WHAP Africa Review
Stone Age: 2 million years ago until 2000 B.C.E.
Paleolithic: “Old Stone Age” is 2 million years ago until 8000 B.C.E.
Neolithic: “New Stone Age” is 8000 B.C.E. until 2000 B.C.E.
Agricultural Revolution: agriculture won over the hunting lifestyle because it’s more
dependable
Environment in Egypt
• “The Gift of the Nile”--90% desert after 3000 B.C.E.
• The drying up process in Egypt gradually forced people to move closer to the
Nile, and Egyptians became very isolated and self-sufficient
• predictable flooding of the Nile created a strip of rich, black soil for agriculture
• since the floods were predictable, Egyptians viewed the universe as orderly and
beneficent.
Environment in Mesopotamia
•“The land between the rivers” which are the Tigris and Euphrates
• In modern day Iraq—now much of it is desert, but near the rivers it is lush
• the plain between them is full of fertile silt from floods
• contains or is bordered by mountains, deserts, and the Persian Gulf
• unpredictable flooding of the rivers that wasn’t always helpful for agriculture,
residents centered religion around pleasing whomever controlled the
environment
Environment in Indus Valley
•Though extremely dry most of the year, two floods per year made two crops
possible
• In modern day India
• obtained some raw materials from the same areas Mesopotamia did
• bordered by Himalaya mountains to the north—isolation from that area, but
located near the sea and had contact because of that
Urban Geography in Egypt
Egypt: Ruling dynasties usually put their capitals near their original power base.
• Memphis (near Cairo) was the capital during the Old Kingdom
• Thebes was the capital during the Middle and New Kingdoms
• Egypt was a land of villages without real cities because everything was an
extension of the palace and central administration.
• Compared with Mesopotamia, far more Egyptians lived in farming villages
• tombs were located on the edge of the desert, freeing up land for farming—this
includes the pyramids.
Urban Geography in Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia: Farmers lived in small villages of a few hundred people (this
provided protection, marriage partners, and sharing of resources)
• this formed an urban center where people in the city depended on the
outlying agriculture for survival (people inside the city had specialized jobs)
• in return, the city provided protection to the outlying areas
• This relationship between a self-governing urban center and the outlying
areas it controlled was called a city-state.
• the city maintained irrigation networks
• the temple is usually found in the center of the city, the king somewhere less
prominent, suggesting the later arrival of an official ruler
Urban Geography in Indus Valley
Indus Valley: two famous urban sites Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa—had high,
thick brick walls, potentially controlled surrounding farmlands and stored
grain/crops inside city walls.
• Most people lived in smaller sites than these large cities.
• cities were technologically advanced—grid street system, drainage systems,
large buildings, uniformity in building styles
Government Structure in Egypt,
Mesopotamia, and Indus Valley
Mesopotamia: originally ruled by the priests
• eventually a ruler we’d call a king replaced the priests as rulers and was backed
by the army
• some kings claimed divinity but that never lasted like in Egypt
• eventually the king was responsible for upkeep and building temples, city walls,
irrigation, and keeping justice.
Egypt: ruled by the Pharaoh under divine kingship
•The government included bureaucrats who kept track of land, labor, products,
people, and taxes
• low level officials, local leaders and other professionals made up the next class
in the government
Indus Valley: writing is undeciphered, so we don’t know, but it’s likely that it was
similar to later groups
Social Structure in Egypt & Mesopotamia
Egypt: less pronounced than in Mesopotamia
• Pharaoh by divine kingship—was considered a god on earth who ensured
the welfare and prosperity of the country. Low level officials followed in
class in the government.
• peasants—vast majority of population made up lowest class, devoted to
agriculture
• Slavery was very limited, had little economic significance
• women seem to have enjoyed more rights and privileges than in
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia: very pronounced social divisions:
1) Free land-owning class included royalty, high ranking officials, warriors,
priests
2) Dependent farmers and artisans legally attached to others
3) Slaves
•
It seems like women lost social status with agriculture and become lower
class citizens, not on the level of slaves.
Indus Valley: ??? Can we get a translator?
Laws in Egypt and Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia: Hammurabi’s Code
• this written code of law was the most important in Mesopotamia
• based on strict social divisions with severe punishments according
to class
Egypt: The Pharaoh
• Since the Pharaoh ruled by divine kingship he maintained ma’at, or
the authorized order of the universe.
• The Pharaoh acted as the link between gods and people, so no
written laws were necessary.
