Africa: 1750-1900 Flashcards
To educate students on the subjugation and partition of Africa by European powers from 1750-1900.
The construction of what waterway led to increased Anglo-French interference in Egyptian affairs?
The construction of the Suez Canal, between 1854 and 1869, led to increased Anglo-French involvement in Egyptian affairs. Originally planned and funded by the French, the British took over control of the Canal in the 1860s and 1870s.
When an Egyptian revolt in 1881 threatened their investment, the British established a protectorate over the region as far south as Sudan, ruling through the Khedive, as the Egyptian ruler was termed.
Who was the Mahdi?
The Mahdi was an Islamic leader who rebelled against Anglo-Egyptian rule. Initially successful, the Mahdi slaughtered a British force at Khartoum in 1885. The British had their revenge in 1898, using modern artillery and machine guns to defeat the Mahdi’s forces at the Battle of Omdurman.
Where did the French establish North African colonies?
Beginning in the 1830s, the French established colonies and protectorates over Morocco (excepting a small portion of Spanish Morocco), Tunisia, and Algeria, directly across the Mediterranean from France.
French control was confined mainly to the coast, and armed conflict was almost continual in the territories’ interior.
_____ _____ led a revolution against the Ottoman Empire in Egypt in the 1805s.
Muhammad Ali
Ali’s revolution was largely successful, although the Ottoman Empire did continue as the nominal ruler over Egypt. Ali named himself Khedive and dedicated his rule to modernizing Egypt, bringing in Western professionals to build the Egyptian army, introducing large-scale cotton production, and establishing small-scale industrialization.
Ali expanded territorially as well, pushing south into the Sudan and eastward into Syria and Iraq. Only the intervention of France and Britain prevented him from toppling the Ottoman Empire itself.
Define:
Boers
The Boers were Dutch colonists in South Africa who’d arrived in the 1600s. In the 1830s, after the British took control of South Africa, the Boers moved inland in what was termed The Great Trek. In the 1850s, the Boers formally established two countries: the Orange Free State and the Transvaal.
Who were the Zulu?
The Zulu were a set of Bantu-speaking clans residing to the east of British South Africa and the Boer Republics. A powerful chief, Shaka, united the Zulu into a single tribe beginning in the early 1800s, and successive rulers gradually expanded the Zulu state.
Conflicts between the Zulu and the British and Boers were nearly continuous until the Zulus were finally defeated by the British in 1879.
Define:
Scramble for Africa
The Scramble for Africa was the conquest of virtually the entire continent of Africa between 1880 and 1914, primarily by Britain, France, and Germany. Belgium and Italy played a smaller role, and both the Portuguese and Spanish had existing colonies on the continent.
Although only 10% of Africa had been under European control in 1880, by 1914 only two African states remained independent: Ethiopia and Liberia.
What was the profession of the first Europeans to explore the interior of Africa in the mid-1800s?
Most early African explorers were missionaries who sought to spread Christianity in Africa.
The most famous missionary of all was Scotland’s David Livingstone, who spent decades in Africa, often disappearing for years at a time.
Beginning in the 1880s, why were Europeans able to conquer Africa so rapidly?
For centuries, European holdings in Africa had been confined primarily to the coasts, but the development of modern artillery, as well as medicine to fight African diseases (especially quinine for malaria), allowed handfuls of Europeans to conquer large portions of Africa.
What African territory was ruled by the Belgians?
The Belgians ruled the Congo, which had large deposits of rubber trees. Belgian rule was far harsher than British and French rule, and large groups of Congolese workers died of poor treatment, famine, and wholesale massacre.
Which African country did the Italians try to subjugate in 1896?
In 1896, the Italians tried to conquer Ethiopia, but the country’s ruler, Menelik II, had prepared his country and his troops.
The Italians were resoundingly and embarrassingly defeated at the Battle of Adowa, and Ethiopia remained independent into the 1930s.
What made African imperialism attractive to Western European nations in the closing decades of the 19th century?
Africa is plentiful in many of the raw materials that were necessary to feed the manufacturing industry, such as rubber, cotton, and copper.
How did Germany fare in the Scramble for Africa?
While Germany established a large colonial territory, generally scattered in regions in which the other powers were not interested.
Germans could be harsh rulers; their suppression of the Herero revolt in German Southwest Africa (modern-day Namibia) is widely acknowledged as genocide. Germany also had colonies in Togo, and on the African east coast.
At the _____ _____ in 1884-85, the Great Powers set in place the rules for African colonialism.
Berlin Conference
Organized by Otto von Bismarck, the Berlin Conference was an attempt by the Great Powers to determine among themselves their various spheres of influence in Africa, offsetting any danger of war on the Continent. At the time, Germany’s colonial possessions were negligible. But by 1914, she would be the third-largest colonial power.
What conflict erupted in South Africa in 1899?
In 1899, war broke out between the Boer Republics and British South Africa, arising out of British attempts to control the region’s rich gold and diamond mines.
The Boers strongly resisted the British encroachment, and resistance only collapsed when the British concentrated Boer civilians into camps known as “concentration camps” where some 27,000 Boer civilians died.
