Scientists believe that Africa was the birthplace of mankind. By 100,000 BC modern humans lived by hunting and gathering with stone tools. From Africa, they spread to Europe.
By 5,000 farming had spread to North Africa. People herded cattle and they grew crops. At that time the Sahara Desert was not a desert. It was a green and fertile area. Gradually it grew drier and became a desert.
Meanwhile, about 3,200 BC writing was invented in Egypt. The Egyptians made tools and weapons of bronze. However by the time Egyptian civilization arose most of Africa was cut off from Egypt and other early civilizations by the Sahara Desert. Sub-Saharan Africa was also hampered by its lack of good harbors, which made transport by sea difficult.
Farmers in Africa continued to use stone tools and weapons however about 600 BC the use of iron spread in North Africa. It gradually spread south and by 500 AD iron tools and weapons had reached what is now South Africa.
About 480 BC the Phoenicians from what is now Lebanon founded the city of Carthage in Tunisia. Carthage later fought wars with Rome and in 202 BC the Romans defeated the Carthaginians at the battle of Zama. In 146 BC Rome destroyed the city of Carthage and made its territory part of their empire.
Meanwhile, Egyptian influence spread along the Nile, and the kingdoms of Nubia and Kush arose in what is now Sudan. The southern Arabian influence spread to Eritrea, Northern Ethiopia, and Eastern Sudan. By 50 AD the kingdom of Axum in the region was civilized. Axum traded with Rome, Arabia, and India. Axum became Christian in the 4th century AD.
Meanwhile, the Roman Empire continued to expand. In 30 BC Egypt became a province of Rome. Morocco was absorbed in 42 AD. However, the rest of Africa was cut off from Rome by the Sahara Desert.
Africa in the Middle Ages
In 642 the Arabs conquered Egypt. In 698-700, they took Tunis and Carthage and soon they controlled all of the coasts of North Africa. The Arabs were Muslims, of course, and soon the whole coast of North Africa converted to Islam. Ethiopia remained Christian but it was cut off from Europe by the Muslims.
After 800 AD organized kingdoms emerged in northern Africa. They traded with the Arabs further north. (Trade with the Arabs led to the spread of Islam to other parts of Africa). Arab merchants brought luxury goods and salt. In return, they purchased gold and slaves from the Africans.
One of the earliest African kingdoms was Ghana (It included parts of Mali and Mauritania as well as the modern country of Ghana). By the 9th century, Ghana was called the land of gold. However, Ghana was destroyed in the 11th century by Africans from further north.
By the 11th century, the city of Ife in Southwest Nigeria was the capital of a great kingdom. From the 12th century, craftsmen from Ife made terracotta sculptures and bronze heads. However, by the 16th century, Ife was declining.
Another African state was Benin. (The medieval kingdom of Benin was bigger than the modern country). From the 13th century, Benin was rich and powerful.
Meanwhile, the kingdom of Mali was founded in the 13th century. By the 14th century, Mali was rich and powerful. Its cities included Timbuktu, which was a busy trading center where salt, horses, gold, and slaves were sold.
However, the kingdom of Mali was destroyed by Songhai in the 16th century. Songhai was a kingdom situated east of Mali on the River Niger from the 14th century to the 16th century. Songhai reached a peak of about 1500 AD. However, in 1591 they were defeated by the Moroccans and their kingdom broke up.
Another great North African state was Kanem-Bornu, located near Lake Chad. Kanem-Bornu rose to prominence in the 9th century and it remained independent till the 19th century.
Meanwhile, the Arabs also sailed down the east coast of Africa. Some of them settled there and they founded states such as Mogadishu. They also settled in Zanzibar.
Inland some people in southern Africa formed organized kingdoms. About 1430 impressive stone buildings were erected in Great Zimbabwe.
Meanwhile in the Middle Ages Ethiopia flourished. The famous church of St George was built about 1200.
Meanwhile, the Portuguese were exploring the coast of Africa. In 1431 they reached the Azores. Then in 1445, they reached the mouth of the River Congo. Finally, in 1488 the Portuguese sailed around the Cape of Good Hope.
Africa 1500-1800
In the 16th century, Europeans began to transport African slaves across the Atlantic. However, slavery was nothing new in Africa. For centuries Africans had sold other Africans to the Arabs as slaves.
However, the trans-Atlantic slave trade grew until it was huge. In the 18th century, ships from Britain took manufactured goods to Africa. They took slaves from there to the West Indies and took sugar back to Britain. This was called the Triangular Trade. (Many other European countries were involved in the slave trade).