• women and men could own property, divorce, inherit and will
property
Religious Beliefs/Rituals in Egypt
Egypt: Again, the Pharaoh was seen as a god on earth, or at the very least a
link between gods and people
•Built temples and tombs to win the favor of gods
•Local deities were celebrated in festivals
• household gods were popular, especially those of fertility and happiness
• Egyptians had a huge belief in the afterlife, the journey there was taken
seriously
• The Egyptian Book of the Dead contained the details of burial rituals
• mummies
Religious Beliefs/Rituals in
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia: gods embodied nature and were seen as human-like
• public, state organized religion-priests tended to the images of gods
every day
• ziggurats seem to have religious significance
• amulets have been found on bodies—charms meant to protect the
wearer
• festivals were many and popular with all classes
• the unpredictable flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates led people to
worship nature in fear of it
Cosmic Order in Egypt and
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia: the universe is unpredictable and should be feared
• the Babylonian Creation Myth says Marduk and Tiamat (sea) fought. Marduk
cut up Tiamat and from her body made the sky and the earth, celestial bodies
and humans
• everything Mesopotamians did was to make order of this and appease the
gods to promote better agriculture and fertility.
• People are always at the mercy of the gods, who embody the forces of
nature.
Egypt: The earth is in cycles of renewal (based on the predictable flooding of
the Nile)
• the sky was a great ocean surrounding the world, the Sun god Re traversed
in a boat all day and went to the underworld at night
• the predictability of the Nile helped Egyptians feel the world was a
predictable, benevolent place.
Nubia: the ancient connection between Sub-Saharan
Africa and the north
•Culture has traditionally been seen as derivative of Egyptian culture,
but now it seems Nubia drew influence from Sub-Saharan Africa too.
• Egypt sought Nubian resources, especially gold. They also obtained
Sub-Saharan products that could only have come through Nubia
• During Old Kingdom Egypt Nubia was used as contact to southern
Africa
• During Middle Kingdom Egypt Nubia came under Egyptian control,
especially in gold mines. They gave the name Kush to the area
• During the New Kingdom (an expansionist time) Egyptian domination
was thorough—for 500 years.
• Egypt’s weakness after 1200 B.C.E. allowed the Nubians to take over
Egypt. The Kingdom of Meroe ruled for a long time with strong
southern Africa roots (i.e. women helped rule)
More on New Kingdom Egypt; 1532-1070 B.C.E.
•1640 B.C.E. Egypt came under foreign control from the Hyksos
• Hyksos intermarried with Egyptians, had military technologies like horsedrawn chariot and composite bow.
• The century of foreign rule hurt Egyptian pride and New Kingdom Egypt
was an aggressive expansionist state
• occupied territories became buffers against outsiders
• a period of innovation
Important Rulers:
•Hatshepsut: female ruler, tried to appear as a male, her image in artifacts is often
defaced
• Akhenaten; some credit him with inventing monotheism, but it’s more likely he
was trying to reistate divine authority in kingship
• Ramesses II, The Great; monumental building projects, fought the Hittites
Early Sub-Saharan Africa
•Geographical barriers make travel and trade difficult in Africa
(rainforests, rivers, mountains and rifts, and 50 degrees of
latitude/climate change
• “Great traditions” cultural heritages shared by the educated elites
within a region—written language, common legal and belief systems,
ethical codes, intellectual attitudes
• “small traditions” are local customs and beliefs
• Some of the broad commonalities of African life;
• cultivation of land with hoe and stick
• musical rhythm, many instruments
• kingship in the numerous kingdoms commonly was isolated from
the community
• social structure in different kingdoms show resemblences
Bantu Migrations
•“Bantu” means “people” in most of the 300 languages
found south of the equator, suggesting a common ancestor
• Bantu people moved north and south of the equator (but
not far west!) probably originating in modern
Niger/Cameroon
• probably spread the knowledge of iron as they moved
• lived in permanent villages, cultivated yams and had
domesticated animals
• 500-600 B.C.E. there was a massive transfer of Bantu
traditions in every direction—see map p. 183.
• trans-Saharan caravan routes eventually spread into
significant trade patterns, linking north to south; southerners
supplied salt, equatorial traders supplied nuts, palm oil
Tropical Africa, 1200-1500
•So much wild food could be found in tropical Africa that some found it preferable
to live off it rather than domesticate plants and animals
• in areas too arid for agriculture, herding animals was very common
• Ibn Battuta—a Muslim scholar from Morocco who wanted to travel the Muslim
world. He completed a pilgrimage to Mecca and traveled through the Middle
East, then explored the Red Sea and East Africa.
• many useful domesticated plants and animals spread around the tropics.
