania
° Mozambique
° Nigeria
° Senegal
° Sierra Leone
° Somalia
° Tanzania
° Zanzibar
Africa is a vast and stunning continent with huge plains, high mountains, extraordinary people, exotic animals and vibrant birds. Each part of the country provides something dramatically different to the world:
- Botswana's Kalahari desert is home to one of Africa's the unique and resourceful bushmen who have lived there for thousands of years.
- Ivory Coast, known for centuries of fine craftswork.
- Ghana was the epicenter of the gold, slave and ivory trade. The region was coveted for years by imperial Europe.
- Kenya, the beginnings of the Serengeti, with its cats and huge herds of migrating wildebeest.
- Mali, on the banks of the Niger River, was once the richest city in Africa from its gold and ivory trade.
- Namibia, with an immense coastal desert
- Tanzania, on the Indian Ocean, has lush forests, Zanzibar (an island that has changed little since its years as East Africa's primary trading gateway), and the Serengeti, which is home to more big animals than anywhere in the world
- Zimbabwe, once thought to be the site of King Solomon's mines, has one of the most dynamic bodies of water in the world: Victoria Falls.
Unfortunately, Africa's treasures have been shrouded in darkness for centuries. Most well-known are the years of slave trading to Europeans during the 1700s and 1800s. However, even before Europeans arrived in Africa, tribes were capturomg people from neighboring villages and keeping them as slaves; when Europeans arrived, they began trading those people into European slavery.
The map below is probably the most important map of Africa produced in the 18th century. Largely based upon the earlier D’Anville map, this map has been enlarged and expanded by Samuel Boulton. It depicts the continent in full with insets of the Gold Coast (or Ivory Coast, or Guinea). This map is unique in that it is a serious attempt to compile all of the accurate scientific knowledge of the African continent available at the time. In contrast to many other Africa maps of the period, there almost no attempt to fill the “unknown” regions of the interior with fictitious beasts, kingdoms, and geological features.
(Click on map image for additional views and details.)
During the 1700s, Africa's west coast was frequented by traders who hoped to make quick fortunes. An entry in the journal of trader Nicolas Owen reads as follows: "I have found no place where I can enlarge my fortune so soon as where I now live, wherefore I entend to stay in order to enlarge my fortune by honest mains." Owen was sincere when he stated that the slave trade was a way to prosper "by honest means" -- nowhere in his journal, which he kept for five years, does he show any compassion for slaves or the least bit of remorse for being involved in the slave trade.
Traders did not capture slaves themselves, but bought them from Africans who traded their people for various European goods. Sometimes the captives would be prisoners of war. Other times, groups would venture deep into Africa's interior for the sole purpose of capturing slaves.
Passages from the journal reveal that Owen had little respect for the Africans he dealt with. " . . . They laugh at one another's misfortunes and don't seem to repine their own, given to drunkenness and quarreling, being very cowardly and great boasters, miserably poor in general and live low as to victuals, soon provoked to anger and soon made up again if the offender makes an acknowledgement of his crime . . ."
Slaves were cruelly treated and many felt death was more preferable than life. Some planning on taking over and blowing up the ship, only to perish all together in the flames. However, they were at times betrayed by one of their own countrywomen, who slept with some of the headmen of the ship -- it was common for the sailors to take the African women for their own use while the men were chained and pent up in holes. Thousands of African slaves were subject to horrible scenes and base treatment.
The geographic area from which slaves were taken during the slave trade was enormous. Its northern bounds were from Senegal to the center of Africa (Lake Chad) to Kenya. Its southern borders were a line along the southern borders of Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique. People were taken from both coasts and the central regions as well.
The slave trade resulted in approximately 100 million people being lost on the continent if one includes deaths during slave trade-related wars, slaves lost during the middle passage (across the ocean) and those landing alive in other countries. At least 15 million Africans landed alive as slaves in the Americas during the whole slave trade period.
January 29, 1896, Echo
London, United Kingdom
GOLF AT BULUWAYO
Golf is played under difficulties at Buluwayo, Africa, as the natives have taken a fancy to the balls, and lie in wait for them in the bush near by. They pierce a hole through the balls and string them with the beads of their necklaces.
