History of Africa Summary #1
There were several strong kingdoms in Africa before European colonization, but information about them is
limited because of their reliance on oral history or history that is told through storytelling, but never written down.
When the empires collapsed, so did the knowledge of their societies. Ghana (although not related to the current
country) is one of the great kingdoms and was ruled until the mid-11th century. After the fall of Ghana, the kingdom of
Mali rose to power. Finally, the Songhai Empire rose and fell between 1400 and 1600.
The wealth of these kingdoms came from their control of trade across the Sahara Desert. Arab traders from
North Africa brought salt and copper from mines in the Sahara Desert to West African markets. They traded for gold,
ivory, and slaves.
Europeans began to explore Africa in the 1400s. Sub-Saharan Africa’s physical geography made it difficult to
reach the interior of the continent, so most trading posts were only along the coast. Initially, the Europeans were only
interested in gold and salt. Over time, they began to ship Africans to Europe as slaves. Once the Europeans colonized
the Americas though, there was a huge demand for labor. There was a mass movement of Africans as slave labor from
Africa to the New World from 1500 to around 1850. In your U.S. history classes, you probably focused on the impact of
slavery on the colonies, but what we often overlook is the huge impact this had on Africa. The slave traders wanted the
brightest, strongest and the healthiest people. This may have helped the economies of the Americas for 350 years, but
it devastated Africa.
Since Europeans did not often venture into the interior of Africa, they relied on Africans to capture people in the
interior of Africa and bring them to the coast to sell to Europeans as slaves. For some people this seems a little strange…
that Africans would freely capture and sell other Africans to the Europeans. Africa, however, if full of different ethnic
groups that often fought each other just like Europeans often fought each other. In the beginning of the slave trade,
Europeans were buying those captured during war by a rival group. Eventually the demand for slaves grew so much that
Africans purposefully attacked and kidnapped other groups in order to have people to sell to the Europeans. It is
important to note that slavery was a common practice in Africa after a group of people was captured during a war. The
slavery practiced in Africa, however, was very different from the slavery practiced in the Americas. Slaves in Africa were
often welcomed into the new group, sometimes even marrying within their new community.
1. What is oral history?
2. Why do we not know much about the history of early African civilizations?
3. Why did demand for slaves increase in the 1500’s?
4. How did Europeans get the slaves that they sold?
History of Africa Summary #2
In the late 1800s, Europe also started to look at Africa differently. The Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain and
spread across Europe. The Industrial Revolution is the time period when manufacturing started to be done by machines.
There was a huge increase in manufacturing, and the demand for raw materials also increased significantly. The
Europeans wanted to find and develop Africa’s natural resources to use in their factories. They also wanted to use
farmland for growing cash crops and to use the people for inexpensive labor. In the past, most of the European trading
posts were along the coasts, but the desire for resources to fuel the Industrial Revolution increased exploration and
trade to the interior of the continent.
This was also a time in history where a country’s perceived power was based upon the size of its navy, as well as
the number of colonies it had. European countries, including Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and
Spain all raced to claim land in Africa. This became known as the “land grab”. There were so many European countries
clamoring for land that they decided to divide Africa at the 1884-1885 Berlin Conference. The Europeans divided the
land to exploit it.
What is even more significant to note, is that as the Europeans divided the continent amongst themselves, they
never consulted Africans. In Sub-Saharan Africa, tribal identity is more important than national identity. Despite this,
ethnic groups with little in common or frequent conflict were placed together. Other groups that cooperated with each
other were split apart. As a result of these strange boundaries, there have been many conflicts related to ethnic
tensions over the years. For example, in 1994 Rwanda became the center of international attention when ethnic
differences sparked a conflict in which the Hutus committed genocide against the Tutsis. Genocide is the deliberate
killing of people who belong to a particular racial, political, or cultural group. There have also been several
conflicts in Sudan because of ethnic and tribal differences. These conflicts could not be resolved; therefore in 2011, the
southern portion of the country broke away and formed the country of South Sudan. The conflict in Darfur, which is a
region in the western part of Sudan, has not been resolved though.
In making country borders, the Europeans also ignored natural boundaries, climate patterns, trade routes, patterns of
movement and migration. Many countries are landlocked, which has a tremendous impact on their economies. Like
Latin America, the “land grab” in Africa created many problems in Africa that still exist today.