NAME:________________________________
Africa – pt 2
Africa during the European Era
Chapters 3-6
Mr. Scheetz
Mr. Mostert
2
Cumulative Content
1. Africa’s vast geography has resulted in a huge variety of cultures. Despite this variety, one of
the common features of most African cultures is the central value of the village, extended family,
clan, or kin group to each culture.
2. The slave trade was the first case of prolonged contact between Europeans and Africans. The
exploration of Africa also led to the discovery of the Americas as Europeans sought a faster route
to Asia than rounding Africa. With the discovery of the Americas, labor was in such great need
to farm the vast Americas that millions of Africans were shipped to the New World as slaves.
3. The period of European imperialism was largely the result of the industrial revolution. As the
Europeans began outpacing Africans technologically, Europeans took over African lands rather
than trading for their labor. European rule was largely destructive as it disrupted the African
governments, economic structures, and cultural patterns.
4. In addition to struggling with corrupt governments and economies dependant on Western
factories, Sub-Saharan Africa faces an AIDS epidemic far worse than in any other region in the
world.
5. One of the most famous examples of the cultural interaction in Africa is the policy of apartheid
in South Africa which enforced a strict segregation of the races.
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Study Guide
Slave Trade
Chapter 4, Section 3
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
What were the causes of the triangle trade?
What was the triangle trade?
What were Africans’ roles in the slave trade?
What good was most commonly traded for slaves? Why is this important?
What were conditions like on slave ships?
During what century did the triangle trade reach its peak?
What events in Europe led to the end of the slave trade?
What were the effects of the triangle trade?
Define: middle passage, diaspora
Imperialism
Chapter 4, Sections 4 & 5
10. What were the causes of European imperialism in Africa?
11. What is imperialism?
12. What three innovations allowed Europeans to explore the interior of Africa?
13. How did Europeans claim and take over land in Africa?
14. What was imperialism like for Africans? Europeans?
15. How did Europeans govern their African territory?
16. During what century did imperialism reach its peak?
17. What were the effects of European imperialism on Africa?
18. Define: imperialism, Berlin Conference, direct rule, indirect rule
4
1450 AD
1914 AD
5
The Slave Trade – 4.3
pg. 93-96
Slavery BEFORE Europeans
Slavery DURING European Era
VIDEO
1. What is the Middle Passage?
2. Give examples of conditions that existed on slave ships.
3. What was traded in exchange for slaves?
4. Explain the triangle trade.
5. List the steps of the slave trade between life in Africa and life in the New World.
a. Life in Africa
b. –
c. –
d. –
e. Life in New World
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Causes of Atlantic Slave Trade

Actions of Slave Trade

Effects of Slave Trade
7
Confronting the History of the Slave Trade
Historically, West Africa is associated with trading slaves, gold, and ivory. The historical roots of racial
discrimination in the United States today can be traced back to North American slavery and the kidnapping of
more than 20 million Africans.
It is easily assumed, therefore, that the African slave trade pit brutal, gun-wielding European slave traders
against unsuspecting African victims. While the Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, English and French slave traders
were often brutal, they were not always working alone -- many Africans also worked together with European in
the slave trade.
When Europeans first started a trading relationship with West Africans in the late 1400s, Europeans observed
highly-developed governments and well-established kingdoms in Africa. As a result, European military
technology was not strong enough at this time to allow them to force their way into the trade. Therefore it was
most often Africans who controlled the trade.
In fact, Europeans often acted as junior partners to African rulers and merchants in the slave trade. European
trade in West Africa took place most often on ships anchored away from shore and relied on skilled African
canoe-men to transport goods from the coast to the large European ships waiting out at sea. Even in places where
Europeans did step onto African land to trade, their work was slowed by the diseases of tropical Africa. As one
can see, European merchants were rarely in a position to call the shots.
It is important to remember that slavery was a practice that had already existed in Africa before European traders
arrived. Yet, Europeans treated their slaves differently, a property. Slaves owned by whites living in the New
World were treated extremely brutally. Once in European hands, Africans faced being shackled with six hundred
others on slave ships and going to the Americas. Space on the ships was so limited that Africans did not have
enough room to sit up or roll over during their three month voyage across the Atlantic Ocean.
The role of Africans in the slave trade does not minimize the Europeans’ treatment of slaves or racist views,
however. But it is important to remember that Africans are not one group of people. Instead, there are hundreds
of different groups based on language, religion, and ethnicity. Some groups, such as Dahomey and Ashanti, got
very rich and powerful by trading their rivals and enemies.
Understanding the African involvement in the slave trade is important to understanding African history and how
it differs from later interactions with Europeans. But, the horrors of the slave trade should not be forgotten
because of this involvement.
8
Age of European Imperialism & Effects– 4.4, 4.5
pg. 97-101, 102-104
Imperialism =
Causes of European Imperialism
1. Industrial Revolution in Europe

