[Africa MIDTERM] Flashcards
Jared Diamond
-Wrote Guns, Germs, and Steel
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Farming and domesticating animals provide social stability that is lacking in hunter-gatherer societies. Labor specialization enables certain groups to develop weapons.
Major portions of Eurasia had a natural advantage in developing agriculture and domesticating animals because of geography and the presence of plants and animals that could be easily domesticated.
The landmass of Eurasia, laid out on an east-west axis, allowed for the sharing of crops, animals, and ideas. The Americas, stretched out on a north-south axis, traverse various climate zones and geographic boundaries that discourage trade.
The diversity and density of Eurasian populations created an immunity to germs that would later wipe out the more isolated populations of the Americas.
Superior technologies including ocean-going ships, steel and guns
Geographic luck
- Where you live will determine how successful your society will be
- European economic, military, technological, and political power came about because of geographical luck, and not because the Europeans were in any way culturally or racially superior to people of other parts of the world
Agents of conquest
- Guns, germs, and steel
- Allowed 168 Spanish conquistadors to defeat a large Imperial Inca army
- Set a pattern of European conquest which would continue to the present day
Fertile Crescent
- A crescent shaped region of the modern Middle East in which the earliest experiments in plant and animal domestication are believed to have occurred
- Later the location for the earliest known human settlements, villages, cities, and civilizations
Papua New Guinea
- Hunter-gatherers
- Underdevelopment had nothing to do with skill
- Did not have many domesticable plants or animals (had pigs- not strong)
- Highlands of New Guinea- crops can’t be stored + plants one by one (terra rods)
Hunter-gatherer
- Populations remained small
- Looking for food all the time
- Frequently on the move
- Not productive or predictable
Cereal Crops
A seed-bearing grass which can be harvested and domesticated by man (grains)
Plant and animal domestication
- Wild plant or animal species bred under human control
- Provide humans steady supply of food/other raw materials
- Domesticated species dependent on human interference
Berlin Conference
- 14 European countries met (1844-1845)
- Laid down rules for division of Africa
- Agreed that any European country could claim land in Africa by notifying other nations of its claims and showing it could control the area
- Divided the continent with little thought about how African ethnic or linguistic groups were distributed
- No African ruler was invited to attend these meetings, yet the conference sealed Africa’s fate
Otto von Bismarck
-Organized the Berlin Conference
Scramble for Africa
European nations competing for taking over Africa
Global inequality
- Different resources in different parts of the world
- Unequal
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
- European slave trading began by Portuguese traders
- Development of sugar plantations in New World- demand for cheap labor
- African slaves- cheap, didn’t know the land
- Millions of slaves entered American colonies
Great Zimbabwe
-White settlers refused to believe that Great Zimbabwe was built by Africans
Mapungubwe
- Highly sophisticated/ advanced people
- Artifacts found- art, pottery, gold
- Evidence of early gold smelting in Africa
- The findings provided evidence contrary to the racist ideology of black inferiority that underpinned apartheid.
White Man’s Burden
- Poem by Rudyard Kipling 1899
- It was a “burden” for the Europeans to teach other races to be civilized
- Other races were partially bad but could be completely fixed and needed to be taught/disciplined
- The Europeans’ justification for imperializing Africa
What was the impact of slavery upon the African continent? How did it facilitate imperialism?
- Forced migrations + displacement of many Africans
- More/worse inter-tribal warfare
- Depopulation from raids, warfare, and captivities
- Loss of experts, craftsmen, workers
- Impoverishment in large areas
- Destruction + destabilization of societies (socially, politically, economically)
What did the map of Africa look like before the Berlin Conference?
- Divided into hundreds of ethnic and linguistic groups
- Europeans controlled 10% of land
What did the map of Africa look like after the Berlin Conference?
- French
- British
- Belgian
- German
- Spanish
- Italian
Why did Europeans go to Africa? Why did they imperialize Africa?
- Wanted to control Africa’s land, its people, and its resources
- Wanted more resources to fuel their industrial production
- Africa- source of raw materials and as a market for industrial products
- Industrial revolution
Why and how has African history been denied? What is the significance of Mapungubwe? Why did Europeans in Africa refuse to believe that Great Zimbabwe was of African origin?
- The fact that Bantu speaking peoples of the region had a highly civilized existence hundreds of years before the first Europeans arrived was simply too much for the oppressive government of the day to bear
- Claimed they migrated at the same time
- Used to justify white rule
- Artifacts before white settlements in southern Africa
