CLOSED AFRICA

Imperialism

African Trade [15c-17c]

Pre-19c European Trade with Africa

Closed Africa

Escarpments – steep cliffs prevented entry into central Africa 

Cataracts – Large waterfalls on many African rivers; Ex. Nile, Congo, Zambezi

Boats cannot sail up many rivers Early Europeans did not explore the land

Disease

Tropical Climate: Breeding Ground for Disease:  Malaria (mosquitoes) Sleeping Sickness – Tsetse Fly River blindness – Flies Bilharzia – snails/parasite worms – bladder

infections Guinea Worm Blinding Trachoma Ebola

Imperialism

Imperialism – a policy in which a strong nation seeks to dominate other countries politically, economically, or socially.

IndustrialRevolution

Source forRaw

Materials

Markets forFinishedGoods

EuropeanNationalism

MissionaryActivity

Military& NavalBases

EuropeanMotives

For Colonization

Places toDump

Unwanted/Excess Popul.

Soc. & Eco.Opportunities

HumanitarianReasons

EuropeanRacism

“WhiteMan’s

Burden”

SocialDarwinism

Motives:

Economic – industrial competition, raw materials.Political – rivalries grew in Europe. Increase

in nationalism in European countries.

Religious – spread Christianity.

Industrial Revolution

European countries needed to search for new markets and raw materials. Led to competition for colonies (Africa).

Social Darwinism

• Charles Darwin’s ideas about evolution• “survival of the fittest” • Justification for imperialist expansion.• Racism – the belief that one race is superior

to others.• White Man’s Burden

Social Darwinism

The “White Man’s Burden”A poem by Rudyard Kipling

The supposed or presumed responsibility of white people to govern and impart their culture to non-white people, often advanced as a justification for European colonialism.

Missionaries

• Major push by European missionaries to convert people in Asia, Africa, and the Pacific Islands to Christianity.

What Open’s the Heart of Africa?

Reasons Wars!

• Technologically superior Maxim machine gun. Invented (1884) 1st automatic gun

Europeans had built steamboats, railroads, and cables in order to gain control of Africa.

 Europeans developed drugs (like quinine) to prevent malaria (1829).

 Europeans manipulated rival African groups to fight one another.

European Explorers in Africa

19c Europeans Map the Interior of Africa

Where Is Dr. Livingstone?

DoctorLivingstone,I Presume?

Sir Henry Morton Stanley

Dr. David Livingstone was a Scottish Congregationalist pioneer medical missionary with the London Missionary Society and an explorer in Africa.

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

Scramble for Africa

King Leopold of Belgium claimed central Africa claiming he was doing it to protect the natives from Arab slavers and to open the heart of African to Christian missionaries and western capitalists

The area he controlled, the Congo River Basin, is now modern-day Democratic Republic of Congo

King Leopold II:(r. 1865 – 1909)

Belgium’s Stranglehold on the Congo

• The king unleashed new horrors on the African continent.

• He turned his “Congo Free state” into a massive labor camp made a fortune for himself from the harvest o rubber.

• He contributed in a large way to death of perhaps 10 million innocent people in the process.

• Congo’s soldiers have never moved away from the role allocated to them by Leopold which was to force, coerce, torment, and rape an unarmed civilian population.

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

Berlin Conference

MMMMM…Give Me Some of the Cake

Berlin Conference

(1884-1885). 14 nations met in Germany (no African

nations invited to conference).  The Europeans carved Africa into

colonies.  Set future rules on acquiring territories.

Berlin Conference of 1884-1885

Another point of view?

Berlin

Conference

of 1884-1885

European Colonization/Decolonization Patterns

Africa

1890

Africa

in

1914

Invitees

 The 14 attending conference: 1. Austria-Hungary. 8. Netherlands.2. Belgium. 9. Portugal.3. Denmark. 10. Russia.4. France. 11. Spain.5. Germany. 12. Sweden-Norway6. Great Britain. 13. Turkey.7. Italy. 14. United States.

  RED / BOLD FACE ARE THE MAJOR

COUNTRIES INVOLVED AT THE TIME