AFRICA: IMPERIALISM/COLONIALISM

1. AFRICA: IMPERIALISM/COLONIALISM

2. COLONIZER MINDSET • Colonization is a creation of two conflicting societies, one of the colonizer and one of the colonized • Colonizer & colonized, settler & native • Colonization barbarizes the colonized so that the colonizer can, in good conscience, take everything from the oppressed • SEE PACKET

3. COLONIAL MINDSET • White Man’s Burden (We will read this) • Founded upon beliefs of European superiority • The “duty and responsibility” to “civilize savage people” •  In return, one should receive gratitude and appreciation (thankless  years) for their sacrifice • Emasculation and dehumanization-seen as children (half-devil, half child) • Gold, Gold, Glory- Competitive nature (judgement of your peers)  (they shall weigh your gods and you) •  Religious undertones, divine order from God

4. Colonial View of RACE • Europeans emphasized differences - those with dark skin inherently different to those with white skin. • As a result Europeans believed that race was biological - the differences genetic and unchanging. Is race biological? Construct? 3. Europeans promoted this view of race. People that look different are inherently different and as a result of their color Europeans concluded that: a. a Africans less civilized, less human - removal of dignity b. Being less human allows different treatment of Africans justifies European behavior of not treating them as humans at all c. Justifies European carving-up of African continent. Africans do not know how to take care of what they have therefore need to be colonized. d. Europeans know better similar relationship of parent and child.

5. Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory • claims sovereignty over the colony, and social structure, gov’t, and economics of the colony are changed by colonizers from the core • Colonialism benefits of colonizer • Ideological basis of colonialism is racism/white supremacy • The “white man’s burden,” in its 19th-century version, involved extraordinary violence, approximating genocide, against its supposed beneficiaries • A major component of this violence was the collection of cultural images and themes by which colonized people came to be known by the colonial power • The status of colonial subject, of being “known” by the colonizer, simultaneously enforced & rationalized the colonial power’s dominance of indigenous populations, giving imperialism a fundamental racial dimension-THE OTHER!

6. Colonialism is a source of violence • violence of colonization both breeds and constrains violence within the colonized, simultaneously enabling their colonization and providing the very power through which the colonized might liberate themselves (divide and conquer?) • Such liberation is only possible, he claims, through revolutionary violence

7. In the colonies, thepoliceman and the soldier are the official, instituted go-betweens, the spokesmen of the settler and his rule of oppression • In capitalist societies, institutions such as the educational system serve to create around the exploited an atmosphere of submission and of inhibition which lightens task of policing considerably • In the colonial countries, by contrast, policeman and soldier, by their immediate presence and their frequent and direct action maintain contact with the native, using the language of pure force • “The intermediary does not lighten the oppression, nor seek to hide the domination; he shows them up and puts them into practice with the clear conscience of an upholder of the peace; yet he is the bringer of violence into the home and into the mind of the native….”

8. Decolonization is not simply the removal of colonial structures, but especially, the deconstruction of colonial legacies in the mindset of formerly colonized peoples • the psychological dimensions of colonialism creates a racist system that can go as far as convincing the colonized that they are what the colonists tell them they are • The colonized strive to be like the colonizer, to become him, to be white even. "...The total result looked for by colonial domination was indeed to convince the natives that colonialism came to lighten their darkness," writes Fanon (210) • To end colonization, first the colonized must see the myth that has been placed on him

9. BEFORE COLONIZATION:AFRICA FLOURISHED • Songhai • Mali • Moors • Benin

10. BEFORE COLONIZATION:AFRICA FLOURISHED • Songhay • 1. Sonni Ali founded the Songhay Empire based on military conquest • 2. Ali’s military was based on a calvary and a mobile fleet of ships • 3. Askia Muhammad Toure established the largest empire in African history • 4. Askia Muhammad centralized the government by creating a bureaucracy, standardizing weights, measures, and currency • 5. Schools and universities were established teaching geography, philosophy, medicine, law, government, astronomy, math, literature, logic, rhetoric, music, and poetry

