European Colonialism in Africa

African Trade [15c-17c]

Pre-19c European Trade with Africa

European Motives For Colonization European Nationalism Source for Raw Materials Missionary Activity Industrial Revolution European Motives For Colonization Markets for Finished Goods Military & Naval Bases Social Darwinism European Racism Places to Dump Unwanted/ Excess Popul. Humanitarian Reasons Soc. & Eco. Opportunities “White Man’s Burden”

European Explorers in Africa 19c  Europeans Map the Interior of Africa

European Explorations in mid-19c: “The Scramble for Africa”

Africa in the 1880s

Africa in 1914

Social Darwinism

The “White Man’s Burden” Rudyard Kipling

Take up the White Man's burden-- Send forth the best ye breed-- Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild-- Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child. This famous poem, written by Britain's imperial poet, was a response to the American take over of the Phillipines after the Spanish-American Wa

Take up the White Man's burden-- In patience to abide, To veil the threat of terror And check the show of pride; By open speech and simple, An hundred times made plain To seek another's profit, And work another's gain.

The “White Man’s Burden”?

The Belgian Congo: "King Leopold's Ghost" a best-selling popular history book by Adam Hochschild that explores the exploitation of the Congo Free State by King Leopold II of Belgium between 1885 and 1908.[1]

The Congo Free State or The Belgian Congo

King Leopold II: (r. 1865 – 1909)

Harvesting Rubber

Punishing “Lazy” Workers

5-8 Million Victims! (50% of Popul.) It is blood-curdling to see them (the soldiers) returning with the hands of the slain, and to find the hands of young children amongst the bigger ones evidencing their bravery...The rubber from this district has cost hundreds of lives, and the scenes I have witnessed, while unable to help the oppressed, have been almost enough to make me wish I were dead... This rubber traffic is steeped in blood, and if the natives were to rise and sweep every white person on the Upper Congo into eternity, there would still be left a fearful balance to their credit. -- Belgian Official The baskets of severed hands, set down at the feet of the European post commanders, became the symbol of the Congo Free State. ... The collection of hands became an end in itself. Force Publique soldiers brought them to the stations in place of rubber; they even went out to harvest them instead of rubber... They became a sort of currency. They came to be used to make up for shortfalls in rubber quotas, to replace... the people who were demanded for the forced labour gangs; and the Force Publique soldiers were paid their bonuses on the basis of how many hands they collected.

Belgium’s Stranglehold on the Congo

Berlin Conference of 1884-1885

The Struggle For South Africa

Dutch Landing in 1652

Shaka Zulu (1785 – 1828)

Boers Clash With the Xhosa Tribes Boer Farmer

The Great Trek, 1836-38 Afrikaners

Diamond Mines Raw Diamonds

The Struggle for South Africa

Boer-British Tensions Increase 1877 – Britain annexed the Transvaal. 1883 – Boers fought British in the Transvaal and regained its independence. - Paul Kruger becomes President. 1880s – Gold discovered in the Transvaal

The Boer War: 1899 - 1900 The British The Boers

A Future British Prime Minister British Boer War Correspondent, Winston Churchill

The Struggle for South Africa