Some Africans were sold into slavery because they had committed a crime. However many slaves were captured in raids by other Africans. Europeans were not allowed to travel inland to find slaves. Instead, Africans brought slaves to the coast. Any slaves who were not sold were either killed or used as slaves by other Africans. The slave trade would have been impossible without the cooperation of Africans many of whom grew rich on the slave trade.
Meanwhile, Barbary pirates from the 16th to the 18th centuries from the North African coast robbed Spanish and Portuguese ships. They also took slaves from the coasts of Europe.
In the 16th century, a people called the Turks conquered most of the North African coast. In 1517 they captured Egypt and by 1556 most of the coast was in their hands.
Further, South Africans continued to build powerful kingdoms. The empire of Kanem-Bornu expanded in the 16th century using guns bought from the Turks. However, in the 16th century, Ethiopia declined in power and importance although it survived.
Meanwhile, the Europeans founded their first colonies in Africa. In the 16th century, the Portuguese settled in Angola and Mozambique while in 1652 the Dutch founded a colony in South Africa.
The Races of Africa.
The two main races inhabiting Africa in early times were the Berbers of the Mediterranean coastlands and the Negroes of equatorial Africa. The Berbers (and the ancient Egyptians) were of Hamitic stock - racially Caucasian, with “European" facial characteristics. The Negroes included the small-statured Pygmies. The pygmies, and
a third race - the rather yellow-skinned Bushmen - may have been widely spread over central and southern Africa until they were driven from the most fruitful lands
by the Negroes. The descendants of the Pygmies now inhabit the forests of central Africa. Only small numbers of Bushmen now survive, mainly in the Kalahari desert in
the south.
Between the northern coastlands and equatorial Africa is the Sahara desert. Until the end of the last Ice Age (about 8000 B.C.) the Sahara was a fertile grassland. It then
started to dry up, much of it remaining habitable until about 2000 B.C. The early inhabitants of the Sahara were probably a mixture of Berbers and Negroes. Recently
discovered rock paintings show that cattle keeping was a major occupation in what appears to have been a peaceful life. The paintings also show that music and dancing
were important to these ancient Africans - as they are to the modern Negroes.
Between about 4000 and 2000 B.C., as the desert spread, the peoples of the Sahara gradually emigrated to the north, east, and south though some remained, learning to
live with little water: their descendants are the Berber Tuareg of the desert today (whose men wear veils).
Those who went South settled in the western and central Sudan. (The term Sudan relates to the wide strip of grassland stretching across Africa, south of the Sahara
and Egypt. The western Sudan is separated from the coast to the south by a belt of dense forest.) In the Sudan, the newcomers mixed with other Negro tribes to form
the Bantu-speaking peoples, who gradually spread into central, eastern, and southern Africa. In eastern Sudan, south of Egypt, another civilization arose, starting about 1000 B.C. - that of the Kushites, probably a mixture of Hamitic and Negro stock. Further east is Ethiopia. The Ethiopians were probably of Hamitic origin, mixed later with Arabs from Arabia. Historical times, that is when history is known with reasonable accuracy and some detail, started on widely different dates in the different regions of Africa, very roughly as follows:-
Egypt - about 3000 B.C.
Nush - about 1000 B.C.
Berber North Africa - about 1000 B.C.
Ethiopia - about A.D. 0
Western and Central Sudan - about A.D. 300.
East Africa - about A.D. 700.
The Forest lands south of the Western Sudan - about A.D. 1000.
As mentioned in the foreword, Egypt and Ethiopia (and modern Dutch and British South Africa) are the subjects of separate histories.
African slave trade
The earliest external slave trade was the trans-Saharan slave trade. Although there had long been some trading up the Nile River and very limited trading across the western desert, the transportation of large numbers of slaves did not become viable until camels were introduced from Arabia in the 10th century. At this point, a trans-Saharan trading network came into being to transport slaves north. Unlike in the Americas, slaves in North Africa were mainly servants rather than laborers, and an equal or greater number of females than males were taken, who were often employed as chambermaids to women of harems. It was not uncommon to turn male slaves into eunuchs.
The Atlantic slave trade developed much later, but it would eventually be by far the largest and have the greatest impact. Increasing penetration of the Americas by the Portuguese created another huge demand for labor in Brazil, for sugar cane plantations, farming, mining, and other tasks. To meet this, a trans-Atlantic slave trade soon developed. Slaves purchased from black slave dealers in West African regions known as the Slave Coast, Gold Coast, and Côte d'Ivoire were sold into slavery as a result of tribal warfare. Mighty black kings in the Bight of Biafra near modern-day Senegal and Benin sold their captives internally and then to European slave traders for such things as metal cookware, rum, livestock, and seed grain.
