Transcript Africa - Mediapolis Community School

Africa
Early African
• General Geography
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Plateau: Africa shaped like an upside down bowl
Rivers: Nile, Congo, Niger all blocked by rapids and
hard to travel upstream (isolation and lack of trade)
Deserts
– Sahara Desert: Covers one-fourth of Africa (North)
– Kalahari and Namib Deserts (South)
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Savannas: Dry grasslands south of the Sahara desert
and north of Kalahari and Namib Deserts
Tropical Rainforest: Center of Africa (equator)
Mountains: Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya
Early Africa
 Language
 Bantu: Early African Language….appeared to have spread
over a lot of Sub Saharan Africa
 Trade
 Early peoples appear to have had some interactions with Asia
 Society
 Matrilineal: Ancestors and property traced back through
their mothers instead of fathers
 Religion
 Similar to other areas…gods and spirits based on nature
Ancient Egypt
 Egyptian Geography
 Nile River: Where the first Civilizations
began..predictable flooding was a positive
for development of Egypt
 Sahara Desert: Made invasion impossible
 Egyptian Development
 Hieroglyphics: Writing
 Papyrus: Plant that was made into early
paper
Ancient Egypt
 Leaders/Rulers
 Pharaoh: Absolute power…both religious and political
 Kingdoms
 Old (2680 BC-2180 BC): Built Pyramids/Sphinx
 Middle (2050-1780 BC): Invaded by foreigners
 New (1570 BC-1080 BC): Strongest Empire
 Famous Pharaohs
 Hatshepsut: 1st Female Pharaoh
 Thutmose III: King Tut…one of few tombs found intact
 Ramses II: Last great Pharaoh..eventually Egyptians lost their freedoms
when invaded by Persians in 300 BC
Ancient Egypt
• Religion
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Gods based of nature
Mummification: Process to prepare the body for life
after death. Tomb of Pharaohs would be filled with
valuables to take with them to afterlife
• Trade
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Caravans: groups of people traveling together and
trading together (safety)
East Africa Trade
• Trade
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There were no real large kingdoms in the lands located along the
Indian Ocean.
More small villages that were centered on trade.
Traded gold, ivory, hides and fellow African slaves.
A lot of interactions with Muslims from Arabia and Persia
• Swahili
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African culture that developed in Eastern Africa
Language that combine Bantu with Persian and Arabic
Became popular up and down the east coast of Africa
Big on trade. Tippu Tip-famous trader and lead Europeans into
Africa
West Africa
• Trade
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Salt for gold trade was important along South Sahara
Empires began to grow around this area
• Ghana
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Earliest empire of West Africa (300 AD)
Tunka Manin: Ghanaian ruler at the peak of power (1067 AD).
Huge Army: 200,000 warriors, bows/arrows/spears
Destroyed when the Berbers invaded across the area in 1100
AD.
Berbers carried Islam across North Africa
West Africa
 Mali
 Neighbors of Ghana; gained control of area in 1235 AD
 Mansa Musa: Leader of Mali during its peak of power
 Timbuktu: Became the leading city of Mali; educational and trade
center.
 Songhai
 Sonni Ali captured Timbuktu after Musa’s death, created a new
empire called the Songhai.
 Gao and Timbuktu became main trading centers for people from
Europe, India, and China.
 Eventually defeated by an army from Morocco that had a new
weapon…guns.
European Involvement
 Slave Trade
 Portugal began with a positive relationship with African tribes…then
they became greedy and wanted gold and slaves.
 Dutch, English and French would all get involved by the 1600s.
 Middle Passage: Trip the slaves made from Africa to
America’s…awful. Part of Triangular Trade. Slaves would be sold in
return for “New World” goods headed to Europe and Africa.
 Over 10 million slaves survived the journey to the Americas.
 West Africa Slave Trade
 Strong states began to emerge in West Africa as partners in the slave
trade.
 Slavery of other people was a popular practice in Africa (although
freedom was often times granted and not considered property)
 Problem: Over time, the loss of so many people had awful effects
on the development of the area.
1800s: Europeans in North
Africa
 France
 Became interested in Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco
 Great Britain
 Wanted to control Egypt
 Italy
 Wanted to control Libya
 Spain
 Also interested in parts of Morocco.
