History of Sub-Saharan Africa 10

History of Sub-Saharan Africa

In this module, you will learn about the history of sub-Saharan Africa—African south of the Sahara and the early humans.

During the Stone Age, the early inhabitants of Africa learned to make tools and to adapt to their environments.

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Human Beginnings in Africa

Human Beginnings  The oldest humanoid remains ever discovered were found in East Africa. Anthropologists believe humans first developed in Africa and spread from there to the rest of the world.

Early Human Sites  The Stone Age was a long period of human development. As the name suggests, people during this period made tools and weapons out of stone—or sometimes bone—because they had not yet learned to shape metals.

Olduvai GorgeThe most famous Stone Age site in Africa. This steep canyon is located on the Serengeti Plain in northern Tanzania.Anthropologists have discovered fossil that remains of more than 60 hominids, or early ancestors of humans. Examined this have given scientists their clearest view of how early humans developed and changed.

Anthropologists have discovered the oldest known hominid remains at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. A freshwater spring in the gorge attracted animals. Early people could hunt these animals for food as well as materials for shelter and clothing.

The first major discovery at Olduvai Gorge was made in 1959. In this gorge found a hominid skull more than 1.5 million years old.These early hominids walked on two legs but had much smaller brains than modern humans. About a year later, people found the bones of another hominid. This one, was from a more developed species of hominids. Homo habilis, or “handy man" was more closely related to modern humans than their earlier finds. They also believed it had a larger brain than earlier hominids.

Stages in Human DevelopmentFour major groups of hominids appeared in Africa between 5 million and about 200,000 years ago. Each group was more advanced than the one before it and could use better tools.

During the Stone and Iron Ages, people learned to make increasingly complex tools and formed Africa’s first societies.

The Stone and Iron Ages

The Later Stone Age

The Middle Stone Age

The Early Stone Age

African anthropology divide the Stone Age into three periods.

The Iron AgeThe Stone Age ended when people learned how to shape metal into tools. Historians believe the Nok people of West Africa were among the first on the continent to learn how to work with iron.Iron was the most common metal used to make tools in Africa. Iron ore can be found in many parts of Africa, and iron tools are both very strong and very sharp.

As people moved into and settled various parts of Africa, they developed distinct cultures. Some were agricultural, while others were based on hunting.

Africans Adapt to Different Environments

Savana Culture

Desert Culture

Forest Culture

Cultures

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Kingdoms in Africa

Aksum was a major trading power. Centuries later, the descendants of people from Aksum formed the kingdom of Ethiopia.

One of the new kingdoms that developed was Aksum, located near the Red Sea in northeast Africa. This location made it easy to transport goods over water, and Aksum became a major trading power as a result.

Askum

Christianity became the major religion in Aksum and Ethiopia.

Christian Kingdoms in Africa

Ghana, an empire in West Africa, gained control of the valuable trade routes. As a result, Ghana became a powerful state. Ghana lay between the vast Sahara and deep forests. In this location, they were in a good position to trade in the region’s most valuable resources—gold and salt.

Ghana Controls Trade

Ghana was rich and powerful, but by the end of the 1200s the empire had collapsed. The major factors contributed to its end.

• The first factor was invasion from a Muslim group called the Almoravids.
• The second factor in Ghana’s decline was an indirect result of the Almoravid conquest.

Ghana’s Decline

Rising from the ruins of Ghana, Mali (MAH-lee) took over the trade routes of West Africa and grew into a powerful state.

Mali Builds on Ghana’s Foundation

Sundiata built up an army and won his country’s independence. He then conquered kingdoms, including Ghana, in the 1230s. After Sundiata conquered Ghana, he took over the salt and gold trades. He even introduced a valuable new crop—cotton.

Sundiata Makes Mali an Empire

Even as the empire of Mali was reaching its height, a rival power was growing in the area. That rival was the Songhai (SAHNG-hy) kingdom. From their capital at Gao, the Songhai participated in the same trade that had made Ghana and Mali so rich.

Songhai Takes Over

As the Songhai gained in wealth, they expanded their territory and built an empire. Songhai’s expansion was led by Sunni Ali as ruler, Sunni Ali worked to unify and enlarge his empire. He added many lands that had been part of Mali, including the wealthy trade cities Timbuktu and Djenné.

Building an Empire

Historians use the name Bantu as a way to identify 400 ethnic groups with origins in West Africa. The word bantu means “people” in many of the languages that these groups spoke.

Bantu Kingdoms

As they settled in parts of central and southern Africa, some Bantu groups formed kingdoms. One such kingdom was Great Zimbabwe, founded by the Shona people around the year 1000.