History of North Africa (3500 B.C.E.-1850 C.E.)
Ancient Egypt
Africa's earliest evidence of written history was in Ancient Egypt, and the Egyptian calendar is still used as the standard for dating Bronze Age and Iron Age cultures throughout the region.
In about 3100 B.C.E., Egypt was united under a ruler known as Mena, or Menes, who inaugurated the first of the 30 dynasties into which Egypt's ancient history is divided: The Old, Middle Kingdoms and the New Kingdom. The pyramids at Giza (near Cairo), which were built in the Fourth dynasty, testify to the power of the pharaonic religion and state. The Great Pyramid, the tomb of Pharaoh Akhufu also known as Khufu, is the only surviving monument of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Ancient Egypt reached the peak of its power, wealth, and territorial extent in the period called the New Empire (1567–1085 B.C.E.).
The Egyptians reached Crete around 2000 B.C.E. and were invaded by Indo-Europeans and Hyksos Semites. They defeated the invaders around 1570 B.C.E. and expanded into the Aegean, Sudan, Libya, and much of the Levant, as far as the Euphrates.
The importance of Ancient Egypt to the development of Africa has been disputed. The earlier generation of Western Africanists generally saw Egypt as a Mediterranean civilization with little impact on the rest of Africa. The more recent historians based in Africa take a very different view, seeing Egypt as important to the development of African civilization as Greece was to the development of European civilization. It has been demonstrated that Egypt had considerable contact with Ethiopia and the upper Nile valley, south of the cataracts of the Nile in Nubian Kush. Links and connections to the Sahel and West Africa have been proposed, but are as of yet unproven.
Phoenician, Greek, and Roman colonization
Separated by the 'sea of sand', the Sahara, North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa have been linked by fluctuating trans-Saharan trade routes. Phoenician, Greek, and Roman histories of North Africa can be followed in entries for the Roman Empire and for its individual provinces in the Maghreb, such as Mauretania, Africa, Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, Aegyptus, and so on.
In Northern Africa, Ethiopia has been the only state which throughout historic times has (except for a brief period during World War II) maintained its independence. Countries bordering the Mediterranean were colonized and settled by the Phoenicians before 1000 B.C.E. Carthage, founded about 814 B.C.E., speedily grew into a city without rival in the Mediterranean. The Phoenicians subdued the Berber tribes who, then as now, formed the bulk of the population, and became masters of all the habitable region of North Africa west of the Great Syrtis, and found in commerce a source of immense prosperity.
Greeks founded the city of Cyrene in Ancient Libya around 631 B.C.E. Cyrenaica became a flourishing colony, though being hemmed in on all sides by absolute desert it had little or no influence on inner Africa. The Greeks, however, exerted a powerful influence in Egypt. To Alexander the Great the city of Alexandria owes its foundation (332 B.C.E.), and under the Hellenistic dynasty of the Ptolemies attempts were made to penetrate southward, and in this way was obtained some knowledge of Ethiopia.
The three powers of Cyrenaica, Egypt, and Carthage were eventually supplanted by the Romans. After centuries of rivalry with Rome, Carthage finally fell in 146 B.C.E. Within little more than a century Egypt and Cyrene had become incorporated in the Roman empire. Under Rome, the settled portions of the country were very prosperous, and a Latin strain was introduced into the land. Though Fezzan was occupied by them, the Romans elsewhere found the Sahara an impassable barrier. Nubia and Ethiopia were reached, but an expedition sent by the emperor Nero to discover the source of the Nile ended in failure. The utmost extent of Mediterranean geographical knowledge of the continent is shown in the writings of Ptolemy (second century), who knew of or guessed the existence of the great lake reservoirs of the Nile, of trading posts along the shores of the Indian Ocean as far south as Rhapta in modern Tanzania, and had heard of the river Niger.
Interaction between Asia, Europe and North Africa during this period was significant. Major effects include the spread of classical culture around the shores of the Mediterranean; the continual struggle between Rome and the Berber tribes; the introduction of Christianity throughout the region; and, the cultural effects of the churches in Tunisia, Egypt and Ethiopia.
Dark Ages
The classical era drew to a close with the invasion and conquest of Rome's African provinces by the Vandals in the 5th century, although power passed back briefly in the following century to the Byzantine Empire.
