Africa and the Atlantic World

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Africa and the Atlantic World

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Africa and the Atlantic World Ch. 25 African Politics and Society in Early Modern Times The States of West Africa and East Africa The Songhay Empire & Songhay ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Africa and the Atlantic World


1
Africa and the Atlantic World
  • Ch. 25

2
African Politics and Society in Early Modern Times
3
The States of West Africa and East Africa
  • The Songhay Empire Songhay Administration
  • Songhay rulers built a flourishing city-state
  • By the 15th century, Songhay emerged as the
    dominant power of the western grasslands.
  • Sunni Ali built an elaborate administrative and
    military apparatus to oversee affairs in his
    realm
  • Appointed governors to oversee provinces
  • Instituted a hierarchy of command that turned his
    army into an effective military force
  • Created imperial navy to patrol the Niger River,
    which was an extremely important commercial
    highway in the Songhay empire
  • Fail of Songhay
  • In 1591 a musket-bearing Moroccan army opened
    fire on the previously invincible Songhay
    military.
  • Songhay forces withered under the attack, and
    subject peoples took the opportunity to revolt
    against Songhay domination
  • Resulted in series of small, regional kingdoms
    and city-states emerged in west Africa.
  • Swahili Decline
  • In 1505 Portuguese naval expedition subdued all
    the Swahili cities from Sofala to Mombasa
  • Portuguese forces disrupted trade patterns
  • Swahili cities into a decline from which they
    never fully recovered

4
The Kingdoms of Central Africa and South Africa
  • The Kingdom of Kongo
  • Built a centralized state with officials
    overseeing military, judicial, and financial
    affairs
  • Kongo embraced much of the modern-day Republic of
    Congo and Angola.
  • Portuguese merchants had established a close
    political and diplomatic relationship with the
    kings of Kongo
  • Supplied the kings with advisors
  • Provided a military garrison to support the kings
    and protect Portuguese interests
  • Brought tailors, shoemakers, masons, miners, and
    priests to Kongo
  • Kings of Kongo converted to Christianity to
    establish closer commercial relations with
    Portuguese merchants monarchy
  • Slave Raiding in Kongo
  • Portugal brought wealth and foreign recognition
    to Kongo
  • Led to the destruction of the kingdom and the
    establishment of a Portuguese colony in Angola
  • Portuguese merchants sought high-value
    merchandise such as copper, ivory, and, most of
    all slaves
  • Exchanged salves for textiles, weapons, advisors,
    and artisans
  • Portuguese merchants made alliances with local
    authorities, and provided them with weapons
  • Relations between Kongo and Portugal
    deteriorated, particularly after Portuguese
    agents began to pursue opportunities south of
    Kongo
  • The Kingdom of Ndongo
  • Was a powerful regional kingdom, largely on the
    basis of the wealth it was able to attract from
    trade
  • Portuguese forces campaigned in Ndongo in an
    effort to establish a colony that would support
    large-scale slave trading

5
The Kingdoms of Central Africa and South Africa
(cont.)
  • Queen Nzinga The Portuguese colony of Angola
  • Led 40 year resistance against Portuguese forces
  • Mobilized central African peoples against her
    Portuguese adversaries
  • Her aim was to drive the Portuguese from her
    land, expel the Dutch, and create a vast Central
    African Empire
  • Angola was the first European colony in
    sub-Saharan Africa
  • When Nzinga died, Portuguese forces faced less
    resistance
  • Resulted in extended and tightened control over
    Angola
  • Regional Kingdoms in South Africa
  • Kingdoms had begun to emerge as early as the
    eleventh century, largely under the influence of
    trade
  • In south Africa, regional kingdoms dominated
    political affairs
  • By 1300, rulers of one kingdom had built a
    massive, stone-fortified city known as Great
    Zimbabwe
  • European Arrival in South Africa
  • Europeans struck alliances with local peoples of
    South Africa in search of commercial
    opportunities
  • Intervened in disputes with the aim of supporting
    their allies and advancing their own interests
  • Their conquests laid foundation for series of
    Dutch and British colonies
  • Became the most prosperous European possessions
    in Sub Saharan Africa