Sierra Leone
Muslim traders brought Islam. Portuguese sailors, Alvaro Fernandez (1447) and Pedro Da Cintra (1462), were among the first European explorers to details their adventures along the coast of Sierra Leone. The Rokel estuary was established as an important source of fresh water for sea traders and explorers who opened a bay for trading goods such as swords, kitchen and other household utensils in exchange for beeswax and fine ivory works. By the mid 1550’s, slaves replaced these items as the major commodity.
Though the Portuguese were among the first in the region and their language formed the basis for trade, their influence had diminished by the 1650’s. English, French, Dutch and Danish interests in West Africa had grown; during the years 1662-1759, some 106,800 slaves were exported on ships of the British Empire. Trade was controlled by coastal African rulers who prohibited European traders from entering the interior. Rent and gifts were paid for gold, slaves, beeswax, ivory and cam wood.
In 1787, British philanthropists founded the "Province of Freedom," which later became Freetown, a British crown colony and the principal base for the suppression of the slave trade. By 1792, 1200 freed slaves from Nova Scotia joined the Maroons (the original settlers). Another group of slaves rebelled in Jamaica and travelled to Freetown in 1800.
Through the efforts of men such as William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson and Granville Sharpe, Lord Mansfield formed an administration in 1806, which was instrumental in the British Empire’s abolition of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1807. The British established a naval base in Freetown to patrol against illegal slave ship and established a fine of £100 for every slave found on a British ship.
In 1808 Sierra Leone officially became a crown colony with the land possessions of Sierra Leone Company (formerly known as St George’s Bay Company) transferred to the crown. The colony was dedicated to demonstrating the principles of Christianity, “civilisation” and commerce.
In 1833 British Parliament passed the Emancipation Act, and in 1833 slavery was finally abolished. By 1855, over 50,000 freed slaves has been settled in Freetown. Known as the Krios, the repatriated settlers of Freetown live today in a multi-ethnic country. Though English is the official language Krio is widely spoken throughout the country allowing different tribal groups a common language.
Cambridge City Tribune, Cambridge City, Indiana
June 20, 1889
Primitive Intercourse
R. Andree has lately been collecting information as to the use of signals by primitive peoples, and the facts he has brought together are summarized in Science. It appears that American
Indians use rising smoke to give signals to distant friends. A small fire is started, and as son as it burns fairly well, grass and leaves are heaped on the top of it. Thus a large column of steam and smoke arises . . . Recently attention has been called to the elaborate system of drum signals used by the Cameroon negroes by means of which long messages are sent from village to village. Explorations in the Congo basin have shown that this system prevails throughout central Africa. The Bakuba use large wooden drums, on which different tones are produced by two drumsticks. Sometimes the natives "converse" in this way for hours, and by the energy displayed by the drummers, and the rapidity of the successive blows, it seems that the conversation was very animated.The Galla, South of Abyssinia, have drums stationed at certain points of the roads leading to the neighboring states. Special watchmen are appointed, who have to beat the drum on the approach of enemies. Cecchi, who observes this custom, designated it as a "system of telegraph." The same use of drums is found in New Guinea. From the rhythm and rapidity of the blows, the natives know at once whether an attack, a death, or a festival is announced. The same tribes use columns of smoke or (at night) fires to convey messages to distant friends. The latter are also used in Australia. Columns of smoke of different forms are used fro signals by the inhabitants of Cape York and the neighboring island . . .
Middle Passages: African American Journeys To Africa, 1787-2005: Many works of history deal with the journeys of blacks in bondage from Africa to the United States along the middle passage, but there is also a rich and little examined history of African Americans traveling in the opposite direction. In Middle Passages, award-winning historian James T. Campbell recounts more than two centuries of African American journeys to Africa, including the experiences of such extraordinary figures as Langston Hughes, W.E.B. DuBois, Richard Wright, Malcolm X, and Maya Angelou. A new series under presiding editor Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