Allows for the quick consumption & production of goods.


2. Desire to Spread Christianity & Western Civilization

for example – White Man’s Burden
3. Competition Fueled by European Nationalism


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Actions of Imperialism
Berlin Conference =
for example – Royal Niger Company Treaty
 Economically, Europeans adopted the attitude that they owned the resources immediately upon
their colonization of Africa. Railroad systems were designed with only extracting material in
mind. Europeans also eliminated native subsistence farming for cash crops. Lastly, Europeans
established a money economy that replaced Africans familiar system of barter and used Africans
as low-wage labor in harsh conditions extracting primary resources.
 Politically, the scramble for Africa resulted in a hasty redrawing of boundaries. Europeans ruled
their colonies in one of two ways by direct rule (European governor) or indirect rule (selecting an
ally indigenous governor). In accordance with European ideals, colonial governments imposed
abstract laws that replaced African political methods of discussion and consensus.
 Socially, Europeans set up social classes that favored whites while building hospitals, schools, and
communication systems. Religiously, missionaries used new hospitals, schools, and churches to
minister Christianity to the native Africans.
Effects of European Imperialism
10
Africa: Imperialism – Summary of the Scramble for Africa
In the 1500s and 1600s Europeans traded along the coasts of Africa. From West African trading posts, they
carried out the transatlantic slave trade that provided labor for plantations and mines in the Americas as local
African rulers supplied prisoners of war to the slave trade.
In an early attempt to colonize Africa, Dutch settlers came to southern Africa in 1652 and established the port of
Cape Town. For the next 150 years, the Boers, as these settlers came to be called, conquered the lands around the
port, which eventually became known as the Cape Colony. Before construction of the Suez Canal, the quickest
sea route to Asia from Europe was around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa. Sensing the
strategic value of Cape Colony, the British seized it in the early 1800s. This colony in southern Africa was an
exception to the rule however.
Until the 1800s Europeans knew little of Africa beyond its northern, western, and southern coasts. Because of
difficult terrain, deadly diseases (such as malaria), and the possibility of wars, Europeans had avoided inland
Africa. However, several technological advances made European exploration of inland Africa easier. The
invention of steam-powered ships made river transportation possible, the discovery of natural ingredient, quinine,
limited the threat of malaria, and the invention of the Maxim machine gun limited African resistance. These
advances coupled with the decline of slavery and the slave trade in the early 1800s gave European nations new
reason to explore Africa.
In the mid-1800s, a few brave explorers began to venture into the African interior. The most famous of these was
Scottish doctor and missionary David Livingstone, who first went to Africa in 1840. For the next 30 years,
Livingstone explored wide tracts of central and eastern Africa, setting up Christian missions and sending back to
Great Britain detailed reports of his discoveries, such as Victoria Falls. When Europeans temporarily lost touch
with Livingstone in the 1860s, the New York Herald hired a British journalist and explorer named Henry Stanley
to track him down. The publicity surrounding the explorations of Livingstone and Stanley generated new interest
in Africa throughout Europe. This interest swelled when subsequent explorers sent back excited reports about the
continent’s abundance of resources.
Reports such as these helped set off a mad European scramble for Africa. Weakened by the population losses of
the slave trade, African states began to trade these natural products, such as palm oil, ivory, rubber, cotton, and
cacao beans, for European manufactured goods. To control this trade and to expand their coastal holdings,
Europeans nations began to push inland in the 1870s. Between 1880 and 1914, the Age of Imperialism had
started in Africa.
One European country after another laid claim to parts of Africa. In 1885, 14 nations met in Berlin, Germany, at