Islamization
In the seventh century C.E. an event destined to have a permanent influence on the whole continent. Beginning with an invasion of Egypt, a host of Arabs, believers in the new faith of Islam, conquered the whole of North Africa from the Red Sea to the Atlantic and continued into Spain. Throughout North Africa Christianity nearly disappeared, except in Egypt where the Coptic Church remained strong partly because of the influence of Ethiopia, which was not approached by the Muslims because of Ethiopia's history of harboring early Muslim converts from retaliation by pagan Arab tribes. Some argue that when the Arabs had converted Egypt they attempted to wipe out the Copts. Ethiopia, which also practiced Coptic Christianity, warned the Muslims that if they attempted to wipe out the Copts, Ethiopia would decrease the flow of Nile water into Egypt. This was because Lake Tana in Ethiopia was the source of the Blue Nile which flows into the greater Nile. Some believe this to be one of the reasons that the Coptic minorities still exist today, but it is unlikely because of Ethiopia's weak military standing against the Afro-Arabs.
In the 11th century, there was a sizable Arab immigration, resulting in a large absorption of Berber culture. Even before this, the Berbers had very generally adopted the speech and religion of their conquerors. Arab influence and the Islamic religion thus became indelibly stamped on northern Africa. Together they spread southward across the Sahara. They also became firmly established along the eastern seaboard, where Arabs, Persians, and Indians planted flourishing colonies, such as Mombasa, Malindi, and Sofala, playing a role, maritime and commercial, analogous to that filled in earlier centuries by the Carthaginians on the northern seaboard. Until the 14th century, Europe and the Arabs of North Africa were both ignorant of these eastern cities and states.
The first Arab immigrants had recognized the authority of the caliphs of Baghdad, and the Aghlabite dynasty—founded by Aghlab, one of Haroun al-Raschid's generals, at the close of the eighth century—ruled as vassals of the caliphate. However, early in the 10th century, the Fatimid dynasty established itself in Egypt, where Cairo had been founded in 968 C.E., and from there ruled as far west as the Atlantic. Later arose other dynasties such as the Almoravides and Almohades. Eventually, the Turks, who had conquered Constantinople in 1453, and had seized Egypt in 1517, established the regencies of Algeria, Tunisia, and Tripoli (between 1519 and 1551), Morocco remaining an independent Arabized Berber state under the Sharifan dynasty, which had its beginnings at the end of the thirteenth century.
Under the earlier dynasties, Arabian or Moorish culture had attained a high degree of excellence, while the spirit of adventure and the proselytizing zeal of the followers of Islam led to a considerable extension of the knowledge of the continent. This was rendered easier by their use of the camel (first introduced into Africa by the Persian conquerors of Egypt), which enabled the Arabs to traverse the desert. In this way, Senegambia and the middle Niger regions fell under the influence of the Arabs and Berbers.
Islam also spread through the interior of West Africa, as the religion of the mansas of the Mali Empire (c. 1235–1400) and many rulers of the Songhai Empire (c. 1460–1591). Following the fabled 1324 hajj of Kankan Musa I, Timbuktu became renowned as a center of Islamic scholarship as sub-Saharan Africa's first university. That city had been reached in 1352 by the great Arab traveler Ibn Battuta, whose journey to Mombasa and Quiloa (Kilwa) provided the first accurate knowledge of those flourishing Muslim cities on the East African seaboards.
Except along this seaboard, which was colonized directly from Asia, Arab progress southward was stopped by the broad belt of dense forest, stretching almost across the continent somewhat south of 10° North latitude, which barred their advance much as the Sahara had proved an obstacle to their predecessors. The rainforest cut them off from knowledge of the Guinea coast and of all Africa beyond. One of the regions that was the last to come under Arab rule was that of Nubia, which had been controlled by Christians up to the fourteenth century.
For a time the African Muslim conquests in southern Europe had virtually made the Mediterranean a Muslim lake, but the expulsion in the eleventh century of the Saracens from Sicily and southern Italy by the Normans was followed by descents of the conquerors in Tunisia and Tripoli. Somewhat later a busy trade with the African coastlands, and especially with Egypt, was developed by Venice, Pisa, Genoa, and other cities of North Italy. By the end of the fifteenth century, Spain's Reconquista had completely removed the Muslims, but even while the Moors were still in Granada, Portugal was strong enough to carry the war into Africa. In 1415, a Portuguese force captured the citadel of Ceuta on the Moorish coast. From that time onward Portugal repeatedly interfered in the affairs of Morocco, while Spain acquired many ports in Algeria and Tunisia.
