Why here?

Kingdom of Axum [ ]

Berbers GOLD SALT Gold-Salt Trade

Gold “Money”, Ghana/Ivory Coast Ghana Empire [4c-11c]

Salt

Mali Empire [13c-15c] GOLD SALT Why here?

Timbuktu-”Heavenly Clay”

Marketplace near the Niger River

Songhai Empire [15c-16c] GOLD SALT

Benin Empire [15c-19c]

Bronze Heads from Benin (16c)

Benin Bronze Leopard

Bantu Migrations: 1000 BCE To 500 CE

Islamic Invasions

African Trade [15c-17c]

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

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

The “White Man’s Burden”?

Dealing with animism belief that nature has soul: the belief that things in nature, e.g. trees, mountains, and the sky, have souls or consciousness

King Leopold II: The Belgian Congo (r – 1909)

Harvesting Rubber

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

Belgium’s Stranglehold on the Congo

Berlin Conference of Another point of view? 

Africa 1890

Berlin Conference of How to control the colonies? Used rival tribe to help control regions Separate traditional tribes and cultures Lock economies into “one commodity” systems i.e.. cash crops and raw materials

Africa in 1914