the Berlin Conference to ease tensions about imperialism among European rivals. No Africans were invited to the
meeting, but Europeans agreed to divide the prize King Leopold II of Belgium called “this magnificent African
cake.” By 1914 European nations (especially Great Britain and France) controlled 90 percent of the continent.
As Europe made claims in Africa, old tribal boundaries were redrawn to fit the needs of Europeans. By
maximizing access to natural resources and water transportation routes, the new boundaries often included many
ethnic rivals or divided people belonging to the same ethnic group. With new boundaries drawn, the Europeans
established government systems in order to best control the natural resources of a territory. In many cases,
Europeans chose to govern their African colony with direct rule, where the traditional African leaders were
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removed from power in favor of a European official. In some cases, however, Europeans chose to govern their
African colony with indirect rule, where traditional African leaders remained in power but were forced to carry
out the Europeans’ will.
While governments were established, railroads and schools were built. The railroad systems were simple, usually
making a direct line from the coastal port city to the natural resources. The new schools educated Africans on
Christianity and the virtues of Western civilization. While these institutions served to educate Africans, they also
stripped Africans of their native culture. Examples of European imperialism can be seen in the Congo Basin,
Egypt, and South Africa.
In 1877, Henry Stanley explored the mouth of the Congo River and later described the river as a “grand highway
of commerce to Central Africa.” As a result of Stanley’s exploration, Belgium’s King Leopold II claimed the
Congo region as his own private plantation. He enslaved the Congolese people and had them cut down forests for
rubber trees and kill elephant herds for ivory tusks. In pursuing his ambitions, Leopold stripped the Congo of
many people and resources. Leopold’s brutal control of the Congo lasted about 20 years, despite the world’s
outrage.
While the Belgians were claiming the Congo Basin, the British, the Germans, and the Italians, were doing the
same in East Africa. Even Egypt came under heavy European influence. In 1859 a French entrepreneur, set up a
company to build the Suez Canal. Joining the Mediterranean and Red Seas, this water way became a vital
shortcut between Europe and Asia and was especially valued by the British as an important link to India. In 1875
Great Britain gained effective control of the canal and Egypt as a whole.
In South Africa, conflict developed between the British and Boers of Cape Colony. The Boers resented British
rule, particularly laws that forbade slavery. They believed that they were superior to black Africans and that God
had ordained slavery. As a result, about 10,000 Boers decided to leave Cape Colony rather than live under British
rule. Migrating into the interior, the Boers established two independent republics, the Transvaal and the Orange
Free State. There the constitution of the Transvaal stated, “There shall be no equality in State or Church between
white and black.” As a result Boers fought constantly with their African neighbors.
During the 1880s, British settlers in South Africa moved into the Boer-ruled Transvaal in search of gold and
diamonds. Eager to acquire this wealth for Great Britain, Cecil Rhodes – the prime minister of Cape Colony –
and other British leaders wanted all of South Africa to come under British rule. Growing tensions between the
Dutch Boers and British erupted into a war in 1899 which the British later won. In 1910 Great Britain united the
Transvaal, the Orange Free State, Cape Colony, and Natal into the Union of South Africa. However, the
constitution of this British dominion made it nearly impossible for nonwhites to win the right to vote. Questions
of racial equality set the stage for African independence movements after the Age of Imperialism.
As the Age of Imperialism drew to a close during World War I, Ethiopia and Liberia were the only two African
nations to escape European domination.
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Bellringers
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