Portugal, however, suffered a crushing defeat in 1578, at al Kasr al Kebir, the Moors being led by Abd el Malek I of the then-recently established Saadi Dynasty. By that time the Spaniards had lost almost all their African possessions. The Barbary states, primarily from the example of the Moors expelled from Spain, degenerated into mere communities of pirates, and under Turkish influence civilization and commerce declined. The story of these states from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the third decade of the 19th century is largely made up of piratical exploits on the one hand and of ineffectual reprisals on the other.
European exploration and conquest
Nineteenth-century European explorers
Although the Napoleonic Wars distracted the attention of Europe from exploratoration in Africa, those wars nevertheless exercised great influence on the future of the continent, both in Egypt and South Africa. The occupation of Egypt (1798–1803) first by France and then by Great Britain resulted in an effort by Turkey to regain direct control over that country, followed in 1811 by the establishment under Mehemet Ali of an almost independent state, and the extension of Egyptian rule over the eastern Sudan (from 1820 onward). In South Africa the struggle with Napoleon caused the United Kingdom to take possession of the Dutch settlements at the Cape, and in 1814 Cape Colony, which had been continuously occupied by British troops since 1806, was formally ceded to the British crown.
Meantime, considerable changes had occurred in other parts of the continent, the most notable being the occupation of Algiers by France in 1830, an end being thereby put to the piratical activities of the Barbary states, and the continued expansion southward of Egyptian authority with the consequent additions to the knowledge of the Nile. The city of Zanzibar, on the island of that name rapidly attained importance. Accounts of a vast inland sea, and the discovery in 1840–1848, by the missionaries Johann Ludwig Krapf and Johann Rebmann, of the snow-clad mountains of Kilimanjaro and Kenya, stimulated in Europe the desire for further knowledge.
In the middle of the nineteenth century, Protestant missions were carrying on active missionary work on the Guinea coast, in South Africa, and in the Zanzibar dominions. It was being conducted in regions and among peoples little known, and in many instances, missionaries turned explorers and became pioneers of trade and empire. One of the first to attempt to fill up the remaining blank spaces in the map was David Livingstone, who had been engaged since 1840 in missionary work north of the Orange. In 1849, Livingstone crossed the Kalahari Desert from south to north and reached Lake Ngami, and between 1851 and 1856, he traversed the continent from west to east, making known the great waterways of the upper Zambezi. During these journeys Livingstone discovered, in November 1855, the famous Victoria Falls, so named after the Queen of the United Kingdom. In 1858–1864, the lower Zambezi, the Shire, and Lake Nyasa were explored by Livingstone, Nyasa having been first reached by the confidential slave of Antonio da Silva Porto, a Portuguese trader established at Bihe in Angola, who crossed Africa during 1853–1856, from Benguella to the mouth of the Rovuma. A prime goal for explorers was to locate the source of the River Nile. Expeditions by Burton and Speke (1857–1858) and Speke and Grant (1863) located at Lake Tanganyika and Lake Victoria. It was eventually proved to be the latter from which the Nile flowed.
Henry Morton Stanley, who had in 1871 succeeded in finding and succoring Livingstone, started again for Zanzibar in 1874, and in one of the most memorable of all expeditions in Africa circumnavigated Victoria Nyanza and Tanganyika, and, striking farther inland to the Lualaba, followed that river down to the Atlantic Ocean—reached in August 1877—and proved it to be the Congo.
Explorers were also active in other parts of the continent. Southern Morocco, the Sahara, and the Sudan were traversed in many directions between 1860 and 1875 by Gerhard Rohlfs, Georg Schweinfurth, and Gustav Nachtigal. These travelers not only added considerably to geographical knowledge but obtained invaluable information concerning the people, languages and natural history of the countries in which they sojourned. Among the discoveries of Schweinfurth was one that confirmed the Greek legends of the existence beyond Egypt of a "pygmy race." But the first Western discoverer of the pygmies of Central Africa was Paul du Chaillu, who found them in the Ogowe district of the west coast in 1865, five years before Schweinfurth's first meeting with them; du Chaillu having previously, as the result of journeys in the Gabon region between 1855 and 1859, made popular in Europe the knowledge of the existence of the gorilla, perhaps the gigantic ape seen by Hanno the Carthaginian, and whose existence, up to the middle of the nineteenth century, was thought to be as legendary as that of the Pygmies of Aristotle.
