Scramble for Africa Flashcards
Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism creates racial hierarchies. It also gets applied to political purposes; An example of Science being misused.
Example: Measuring the sizes of skulls to infer intelligence (pseudoscience)
White Man’s Burden
It was a poem by Rudyard Kipling directed to an American audience. It describes the responsibility of the white man as an educator and conqueror for civilization to make the uncivilized civilized.
Industrial Revolution
Required more resources
Economics
Expanding markets into other places to create captive markets that often hurt colony economies. This would lead to great profits for the mother country.
Nationalism
It was an emerging ideology in Europe. Countries could show their strength by conquering colonies. Italy and Germany were new countries. They wanted to create colonies in Africa to compete with powers like France and Britain.
Machines guns
Mass produced, they were used to subdue African resistance to imperialism. They allowed for gaining huge chunks of territory. They became weapons of mass destruction of the time.
Quinine
A medicine to treat malaria that would allow europeans to push further into the center of Africa.
What technologies help Europe get into Africa?
Machines guns, quinine, and steamships are all good examples.
Berlin Conference
A meeting of various EUROPIAN heads of states and diplomats where they split Africa into parts for each other to stop fighting one another. No African diplomats were there. The boundaries created in the Berlin Conference led to the modern map of Africa and split up many groups.
Turning point
Leopold II of Congo
- Promised to end slave trade and spread christianity - did not do this
- Ownership of Congo is recognized by other countries in the Berlin Conference
- Nationalistic urge for Belgium to become a world power
- He was the king of Belgium but he personally owned the Congo
DRC (Congo)
It was very rich in natural materials
Battle of Adwa
Ethiopia
Ashanti
Controled the palm oil trade, war with GB, war of the gold stool
Herero
they were cattle farmers in southwest Africa, genocide. This was by Germany. It is the modern day country of Namibia.
Maji Maji
It was a german colony, they british took control. It is the modern day country of Tanzania.
Zulu
Powerful empire in South Africa. Unified by the great Shaka Zulu. Eventually Zulu expansion comes in conflict with European expansion in South Africa which leads to a conflict in which the Zulus are ultimately defeated.
Xhosa
Xhosa resisted British colonization- resulted in the cattle killing movement. Good example of resorting to spiritualism in the face of facing an enemy with superior technology.
Located in South Africa
Mahdist revolt
The Mahdist War was a war between the Mahdist Sudanese of the religious leader Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah, who had proclaimed himself the “Mahdi” (a prophet) of Islam, and the forces of of Egypt, initially, and later the forces of Britain.
Cecil Rhodes
Rhodes is one of the best examples of a European who is guided by the ideas of Social Darwinism in this period. He built a massive mining company exploiting the diamonds and gold in South Africa. He relied on slave-like labor conditions to build his empire.
Boer Wars
Brutal war fought between 1899-1902 between the British and the Dutch settlers known as Boers. The British used consentration camps
Nelson Mandela
Mandela was released from prison in 1990 and became the president of South Africa in 1994. He pursued a policy of Peace and Reconciliation which is not something that all agreed with. He also does not pursue major economic redistribution of wealth.
The Election of 1948
1948…White South Africans controlled the government, and forced the Africans into very poor and small and unsanitary towns known as Homelands, while restricting their movement through the enforcement of Passbook laws. Apartheid resulted in vast human rights violation, violence, and dehumanization
ANC
Protested and resisted peacefully until the government became violent during the Sharpseville Massacre in 1960.
Mandela and the ANC
These actions included forming a secret group known as the Spear of the Nation which would use terrorist attacks against important infrastructure buildings like electricity in order to disrupt the stability of the government. Mandela was ultimately arrested and sentenced to life in prison during the Rivonia Trial for his role with the organization.