1800s: Sub Saharan West
Africa
• End of Slave Trade
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Area had once been dominated by slave trade. By the 1800s, most
European countries had stopped trading slaves.
Other items became popular to trade (oils, feathers, ivory, etc)
• European Interests
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France: Won Senegal by defeating Samory Toure
Great Britain: Won control of the Gold Coast..main county was
Ghana
• United States Involvement
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Created and defended Liberia; a county for freed American slaves
to return to.
Only independent country in the area.
1800s: Central Africa
 Cause of European Interest
 Henry Stanley: Journalist, looking for Dr. Livingstone (1871)
 Impressed with Central Africa, tried to convince GB and others to invest
and develop the region
 Belgium Interest
 King Leopold II: created a personal colony of around 900,000 square miles
(Present day Congo)
 Leopold eventually gave the colony to the Belgian government, where the
area became known as Belgian Congo (1900s)
 Leopold took almost all the natural rubber and sold the native people as
slaves….imperialism at its worst
1800s: East Africa
 European Countries:
 Divided up the land, very similar to what had happened in Western
Africa.
 Famine and a disease that killed the native cattle led to many native’s
starving to death
 They were too weak to defend themselves from the Europeans
 Berlin Conference 1884-85: regulated European colonization in
Africa. Also seen as the formalization of the Scramble for Africa.
Everyone wanted a piece of the land officially.
 By 1914 only two nations in Africa were free from colonial control:
Liberia, and Ethiopia.
1800s: South Africa
 Great Britain and Dutch Interests
 Boers: Decedents of the original Dutch settlers living in South
Africa…had created 3 colonies
 Boers left the area when the British arrived in the late 1800s.
 Zulu’s: Native tribe that was a rival of the Boers. Zulu’s
were eventually defeated by British.
 European Interest in Gold and Silver
 Germany became very interested in Southern Africa once
Gold and Silver were found.
 Cecil Rhodes: British businessman that gained control of a
vast area…monopoly on diamond production.
 Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) was created by Cecil Rhodes.
1800s: Effects of European
Imperialism
 Bad Effects
 Europeans controlled all aspects of government
 They did not create borders that aligned with the tribes of the area.
Often put rival tribes within the same borders which led to conflict.
 Paternalism: Belief that African’s were not able to effectively rule
themselves.
 Alliances: Some Africans tried to form alliances with European
countries…usually this worked out bad for the African countries
(Ethiopia and Italy)
 Most Africans never accepted European rule and culture. Europeans
wanted them to assimilate. Did not happen.
 Good Effects
 New things: crops, ways of farming, roads, and railroads all helped
improve communications.
Independence Time
 Post WWI
 After WWI a lot of British colonies began demanding self-rule.
 Issues
 Africans had helped GB/France during WWI…now they wanted
freedom.
 Soldiers returning from war had new ideas on nationalism,
independence, racism, etc
More Calls for Independence
 African Organizations
 By the 1930’s most Africans were calling for
independence rather than reform.
 This made European countries and tribal chiefs upset
 Leaders
 Nnamdi Azikiwe (Nigeria), Jomo Kenyatta (Kenya) and
Leopold Senghor (Senegal).
 This leaders followed the non-violent teachings of Gandhi to
gain support for independence
African during WWII
 Italy/Ethiopia
 Ethiopia: one of the few independent countries in Africa during
the 1930s.
 Mussolini: Leader of Italy, invaded a defeated Ethiopia in 1935.
 Ethiopia had asked for help, no one helped them. Fought them
off and remained independent.
 Fighting in Africa
 Germany, led by commander Erwin Rommel had taken control of
Libya. Tank warfare
 Eventually Axis forces were defeated by Americans/British forces
in 1942…forced to retreat back to Tunisia.
 Eventually Dwight Eisenhower (SA) and Bernard Montgomery
(GB) were able to trap Rommel’s troops in Tunisia.
 Allies gained complete control of Northern Africa and Suez Canal
Back to more independence
 Independence Movement
 Grew tremendously after WWII. Most Africans no longer
accepted being under the control of European Countries
 Pan Africanism: Cultural unity of people of African heritage in
their struggle for freedom.