Partition among European powers
In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the map of Africa was transformed, in what was called the Scramble for Africa. Lines of partition, drawn often through trackless wildernesses, marked out the possessions of Germany, France, Britain, and other powers. Railways penetrated the interior, vast areas were opened up to Western conquest.
The causes which led to the partition of Africa can be found in the economic and political state of Western Europe at the time. Germany, recently united under Prussian rule as the result of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, was seeking new outlets for its energies, new markets for its growing industries, and with the markets, colonies.
Germany was the last country to enter into the race to acquire colonies, and when Bismarck—the German Chancellor —acted, Africa was the only field left to exploit. South America was protected from interference by the United States based on its Monroe Doctrine, while Britain, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain had already split up most of the other regions of the world between themselves.
Part of the reason Germany began to expand into the colonial sphere at this time, despite Bismarck's lack of enthusiasm for the idea, was a shift in the worldview of the Prussian governing elite. Indeed, European elites as a whole began to see the world as a finite place, one in which only the strong would predominate. The influence of Social Darwinism was deep, encouraging a view of the world as essentially characterized by zero-sum relationships.
For different reasons, the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 was also the starting point for France in the building of a new colonial empire. In its endeavor to regain its position lost in that war, France had to look beyond Europe. Britain and Portugal, when they found their interests threatened, also bestirred themselves, while Italy also conceived it necessary to become an African power.
It was not, however, the action of any of the great powers of Europe which precipitated the struggle. This was brought about by the projects of Léopold II, king of the Belgians. The discoveries of Livingstone, Stanley, and others had aroused special interest among two classes of men in Western Europe, one the manufacturing and trading class, which saw in Central Africa possibilities of commercial development, the other the philanthropic and missionary class, which beheld in the newly discovered lands millions of "savages" to Christianize and "civilize." The possibility of utilizing both these classes in the creation of a vast state, of which he should be the chief, formed itself in the mind of Léopold II even before Stanley had navigated the Congo. The king's action was immediate; it proved successful; but no sooner was the nature of his project understood in Europe than it provoked the rivalry of France and Germany, and thus the international struggle began.
Conflicting ambitions of the European powers
In 1873, Zanzibar, the busiest slave market in Africa, closed.
The part of the continent to which King Léopold directed his energies was the equatorial region. In September 1876 he took what may be described as the first definite step in the modern partition of the continent. He summoned to a conference in Brussels representatives of Britain, Belgium, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Russia, to deliberate on the best methods to be adopted for the exploration and Westernization of Africa, and the opening up of the interior of the continent to commerce and industry. The conference was entirely unofficial. The delegates who attended neither represented nor pledged their respective governments. Their deliberations lasted three days and resulted in the foundation of the "International African Association," with its headquarters in Brussels. It was further resolved to establish national committees in the various countries represented, which were to collect funds and appoint delegates to the International Association. The central idea appears to have been to put the exploration and development of Africa on an international footing. But it quickly became apparent that this was an unattainable ideal. The national committees were soon working independently of the International Association, and the Association itself passed through a succession of stages until it became purely Belgian in character, and at last developed into the Congo Free State, under the personal sovereignty of King Léopold.
After the First Boer War, a conflict between the British Empire and the Boer South African Republic (Transvaal Republic), the peace treaty on March 23, 1881, gave the Boers self-government in the Transvaal under theoretical British oversight.
For some time before 1884, there had been growing up a general conviction that it would be desirable for the powers who were interesting themselves in Africa to come to some agreement as to "the rules of the game," and to define their respective interests so far as was practicable. Lord Granville's ill-fated treaty brought this sentiment to a head, and it was agreed to hold an international conference on African affairs.
The Berlin Conference of 1884-85
The Berlin Conference of 1884–85 regulated European colonization and trade in Africa during the New Imperialism period, and coincided with Germany's sudden emergence as an imperial power. Called for by Portugal and organized by Otto von Bismarck, the first Chancellor of Germany, its outcome, the General Act of the Berlin Conference, is often seen as the formalization of the Scramble for Africa. The conference ushered in a period of heightened colonial activity on the part of the European powers, while simultaneously eliminating most existing forms of African autonomy and self-governance. From 1885 the scramble among the powers went on with renewed vigor, and in the 15 years that remained of the century, the work of partition, so far as international agreements were concerned, was practically completed.
Twentieth century: 1900-1945
Africa at the start of the twentieth century
All of the African continent was claimed by European powers, except for Ethiopia (then called Abyssinia) and Liberia (a country for former slaves set up by the U.S.).