Great Zimbabwe

Another powerful Bantu kingdom formed in Central Africa in the 1300s. Located along the Congo River, the Kongo Kingdom became large and powerful. From their capital at Mbanza, Kongo’s rulers oversaw the growth of a profitable trade network

The Kongo Kingdom

Africa Kingdoms

AFRICA IN GLOBAL TRADE

Africa’s wealth and mineral resources attracted the attention of traders from other parts of the world, whose actions eventually led to the enslavement of millions of Africans.

Africa in Global Trade

Ships used in trading along the East African coast.

Bantu-speaking people made their way to Africa’s eastern coast, they built small villages, where people farmed and fished to survive. Trade led to the spread of Islam in East Africa.

Trade in East Africa

East Africa drew the attention of traders from Asia. Among these traders were Muslims from India, Persia, and Arabia.They came to Africa in search of exotic African goods and new markets for products from their homelands. By selling the visiting merchants such products as ivory, gold, tortoise shells, and animal skins, African villagers became skilled traders themselves.

Trade Cities

Muslim traders from Arabia and Persia settled down in many of these coastal trading cities.Africans, Arabs, and Persians lived near each other and worked together. One result of this closeness was the spread of Islam through East Africa. People at all levels of society, from workers to rulers, adopted Islam.

Trade Cities

Arab ideas had begun to influence architectural styles in East Africa. As the cultures grew closer, their speech began to reflect their new relationship.Some Africans, who spoke mostly Bantu languages, adopted many Arabic and Persian words. In time, the languages blended into a new language, Swahili.

Arab Influence in East Africa

Muslim traders were first drawn to Africa by luxury goods such as gold and ivory. But they found that they could also make large profits by selling enslaved people. Many became servants in the homes of wealthy citizens, while others were sent further to India to become soldiers.

East African Slave Trade

Explorers set sail from Europe, many of these explorers hoped to find new trade routes to places like India and China. Some Portuguese explorers set out to sail around Africa, during their journeys, many landed at spots along the African coast. Some of these explorers soon found that they could get rich without ever reaching India or China.

The Arrival of Europeans

However, most Europeans did not believe they could find gold in Africa. When the Portuguese reached the coasts of West Africa, however, they learned that the stories had been true. Africa did have gold, and the Europeans wanted it.

For centuries, Europeans had heard rumors of golden kingdoms in Africa. Those rumors began in the 1300s when Mansa Musa, the ruler of Mali, set out on his famous hajj, or Muslim pilgrimage, to Mecca.

Rumors of Gold

The Atlantic Slave Trade

Although slavery had existed for centuries in Africa, the arrival of Europeans in West Africa led to a drastic increase in the demand for slaves. Europeans wanted slaves to put to work on plantations, or large farms, in the Americas. These slaves were then put in chains and loaded onto ships.

Beginnings of the Slave Trade

The European slave trade in Africa had devastating consequences. It led to a drastic decrease in Africa’s population. Historians estimate that 15 to 20 million African slaves were shipped to the Americas against their will.

Effects of the Slave Trade

Trade in gold, ivory, and slaves made many Portuguese merchants very rich.

European Colonies in Africa

The first European colony in West Africa was the Gold Coast, established by the Portuguese in 1482. Most colonies in West Africa were named after the products traded there.

Colonies in West Africa

Imperialism and Independence

When Europeans first arrived in Africa in the 1400s, they hoped to get rich through trade. For centuries, controlling the trade of rare products from distant lands had been the surest road to wealth in Europe. The merchants who brought spices, silks, and other goods from Asia had been among the richest people on the continent.

New Involvement in Africa

By the 1880s Europeans had decided that the best way to get resources was to create new colonies. They wanted these colonies to be located in places that had abundant resources, one such place was Africa.

The Quest for Raw Materials

Since the slave trade had ended in the early 1800s, few Europeans had paid much attention to Africa. Unless they could make a huge fortune in Africa, most people did not care what happened there. As factory owners looked for new sources of raw materials, though, some people took another look at Africa. For the first time, they noticed its huge open spaces and its mineral wealth.Once again, Europeans rushed to Africa to establish colonies. Most of the new colonists who headed to Africa in the 1800s were entrepreneurs, or independent business people. In Africa, they built mines, plantations, and trade routes with the dream of growing rich.