Grains and tubers from west, bananas from Southeast Asia, yams (Asia), coffee
from Ethiopia (brought to Middle East)
• Farming was extensive rather than intensive (clear new lands rather than reuse
land and rotate crops)
• Iron was most abundant in tropics, copper and alloys were especially important
to Africa. Large quantities of gold were also exported across the Sahara, Red
Sea, and Indian Ocean
Islamic Empires in Africa 1200-1500
•Mali in West Africa was the largest and richest African empire at the time
• Used Islamic military and administrative systems
• founded by an indigenous group but influenced peacefully by Islamic merchants
and scholars (Contrast to concurrent Delhi Sultanate, which was forced)
• To the east, Muslim attacks had destroyed Christian Nubia, but couldn’t get
through Ethiopia (remained Christian always)
• The first sub-Saharan ruler to adopt Islam was in Takrur in the far West in 1030,
eventually became Mali
• like Ghana before it, Mali depended on a well-developed agricultural base and
control of trade routes, but it was larger and Muslim
• Mansa Musa, a Muslim trader who made a pilgrimage to Mecca and displayed
Mali’s wealth in the Middle East; he returned to Mali and built mosques, schools
• Mali collapsed because of rebellions, but cities survived and kept Islam alive
Trade in Africa 1200-1500
•Trade expanded steadily along the eastern coast from 1250, creating 30-40
separate city-states by 1500
• The people on the coast adopted words from Arabic and Persian and were
called Swahili
• When Ibn Battuta traveled here he said the most important coastal trading town
was one of the most beautiful in the world
• Another important commercial place was Great Zimbabwe—like Mali, farming
and herding were important, but wealth came from long distance trading
• By 1500 the West Africa city of Timbuktu had over 150 Quranic schools
The Atlantic Circuit/Triangular Trade
•Map p. 470—raw materials from the Americas (sugar, tobacco, silver, furs) were
shipped to Europe where they made manufactured goods and shipped them to
Africa, where gold was shipped to Europe and slaves shipped to the Americas
(Middle Passage), mostly to sugar plantations in the Caribbean.
• by 1700 the volume of maritime exchanges among the Atlantic continents rivaled
the Indian Ocean trade system
• chartered companies such as the Dutch West India Company and the English
Royal African Company ruled the slave trade (map p. 472)
• most slaves died from disease
• African demands were for textiles, hardware, and guns; African kings demanded
substantial fees be paid for slaves, which came usually as prisoners
• Bight of Biafra: an area in the east that participated in the slave trade
European and Islamic Contacts 1550-1800
During the 3 and ½ centuries of contact up to 1800 Africans gave little territory to
Europeans, keeping close watch over any port cities where Europeans traded.
There were two main points of European contact: Angola, a Portuguese colony,
and Cape Colony owned by the Dutch East India Co.
•Songhai Empire of West Africa, after Mali, started pushing influence south,
drawing wealth from the trans-Saharan trade network. Songhai was destroyed by
Morocco in 1591 (couldn’t stand the muskets)
• the Hausa trading cities in central Sudan soon attracted most of the
commercial attention.
• most African slaves in the Muslim world were soldiers and servants. Many
African slaves in the Islamic world were women who served wealthy
households, and a higher amount of children than in the Atlantic slave trade
•A significant difference between number of slaves in the two trades; Between
1550 and 1800 about 8 million Africans were exported on Atlantic slave trade
compared to 2 million in the Islamic trade
• Effects on Africa? Population remained large, localities (behind the Slave coast)
that participated heavily in the slave trade suffered, proportion of fertile women
who were sold hurt population
New African States 1750-1870
Zulu: Shaka created the kingdom in 1818, the most powerful and feared force in
southern Africa
•Shaka expanded his kingdom by raiding his neighbors, seizing their cattle and
children
• to protect themselves, Shaka’s neighbors banded together to create states—
the Swazi kingdom to the north, Lesotho in south (still independent today)
Sokoto Caliphate: in this Muslim area, Islamic rulers had tolerated local religious
practices, but now they wanted to get rid of the rural pagan religions and follow a
jihad to enforce Islamic laws and its spread
•The largest of the new Muslim reform movements was in Hausa and the
conquered states formed the Sokoto Caliphate
• the Sokoto Caliphate became a center of Islamic learning and participated in
the slave trade, increasing slavery in these areas—more than in the Americas
Modernization in Egypt and Ethiopia
Napoleon had invaded Egypt, but left by 1801. The display of European
strength and Egyptian weakness shocked Egyptians, inspiring them to
modernize.
•Napoleon’s successor in Egypt was Muhammad Ali (r. 1805-1848)
• Ali made political, social, economic reforms
• central aim was to give Egypt sufficient military strength to prevent
another European conquest
• used Europeans to help him
• required Egyptian peasants to grow crops for export, demands on them
were harsh
• Egypt became the strongest state in the Islamic world by 1830s,
expertise of the West combined with Islamic religious and cultural traits
Ismail: Ali’s grandson; “My country is no longer in Africa.”