The European powers created a variety of different administrations in Africa at this time, with different ambitions and degrees of power. In some areas, parts of British West Africa for example, colonial control was tenuous and intended for simple economic extraction, strategic power, or as part of a long-term development plan.
In other areas, Europeans were encouraged to settle, creating settler states in which a European minority came to dominate society. Settlers only came to a few colonies in sufficient numbers to have a strong impact. British settler colonies included British East Africa (now Kenya), North and South Rhodesia (later Zambia and Zimbabwe), and South Africa, which already had a significant population of European settlers, the Boers. In the Second Boer War, between the British Empire and the two Boer republics of the Orange Free State and the South African Republic (Transvaal Republic), the Boers unsuccessfully resisted absorption into the British Empire.
France planned to settle Algeria across the Mediterranean and eventually incorporate it into the French state as an equal to its European provinces.
In most areas, colonial administrations did not have the manpower or resources to fully administer their territories and had to rely on local power structures to help them. Various factions and groups within the indigenous societies exploited this European requirement for their own purposes, attempting to gain a position of power within their own communities by cooperating with Europeans. One aspect of this struggle included what has been termed the "invention of tradition." In order to legitimize their own claims to power in the eyes of both colonial administrators and their own population, local Africans would essentially manufacture "traditional" claims to power, or ceremonies. As a result, many societies were thrown into disarray by the new order.
During World War I, there were several battles between the United Kingdom and Germany, the most notable being the Battle of Tanga and a sustained guerrilla campaign by the German General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck.
Interbellum
After World War I, the former German colonies in Africa were taken over by France and the United Kingdom.
During this era, a sense of local patriotism or nationalism took deeper root among African intellectuals and politicians. Some of the inspiration for this movement came from the First World War in which European countries had relied on colonial troops for their own defense. Many in Africa realized their own strength with regard to the colonizer for the first time. At the same time, some of the mystique of the "invincible" Europeans was shattered by the barbarities of the war. However, in most areas, European control remained relatively strong during this period.
In 1935, Benito Mussolini's Italian troops invaded Ethiopia, the last African nation not dominated by a foreign power.
World War II
Africa, especially North Africa, was an important theater of war. French colonies in Africa supported the Free French. Many black Africans were conscripted to fight against the Germans. Italy had a presence in Libya and also in Ethiopia. In the North African campaign, the Deutsches Afrika Korps under General Erwin Rommel were eventually defeated at the Second Battle of El Alamein. The Allies used North Africa as a jumping-off point for the invasions of Italy and Sicily in 1943. Germany wanted to expand its interests in Africa, while Britain was anxious to protect its interests in Egypt and the route to the east.
Postcolonial era: 1945-present
Decolonization
Decolonization in Africa started with Libya in 1951 (Liberia, South Africa, Egypt, and Ethiopia were already independent). Many countries followed in the 1950s and 1960s, with a peak in 1960 with the independence of a large part of French West Africa. Most of the remaining countries gained independence throughout the 1960s, although some colonizers (Portugal in particular) were reluctant to relinquish sovereignty, resulting in bitter wars of independence that lasted for a decade or more. The last African countries to gain formal independence were Guinea-Bissau from Portugal in 1974, Mozambique from Portugal in 1975, Angola from Portugal in 1975, Djibouti from France in 1977, Zimbabwe from Britain in 1980, and Namibia from South Africa in 1990. Eritrea later split off from Ethiopia in 1993.
Because many cities were founded, enlarged, and renamed by the Europeans, after independence many place names (for example Stanleyville, Léopoldville, Rhodesia) were again renamed.
Effects of decolonization
In most British and French colonies, the transition to independence was relatively peaceful. Some settler colonies however were displeased with the introduction of democratic rule.
In the aftermath of decolonization, Africa displayed political instability, economic disaster, and debt dependence. In all cases, measures of life quality (such as life expectancy) fell from their levels under colonialism, with many approaching pre-colonial levels. Political instability occurred with the introduction of Marxist and capitalist influence, along with continuing friction from racial inequalities. Inciting civil war, black nationalist groups participated in violent attacks against white settlers, trying to end white minority rule in government.
Further violence occurred with disagreements over the partitions made during the colonization. Despite widespread acceptance of these partitions, border disputes such as those between Chad and Libya, Ethiopia and Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea, and Nigeria and Cameroon remain unresolved today.
Decolonized Africa has lost many of its social and economic institutions and to this day shows a high level of informal economic activity. As another result of colonialism followed by decolonization, the African economy was drained of many natural resources with little opportunity to diversify from its colonial export of cash crops. Suffering through famine and drought, Africa struggled to industrialize its poverty-stricken workforce without sufficient funds.