The Quest for Raw Materials

Though they were in Africa to get rich, the European entrepreneurs who moved there frequently became involved in local affairs. Often, they became involved because they thought their ideas about government and culture were better than native African ways. As a result, they often tried to impose their own ideas on the local people. This sort of attempt to dominate a country’s government, trade, or culture is called imperialism.

Cultural Interference

European imperialists justified their behavior by claiming that they were improving the lives of Africans. In fact, many Europeans saw it as their duty to introduce their customs and values to what they saw as a backward land. This type of thinking is called ethnocentrism. It is the belief that one’s own group or culture is better or more important than others. Europeans forced Africans to assimilate, or adopt, many elements of European culture. As a result, thousands of Africans became Christian and learned to speak European languages.

Cultural Interference

Though the early imperialists in Africa were entrepreneurs, national governments soon became involved as well. Their involvement was largely the result of rivalries between countries. Each country wanted to control more land and more colonies than its rivals did. As a result, countries tried to create as many colonies as they could and to block others from creating colonies. For example, France began to form colonies in West Africa in the late 1800s. Seeing this, the British hurried to the area to form colonies of their own. Before long, Germany and Italy also sought to control land in West Africa. They did not want to be seen as less powerful than either France or Britain.

Government Involvement

Desperate to have more power in Africa than their rivals, several European countries rushed to claim as much land there as they could. Historians refer to this rush to claim land as the Scramble for Africa. The Europeans moved so quickly to snap up land that by 1914 most of Africa had been made into European colonies. Only Ethiopia and Liberia remained independent.

The Scramble for Africa

Desperate to have more power in Africa than their rivals, several European countries rushed to claim as much land there as they could. Historians refer to this rush to claim land as the Scramble for Africa. The Europeans moved so quickly to snap up land that by 1914 most of Africa had been made into European colonies. Only Ethiopia and Liberia remained independent.

The Scramble for Africa

For many years Europeans competed aggressively for land in Africa. Conflicts sometimes arose, to prevent these conflicts from developing into wars, Europe’s leaders agreed to meet and devise a plan to maintain order in Africa. They hoped this meeting would settle disputes and prevent future conflicts. The meeting European leaders held was called the Berlin Conference.

The Berlin Conference

The Berlin Conference was intended to prevent conflicts over African territory, but it was not completely successful. In the late 1890s war broke out in South Africa between British and Dutch settlers. Each group had claimed the land and wanted to drive the other out.

The Boer War

Dutch farmers called Boers had arrived in South Africa, there they had established two republics.In 1886 gold was discovered near the Orange River in South Africa. Suddenly, the land on which the Boers had been living became highly desirable.

The Boer War

Those who wanted to control South Africa after gold was discovered were the British. In 1899 the British tried to make the Boers’ land part of the British Empire. The Boers resisted, and war broke out. The Boers did not think they could defeat the British in a regular war. Instead, the Boers decided to wage a guerrilla war, one based on sneak attacks and ambushes. Through these tactics, the Boers quickly defeated several British forces and gained an advantage in the war.

The Boer War

The Europeans thought the Berlin Conference and the Boer War would put an end to conflict in Africa. They had overlooked the African people. For centuries, many Africans had fought against the slave trade. Now they fought against being ruled by Europeans. They refused to peacefully give up their own cultures and adopt European ways.

African Resistance

As a result, the Europeans who entered African territory often met with resistance from local rulers and peoples. Europeans were able to end most of these rebellions quickly with their superior weapons. However, two well-organized peoples, the Zulu and the Ethiopians, caused more problems for the Europeans.

African Resistance

Although most resistance to European imperialism was ended, one kingdom managed to remain free from European control. That kingdom was Ethiopia. It is the only country in Africa never to have been a European colony. Its success in fighting the Europeans was due largely to the efforts of one man, Emperor Menelik II.

Ethiopian Resistance

One of the most famous groups to resist the Europeans was the Zulu, a leader named Shaka had brought various Zulu groups together into a single nation.After Shaka’s death, the Zulu nation began to weaken. Even without Shaka’s leadership, the fierce Zulu army successfully fought off the British for more than 50 years. In 1879, however, the British attacked the Zulu in force. Their superior weapons helped the British soundly defeat the Zulu in a few months. The Zulu lands were made into a new British colony.

Zulu Resistance

In the 20th century that attitude began to change. Across Africa, people in European colonies began to call for—and eventually gain—their independence. This call was largely the result of increased nationalism, or devotion and loyalty to a country.

Many Africans were understandably unhappy with European control of their lands. For centuries, they had ruled their own kingdoms. After several rebellions had been put down, however, many people had resigned themselves to being colonies.

Nationalism and Independence