6
Islam and Christianity in Early Modern Africa
  • The Fulani and Islam
  • Were Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa which had
    concerns about the purity of Islam
  • Many Fulani had settled in cities where they
    observed a strict form of Islam
  • Their Campaigns strengthened Islam in sub-Saharan
    Africa
  • Laid a foundation for new rounds of Islamic state
    building and conversion efforts
  • Christianity and Sub Saharan Africa The
    Antonian Movement
  • Portuguese community in Kongo and Angola
    supported priests and missionaries who introduced
    Roman Catholic Christianity to central Africa
  • Christian teachings blended with African
    traditions formed syncretic cults
  • An influential syncretic cult was the Antonian
    movement in Kongo
  • Flourished when the Kongolese monarchy faced
    challenges throughout the realm
  • Antonian movement began when Dona Beatriz
    proclaimed that St. Anthony of Padua had
    possessed her and chose her to communicate his
    messages
  • Beatriz taught that Jesus Christ had been a black
    African man, that Kongo was the true holy land of
    Christianity, and that heaven was for Africans.
  • Islam in Sub Saharan Africa
  • Was most popular in the commercial centers of
    west Africa and the Swahili city-states of east
    Africa
  • Most African Muslims blended Islam with
    indigenous beliefs and customs
  • This syncretic Islam struck many devout Muslims
    as impure and offensive

7
Social Change in Early Modern Africa
  • American Food Crops in Sub Saharan Africa
  • Trade brought new food crops to sub-Saharan
    Africa
  • American crops such as manioc, maize, and peanuts
    arrived in Africa aboard Portuguese ships
  • Population Growth
  • Bread made from manioc flour had become a staple
    food in much of west Africa and central Africa
  • It helped to underwrite steady population growth
  • 34 million (1500) to 44 million (1600) to 52
    million (1700) to 60 million (1800)
  • American food crops supported expanding
    populations in all regions if Sub Saharan Africa
    during early modern times

8
The Atlantic Slave Trade
9
Foundation of the Slave Trade
  • Slavery in Africa
  • Slaves in Africa came from the ranks of war
    captives
  • Criminals and individuals expelled from their
    clans frequently fell into slavery
  • Once enslaved individuals had no personal or
    civil rights
  • Agricultural plantations in the Songhay empire
    often had hundreds of slave laborers,
  • Africans routinely purchased slaves to enlarge
    their families and enhance their power
  • They assimilated slaves into their kinship
    groups, so that within a generation a slave might
    obtain both freedom and an honorable position in
    a new family or clan
  • The Islamic Slave Trade
  • Muslim merchants from north Africa, Arabia, and
    Persia sought African slaves for sale and
    distribution to
  • Destinations were to the Mediterranean basin,
    southwest Asia, India, southeast Asia and China
  • By the time Europeans ventured to sub-Saharan
    Africa, traffic in slaves was a well-established
    feature of African society
  • A system for capturing, selling, and distributing
    slaves had functioned effectively for more than
    five hundred years
  • Atlantic slave trade brought an enormous
    involuntary migration that influenced the
    development of societies throughout the Atlantic
    Ocean basin.

10
Human Cargoes
  • The Early Slave Trade
  • Traders delivered their human cargoes to
    Portuguese island colonies in the Atlantic
  • Sugar planters called for slaves in increasing
    quantities
  • Portuguese entrepreneurs extended slave labor to
    South America.
  • In 1518 the first shipment of slaves went
    directly from West Africa to the Caribbean, where
    they worked on recently established sugar
    plantations
  • Spanish authorities introduced slaves to Mexico
  • English colonists introduced slaves to the North
    American mainland
  • Triangular Trade
  • 1st leg they carried horses and European
    manufactured goods (mostly cloth and metal wares,
    especially firearms) that they exchanged in
    sub-Saharan Africa for slaves
  • 2nd leg took enslaved Africans to Caribbean and
    American destinations.
  • 3rd leg, they filled their vessels' hulls with
    American products and embarked on their voyage
    back to Europe
  • At every stage of the process, slave trade was an
    inhumane and brutal business.
  • The Middle Passage
  • After being captured, enslaved individuals were
    forced to march to the coast, where they lived in
    holding pens until a ship arrived to transport
    them to the western hemisphere
  • The dreadful middle passage refers to the
    trans-Atlantic journey, aboard filthy, crowded
    slave ships
  • Conditions were so bad, slaves attempted to
    starve themselves to death or mounted revolts
  • Ship crews attempted to preserve the lives of
    slaves, intending to sell them for a profit at
    the end of the voyage
  • Treated the unwilling passengers with cruelty and
    contempt
  • Approximately 25 percent of individuals enslaved
    in Africa did not survive the middle passage

11
The Impact of the Slave Trade in Africa
  • Social Effects of the Slave Trade Gender and
    Slavery
  • The Atlantic slave trade deprived African
    societies of about sixteen million individuals
  • in addition, several million others were consumed
    by the continuing Islamic slave trade during the
    early modern era.
  • Political Effects of the Slavery Trade
  • Approximately two-thirds of all slaves were young
    men between fourteen and thirty-five years of age
  • Resulted in a gender imbalance
  • Militated against slaves reproducing in most
    places of colonial America
  • Resulted in women making up more than two-thirds
    of the adult population of Angola,
  • This encouraged Angolans to embrace polygyny (the
    practice of having more than one wife at a time).
  • Volume of the Slave Trade in Africa
  • The Atlantic slave trade brought about the
    involuntary migration of about twelve million
    Africans to the western hemisphere.
  • Kingdoms like Rwanda and Bugunda escaped the
    slave trade, partly because of resistance, and
    because their lands were distant from major slave
    ports on west African coast.
  • Other societies flourished and benefited
    economically from the slave trade