To feed, educate, and modernize its masses, Africa borrowed large sums from various nations, banks, and companies. In return, lenders often required African countries to devalue their currencies and attempted to exert political influence within Africa. The borrowed funds, however, did not rehabilitate the devastated economies. Since the massive loans were usually squandered by the mismanagement of corrupt dictators, social issues such as education, health care, and political stability have been ignored.
The by-products of decolonization, including political instability, border disputes, economic ruin, and massive debt, continue to plague Africa to this present day.
Due to ongoing military occupation, Spanish Sahara (now Western Sahara), was never fully decolonized. The majority of the territory is under Moroccan administration; the rest is administered by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.
In 2005, the European Union agreed to a Strategy for Africa including working closely with the African Union to promote peace, stability, and good governance. However, the inter-tribal war in Rwanda during the genocide of 1994, in Somalia over more than 20 years, and between Arabs and non-Arabs in Sudan indicates to some observers that Africa is still locked in tribalism and far from ready to assume its place at the global table of mature, stable and democratic states.
Pan-Africanism
In 1964, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) was established with 32 member states. It aimed to:
- Promote the unity and solidarity of the African states;
- Coordinate and intensify their cooperation and efforts to achieve a better life for the peoples of Africa;
- Defend their sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence;
- Eradicate all forms of colonialism from Africa; and,
- Promote international cooperation, having due regard to the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In 2002, the OAU was succeeded by the African Union.
Several UN peacekeeping missions have been either entirely composed of (what are now called) African Union forces or they have represented a significant component as the strategy of Africans policing Africa develops. These include Liberia (2003); Burundi (2003); Sudan (2004)[8]. Others speculate that since the U.S. withdrew its UN peacekeepers from Somalia—after 18 soldiers died, with 70 wounded, in Mogadishu, Somalia in October 1993—the Western powers have been very reluctant to commit ground forces in Africa. This may explain why the international community failed to intervene during the Rwandan Genocide of 1994, stationing less than 300 troops there with orders "only to shoot if shot at."
East Africa
The Mau Mau Uprising took place in Kenya from 1952 until 1956 but was put down by British and local forces. A state of emergency remained in place until 1960. Kenya became independent in 1963 and Jomo Kenyatta became its first president.
The early 1990s also signaled the start of major clashes between Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda and Burundi. In 1994 this resulted in the Rwandan Genocide, a conflict in which over a million died.
North Africa
In 1954 Gamal Abdel Nasser came to power in Egypt and was opposed to the United States; his successor, Anwar Sadat, improved relations with the U.S. An anti-American regime came to power in Libya in 1969 with Moammar al-Qadhafi. As of 2009, Qadhafi remains in power but has improved ties with the U.S.
Egypt was involved in several wars against Israel and was allied with other Arab states. The first was upon the founding of the state of Israel in 1947. Egypt went to war again in 1967 (the Six-Day War) and lost its Sinai Peninsula to Israel. They went to war yet again in 1973 in the Yom Kippur War. In 1979, Egyptian President Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the Camp David Accords, which returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in exchange for Egypt's recognition of Israel. The accords are still in effect today.
South Africa
In 1948, the apartheid laws were implemented in South Africa by the dominant party, the National Party, under the auspices of Prime Minister Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd. These were largely a continuation of existing policies, for example, the Land Act of 1913. The difference was the policy of "separate development." Where previous policies had only been disparate efforts to economically exploit the African majority, apartheid represented an entire philosophy of separate racial goals, leading to both the divisive laws of "petty apartheid," and the grander scheme of African homelands. Homelands were created for different African tribes, racially segregated from white areas. The international community eventually responded with economic sanctions against South Africa, while the African National Congress (ANC), headed by Nelson Mandela led resistance—sometimes violent, but for much of the time non-violent—against the white regime. Anglican Archbishop, Desmond Tutu, and other religious leaders were at the forefront of the struggle against the racist system, demanding justice but also calling for reconciliation and forgiveness. Some rivalry between Zulu factions and the ANC meant that opposition to the white regime was sometimes compromised.
In 1994, apartheid ended in South Africa, and Mandela, after 27 years in prison, was elected president in the country's first multiracial elections. Tutu, who calls post-apartheid South Africa the "rainbow nation," was appointed chair of its Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This brought victims and victimizers together to seek forgiveness and reconciliation instead of revenge so that blacks and whites could build a new nation in partnership.
West Africa