 Europe’s Response
 Not all European countries were so eager to give up their
lands in Africa
British Colonies in Africa
 Ghana
 Kwame Nkrumah (en-KROO-muh) was the leader and began to organize
political change.
 Boycotts turned into riots…eventually stopped by GB
 Convention Peoples Party (CPP): Founded by Nkrumah and was determined
to get immediate self-government
 In 1957, the Gold Coast was given its freedom from Great Britain….renamed
Ghana to celebrate African heritage
 Kenya
 Countries with more white settlers (like Kenya) were more against giving
African’s any sort of self rule.
 Arguments over who would control the wealthy land that coffee was grown
on (whites had control of it).
 This led to a bloody conflict between the Kikuyu (Kenya’s largest ethnic
group) and the whites/Africans that were loyal to GB.
 Jomo Kenyatta: Leader of the Mau Mau (secret Kikuyu group) was
imprisoned..eventually freed in 1961.
 Kenyatta easily won election in 1964…Kenya was free
Post Independence Africa
 Ghana and Political Violence
 Kwame Nkrumah: Leader of Ghana…took control of cocoa (very
profitable, made a ton of money and power)
 Turned Ghana into a one-party state and had absolute power.
 Cocoa prices fell, Ghana lost money and Nkrumah turned violent
towards his own people.
 Military Coup (takeover) forced Nkrumah out of power
 Jerry Rawlings: brought back civilian rule to Ghana
 Transition was not an easy thing for people of Ghana but today Ghana
is a stable democracy in West Africa
British Colonies in Africa
 Central Africa
 South Rhodesia: Large white population; granted self
government during the 1920’s.
 North Rhodesia and Nyasaland: Mostly black, governed by GB
 GB attempted to unite all 3 of them…did not work.
 Change
 North Rhodesia became Zambia
 Nyasaland became Malawi
 South Rhodesia
 South Rhodesia (mostly white) would not give up its
control…led to civil unrest and fighting.
 In 1980 Robert Mugabe won an election and made turned
South Rhodesia into Zimbabwe
French Colonies
 Post WWII
 French Union: All the French colonies were united. They were
also able to send representatives to French National Assembly in
Paris.
 Not really true independence….leaders like Leopold Senghor
(Senegal), Felix Houphouet-Boigny (Ivory Coast) and Sekou Toure
(Guinea) began to demand more change.
 French Response (1958)
 Charles de Gaulle (French President) gave colonies a choice: be
apart of French Community (receive aid from France) or be
independent (cut off all ties with France/aid)…
 Guinea was the only one to cut ties…they became isolated and
turned to the USSR for aid.
 This freaked out France…let all the other countries have their
independence in 1960.
 Today
 France is intervening in the Central African Republic
Belgian and Portuguese
Colonies
 Differences in Opinion
 Both Belgium and Portugal did not want to give any self-rule to their
African colonies….different than GB and France.
 This led to more violence
 Belgian Congo
 Belgium did not want to give up great wealth in timber and mineral
resources of Congo.
 Congo was made up of many different regions/tribes
 Began to unite during and after WWII.
 Violent uprisings began in 1959…granted independence in 1960. Problem
was that the Congo was made up of so many different groups of people.
 Patrice Lumumba: Won the first election…all non African’s feared him
and immediately left the country…caused Congo to go into Civil War.
 Joseph Mobutu: Military leader who overthrew Lumumba and ran the
country into the 1990s. Renamed to Zaire.
 Today it is called the Democratic Republic of Congo
Belgian and Portuguese
Colonies
 Portugal
 Would not give any sort of self government to its colonies
 Response
 African leaders in Portuguese Guinea, Portuguese West African and
Portuguese East Africa all began to form liberation armies to fight
against the Portuguese.
 Wars ended when leaders of Portugal were overthrown in 1974…new
leaders took Portugal out of Africa.
 Guinea-Bissau, Angola, Mozambique all were created and all had
problems.
Country of South Africa
• Creation
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Formed from two British and two Boer territories.
White ruled country and was mostly independent.
• Segregation
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Whites and non-whites were legally segregated. Country
was made up of 75% non-whites and 25% whites.
Whites were the only ones allowed to govern the country
and also owned most of the land.
By law non-whites could only hold low paying manual
labor jobs.