12
The African Diaspora
The dispersal of African peoples and their
descendants
13
Plantation Societies
  • Cash Crops
  • Sugar was one of the most lucrative cash crops of
    early modern times
  • Soon tobacco rivaled sugar as a profitable
    product
  • Rice became a major plantation product, as did
    indigo
  • By the eighteenth century, cotton and coffee had
    begun to emerge as a plantation specialty
  • Caribbean American plantations specialized in
    the production of some agricultural crop in
    demand, where African or African American slaves
    performed most of the labor
  • Regional Differences
  • In Caribbean and South America, many slaves fell
    victim to tropical diseases such as malaria and
    yellow fever
  • Of all the slaves delivered from Africa to the
    western hemisphere, about half went to the
    Caribbean, and about one-third went to Brazil
  • About 5 percent of enslaved Africans went to
    North America where diseases were less threatening
  • Resistance to Slavery
  • Some forms of resistance were mild but costly to
    slave owners
  • Slaves often worked slowly for their masters but
    diligently in their own gardens
  • Slaves occasionally sabotaged plantation
    equipment or work routines.
  • A more serious form of resistance involved
    running away from the plantation community
  • Maroon (runaway) communities flourished through
    out slave holding regions of the western
    hemisphere

14
Plantation Societies (cont.)
  • Slave Revolts
  • Most dramatic form of resistance was the slave
    revolt
  • Slaves far outnumbered others in most plantation
    societies
  • They had the potential to organize and overwhelm
    their masters
  • Only in the French sugar colony of Saint-Domingue
    did a slave revolt abolish slavery as an
    institution
  • This revolt declared independence from France and
    renamed the land Haiti, and established a self
    governing republic
  • Slavery and Economic Development
  • The physical labor of African and African
    American slaves made crucial contributions to the
    building of new societies in the Americas
  • Slave labor cultivated many of the crops and
    extracted many of the minerals that made their
    way around the world in the global trade networks
    of the early modern era

15
The Making of African American Cultural Traditions
  • African and Creole Languages African American
    Religions
  • European languages were the dominant tongues in
    the slave societies of the western hemisphere
  • African languages also influenced communication
  • Slaves spoke a creole tongue that drew on several
    African and European languages
  • Some slaves shipped out of Africa were Christians
  • Others converted to Christianity after their
    arrival in the western hemisphere
  • All the syncretic, African-American religions
    drew inspiration from Christianity
  • African American Music
  • For many of these involuntary laborers, the
    playing of African music brought a sense of home
    and community to mind
  • Slaves in the Americas adapted African musical
    traditions
  • This included their rhythmic and oratorical
    elements, to their new environments
  • This was a means of buffering the shock of
    transition
  • Was also a way to survive and to resist the
    horrid conditions of their new lives
  • African American Cultural Traditions
  • Slaves introduced African foods to Caribbean and
    American societies
  • Helped give rise to distinctive hybrid cuisines
  • Slaves introduced rice cultivation to tropical
    and subtropical regions, including South
    Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana
  • Added variety to American diets
  • The African diaspora influenced the ways all
    peoples lived in plantation societies

16
The End of the Slave Trade and the Abolition of
Slavery
  • The Economic Costs of Slavery
  • Plantations, slavery, and the slave trade
    continued to flourish as long as they were
    profitable
  • Slave labor did not come cheap.
  • As the profitability of slavery declined,
    Europeans began to shift their investments from
    sugarcane and slaves to newly emerging
    manufacturing industries
  • End of Slave Trade The Abolition of Slavery
  • The end of the legal commerce in slaves did not
    abolish the institution of slavery itself
  • As long as plantation slavery continued, a
    clandestine (secretive) trade shipped slaves
    across the Atlantic
  • The last documented ship that carried slaves
    across the Atlantic arrived in Cuba in 1867
  • Officially, slavery no longer exists, but
    millions of people live in various forms of
    servitude even today.
  • Olaudah Equiano
  • Some freed slaves contributed to the abolitionist
    cause
  • Write books that exposed the brutality of
    institutional slavery
  • Most notable of them was the west African Olaudah
    Equiano
  • Published an autobiography detailing his
    experiences as a slave and a free man
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