AF Module 3: The Subjugation and Liberation of Africa

Question 1

M3.1

Answer 1

.

Question 2

What was the most important development in West Africa before the European conquest of the continent?

Answer 2

the decline of the Atlantic slave trade and the simultaneous rise of the export of palm oil and other commodities.

Question 3

palm oil

Answer 3

a West African tropical product often used to make soap; British encouraged its cultivation as an alternative to the slave trade

Question 4

Describe the attempted campaign to abolish slavery in Britain.

Answer 4

• one of the first peaceful mass political movements based on the mobilization of public opinion in British history
• British women played a critical role
• Argued for a transition to legitimate (nonslave) trade

Question 5

In ___, Parliament declared the slave trade illegal.

Answer 5

1807

Question 6

West Africa Squadron

Answer 6

Britain’s antislavery navy used to seize slave runners’ ships, liberate the captives, and settle them.

Question 7

What colony did the freed American slaves create?

Answer 7

Liberia (1821-1822)
- capital Monrovia (after James Monroe)

Question 8

Why did the abolitionists’ dream of legitimate commerce quickly replacing illegal slave exports never materialize?

Answer 8

The slave trade only slowed down in minimal parts of Africa.
- Britain’s West Africa Squadron only intercepted fewer than 10% of all slave ships.
- demand for slaves remained high on Cuba and Brazil

Question 9

Who signed a law that banned slave importation?

Answer 9

Thomas Jefferson, on March 2, 1807

Question 10

Where did shipments of human cargo slacken as more nations joined Britain in outlawing the slave trade?

Answer 10

West African coast
- began in the long stretch from Guinea and Senegal to the Gold Coast and present-day Nigeria in the 1830s
- also limited along Sahara and the East African coast into the Indian Ocean and through the Red Sea

Question 11

Why did trade in tropical products make progress?

Answer 11

1. Britain encouraged palm tree cultivation as an alternative to the slave trade
2. the sale of Palm oil served the self-interest of industrializing Europe, as they made more machines
3. Peanut production for export grew rapidly.
4. Powerful West African rulers and warlords who benefitted from the Atlantic slave trade restricted some of their slaves’ labor into production of legitimate goods

Question 12

Why were women successful merchants (out of those who were liberated slaves)

Answer 12

• African wife of a European trader served as her husband’s interpreter and learned all aspects of business
• African wife inherited commercial interests, including inventories and European connections of her husband
• many widows used these information for business

Question 13

Sudanic savanna

Answer 13

vast belt of flat grasslands across Africa below the Sahara’s southern fringe, stretching from Senegal and Gambia in the West to the mountains of Ethiopia in the East.
- Islam grew rapidly in this area

Question 14

Why did Islam expand in the Western and Eastern Sudan?

Answer 14

Islam expanded because fervent Muslim scholars and religious leaders urged jihad against animist rulers and corrupt Islamic states. These leaders would no longer tolerate animism or polytheism and forced mass conversions to Islam throughout the region of Sudan.

Question 15

Sokoto caliphate

Answer 15

founded in 1809 by Uthman dan Fodio, this African State was based on Islamic history and law.
- illustrates the pattern of Islamic revival in Africa

Question 16

Describe Uthman’s launch of the Sokoto caliphate.

Answer 16

Uthman launched the jihad of 1804 after his religious community was attacked by Gobir’s rulers.
- He claimed the Hausa rulers “worshipped many places of idols, and trees, and rocks, and sacrificed to them,” killing and plundering their subjects without any regard for Islamic law.

Question 17

Why is the Sokoto caliphate significant?

Answer 17

1. The caliphate was governed by a sophisticated written constitution based on Islamic history and law.
2. Islam became much more widely and deeply rooted in sub-Saharan African than ever before. Islam united the Western and Central Sudan. Women gained greater access to education.
3. Islam always approved slavery for non-Muslims and Muslim heretics, and “the jihads created a new slaving frontier on the basis of rejuvenated Islam.”

Question 18

How did Islam expand in East Africa?

Answer 18

Arab merchants and adventurers pressed far into search of slaves and ivory, converting Nyamewi elites and establishing small Muslim states.
- In 1837, Sayyid Said, he sultan of Oman, conquered Mombasa, and after reviving his family’s lordship of the African island of Zanzibar, he moved his capital to Zanzibar.
- Sayyid Said also successfully encouraged Indian merchants to develop slave-based clove plantations.