Apartheid: Government policy that created segregation
and economic exploitation in South Africa.
Country of South Africa
 Protests against Apartheid
 African National Congress (ANC): Started a non-violent
protests of policies…violently stopped by the South African
Government. (Sharpeville—60 protestors dead)
 Nelson Mandela: Became a leader of the ANC…and was
arrested in 1962, sentenced to life in prison for treason
against the South African government.
 South Africa withdrew all ties from GB at this time
 Policies continued to get worse and worse…police even
gunned down elementary age children protesting having to
speak the same language.
 By the 1980s…country was a mess with protest
Country of South Africa
 Changes
 F.W. de Klerk: elected President of South Africa in 1989. He
lifted some of the apartheid laws and freed members of the
ANC. (Mandela)
 Violence continued among many different groups of people
(blacks against blacks, whites against whites)
 Nelson Mandela: Won the first all-race election in 1994…had
many issues (poverty and AIDS).
 Mandela just passed away last week
Post Independence Ethnic
Violence
 Why Ethnic Violence
 Europeans had group people together that had no common
heritage..would lead to internal fighting
 Nigeria
 By 1963, Nigeria was essentially divided into 4 separate areas
(different groups lived in those areas)
 Eastern portion of Nigeria tried to leave the country to form its own
country called (Biafra).
 Civil War followed, millions of Biafra’s died
 Nigeria remained a whole country.
 Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country and has one of the fastest
growing/largest economies in Africa.
Post Independence Ethnic
Violence
 Rwanda, Burundi and Zaire
 Rwanda and Burundi: Tensions began to grown between two
groups (Tutsi’s and Hutu’s)
 Tutsi’s had long been favored by the Europeans b/c they
believed they had come from white decent.
 Generally, there is very little difference between to the two
groups.
 A genocide in Rwanda resulted in the Hutu’s killing and raping
between 800,000-1,000,000 Tutsi’s (20% of population). This
was a result of Rwanda’s Hutu President’s plane being shot
down.
 Eventually the Tutsi’s turned the tide and were able to force
out the Hutu’s (and kill) hundreds of thousands of them. Most
of the refugees went to neighboring Zaire.
Post Independence Ethnic
Violence
 Continued Violence
 The Rwandan Hutu refugee’s did not get along with
the Tutsi’s that were native to Zaire.
 Tutsi’s and other groups fought back against the Hutu
refugees and the government of Zaire (led by Mobutu
Sese Seko).
 Eventually the Tutsi and anti-Mobutu forces won
 Laurent Kabila was the new ruler and Zaire became the
Democratic Republic of Congo.
 The Democratic Republic of Congo has had tremendous
violence towards women and others. Awful place
today!
 UN is now trying to keep the peace against the Hutu’s
that live along the border between DRC and Rwanda
Problems
 Economic Problems
 Limited Economies: Many African countries were dependent
on 1 crop or industry.
 Ghana (Cocoa), Nigeria (Oil), Zambia (Copper), Sudan (Cotton),
DRC (Cobalt)
 This has caused most African countries to really struggle
financially….led to extreme poverty throughout a good majority
of the continent.
 Nigeria and South Africa are two of the economic success
stories from Africa.
 Population and Environmental Problems
 Desertification: spread of the desert….aided by cutting down of
trees.
 Droughts have brought starvation to millions of people
 AIDS and Ebola virus have killed millions as well
US and Soviet Involvement
• Angola
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Civil War that was aided on both sides by the United States and the USSR
• Namibia
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Became independent when Cuban forces withdrew from the country
• Ethiopia
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Overthrew emperor in 1974, turned to a Marxist form of government with
the help of USSR. (liked them better than Somalia)
• Somalia
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Socialist government also supported by the USSR.
• General Help
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Both Somalia and Ethiopia called on foreign aid from both the USA and
USSR during awful droughts during the 1980s
US and Soviet Involvement
 Collapse of Soviet Union (1991)
 Led to a collapse in governments in both Ethiopia and
Somalia.
 Somalia: Fell into an awful civil war. Foreign aid to the
people of Somalia was denied…led to US involvement in
1992-1993.
 Other Current Issues
 Arab Spring (Egypt, Libya) in 2011-2013
 Benghazi Attacks
 Genocide in the Sudan (Darfur)