* Egypt’s debts to Britain and France led to occupation
Ethiopia: bought modern weapons from Europe but was still defeated by Britain
European Penetration
French conquest of Algeria: anticipated the general “scramble for Africa”
•Algeria had loaned money to Napoleon during invasion of Europe and
was annoyed that they weren’t getting paid back—severed ties with
France
• A war between Algeria and France went on for years
• Africa’s interior was being explored by private geographical societies,
trying to access the source of Africa’s rivers and assess the mineral
wealth of Africa, as well as convert people to Christianity (Livingstone)
Abolition of the Slave Trade
The value of African trade with other Atlantic continents doubled between 1730s
and 1780s, mostly because of the slave trade
•Reasons why slavery was abolished:
• successful slave revolt in Saint Domingue 1790s (ch. 21) ending slavery in
the largest plantation in the West indies, inspiring slave revolts in the
Americas
• as news of the revolts and repression of them spread, humanitarians
called for its end
• Britain became an ambitious abolitionist country: spend $60 million to end
slave trade, captured slave ships
• the slave trade moved father away and lasted a bit longer
Legitimate trade: exports other than slaves; expanded in Africa, exporting other
items besides slaves, such as palm oil
•Altered the social structure of the coastal trading towns (used many slaves to
get oil!)
• spread of western culture in West Africa—British used Sierra Leone as abolition
base; Liberia was a country of freed American slaves
New Imperialism,1869-1914
~ 150 million people fell under the rule of Europe or U.S. in this time
•Imperial powers used economic and technological means to
reorganize dependent regions and bring them into the world economy
as suppliers of raw materials and as consumers of industrial products
• made these people economically dependent on U.S. and Europe
• Colonizers were competitive with their colonies, wanted to increase
their prestige, and protect their holdings—i.e. India under British rule
• Suez Canal and Egypt: government sold shares in the canal to Britain
to avoid bankruptcy, and Britain occupied sent an army and stayed for
70 years
• Aswan High Dam, captured Nile’s flood and released it throughout the
year, increasing agricultural time
• Most Egyptians felt British rule was worse than Ottoman rule
• Battle of Omdurman in Sudan 1898—40,000 Sudanese died, 48
British—due to increased fire-power gap
Scramble for Africa
• Berlin Conference 1884– every country with colonial ambitions
needed to send troops to Africa and stake a claim—the “scramble for
Africa”
• West Africa: long had big trade, new rulers took advantage of these
networks
• Equatorial Africa had little trade, so rulers farmed out large pieces of
land to private companies, making monopolies on the natural
resources, forced labor
• Southern Africa: had long attracted settlers—Afrikaners (Dutch) on
Cape of Good Hope; thousands of Europeans came when diamonds
were discovered, bringing them into conflict with the Zulu
• British fought Afrikaners but wanted them to rule, so created South
Africa with Afrikaners in charge—unlike other British colonies, this one
had a huge indigenous population
Colonial Africa: Economic, Social, and Political Changes
After World War I Britain, France, Belgium, and South Africa divided Germany’s
African colonies among themselves, and Italy invaded Ethiopia
• In all these situations, changes in landholding were especially disruptive;
Africans were recruited to work on plantations and railroads, those who moved
to cities for more opportunities left behind a lot of women and children in the
interior
• Missionaries were the most common European contact for Africans, a major
attraction being the mission schools
• European colonialism helped the diffusion of Islam through the building of
cities and increased trade
• the contrast between the liberal ideas of Western education and the realities
of racial discrimination under colonial rule added to the rise of nationalism in
Africa
•The African National Congress formed in 1909
• WWII had a big effect on Africans—nationalism was causing people to liberate
their countries
The Struggle for Independence in Africa
•In most of sub-Saharan Africa independence from European rule was achieved
through negotiation.
• Ghana won independence in in 1957 and Britain then granted independence to
its other West African colonies, including Nigeria and Kenya--resisted at first and
then became a very stable country
• French colonies were slow to accept independence from the French
government, wanting slow change
• Ultimately African patriotism prevailed in all of France’s West African and
Equatorial colonies
•South Africa: apartheid (racial separation) was basis of government for many
years—the African National Congress fought against it, including Nelson
Mandela, imprisoned from ‘64 to 1990.
• African homelands, like American Indian reservations were created in parts of
the country
• Africa is in the process of industrializing, which caused lower fertility rates for
the West, so perhaps for Africa as well
• AIDS, water supply, genocides, ethnic conflicts, health care, education…