11. BEFORE COLONIZATION:AFRICA FLOURISHED • Mali • 1. Mali was built off of the monopolization of the trade routes from western Africa to eastern and northern Africa • 2. Gold was the most lucrative of these monopolies • 3. Sundjata, Mali’s founder, introduced the region to the cultivation and weaving of cotton • 4. Transformed soldiers into farmers and Mali became one of the richest farming areas in West Africa • 5. Mansa Musa expanded Mali’s influence (twice the size of Ghana) and Mali became known in Europe and the Middle East • 6. M.M took 60,000 people and 80-100 camel loads of gold on his hajj to Mecca in 1324 • 7. Brought back Muslim scholars, architects, and other skilled people from his       hajj • 8. Timbuktu became one of the largest and most important cultural and    educational centers in the entire world • 9. Vast libraries and universities were established

12. BEFORE COLONIZATION:AFRICA FLOURISHED • The Moors • 1. The Moors ruled Spain and northern Africa • 2. Moors brought Spain into golden age it never duplicated, pulled Spain out of the Dark Ages • 3. Moors brought its agricultural techniques and crops, engineering, mining, industry, manufacturing, expanded trade, and emphasis on education • 4. Moors built aqueducts for irrigation • 5. Architecture included arches, courtyards, and gardens • 6. Made education universal and built over seventy public libraries and seventeen universities • 7. Rest of Europe would borrow these ideas from the Moors

13. BEFORE COLONIZATION:AFRICA FLOURISHED • Benin • 1. Benin’s Power in the region/The greatness of the Kingdom: Until the late 19th century, one of the major powers in West Africa was the kingdom of Benin in what is now southwest Nigeria. • 2.  When European merchant ships began to visit West Africa from the 15th century onwards, Benin came to control the trade between the inland peoples and the Europeans on the coast. • 3. One reason why the rulers of Benin conquered their neighbors was to control the supply of goods, which could be traded to the Europeans on the coast. The king himself was in charge of trading slaves, ivory, palm oil, rubber and other important goods, so that all the profit went to support his court and government. Other merchants could only trade with the king’s permission. The Europeans themselves were seldom allowed to travel inland or visit Benin city, to avoid them trading without the authority of theking. • 4. Trade with the Portuguese and the British (decent relationship with these Europeans countries.  

14. Africa: The Slave TradeWAVES OF IMPERIALSIM By Precious S., Courtney R., Neda S., && Josh S.

15. Development. • In the 1480s, the Portuguese discovered new & unoccupied land; the islands of Principe & Sao Tome. • On these lands, sugar plantations were developed & manned by slave labor. • The Slavs of southern Russia were also used to man these plantations. • This became the model for plantation slavery in the Americas & the Caribbean.

16. Initiation. • Portugal’s immediate concern was to gain access to the regions of Africa that produce gold. • Sub-Saharan west Africa was the main source of gold for Europe. • The wealth the gold provided was used to finance more exploration. • In the 1470s, Portuguese ships first reached the west African coast.

17. Senegal & Gambia, in the 15th & 16th century, were the main source of slaves. They were then transported to southern Spain & Portugal. Soon, it became necessary for a larger labor force. The new labor was needed to maintain gold & silver mines & tobacco plantations. Amerindians were also used as slaves. But, soon diseases began to decrease the Amerindian population. Many diseases that killed Amerindians, however, didn’t kill the Africans. So, again, more Africans were requested. African rulers began to sell their war captives & criminals. In 1532, the first captives were transported directly across the Atlantic ocean. Demand for slaves soon increased when the Dutch, French & English became involved. Over the next 200 years, slavery became the biggest transportation of captive people in human history. The Beginning of Slavery …

18. The Basics. • At least 70 million people were taken out of Africa. • The ‘Slave Coast’ became a large source of slaves. The “Slave Coast” is the western coast of modern Nigeria. • The ‘Gold Coast’ had the most European trading forts. The ‘Gold Coast’ is modern Ghana. • European slave traders didn’t capture their own slaves. Their activity was restricted to the trading forts. • The main source of slaves was warfare.

19. Slave Sellers. • In the late 15th century, Benin sold captives to the Portuguese. • In the 16th century, they refused to trade people. • In the 18th century, they began to sell them again due to the decline of a powerful kingdom. • The African rulers that sold people became very rich. They didn’t usually sell people from their own society unless they were criminals or outcasts.

20. Aggression. • African wars may have been deliberately started in order to obtain captives. • In the 18th century when the Europeans started trade with guns, trading became more profitable at least for a short period of time. • With the introduction of guns to the society, there came total destruction of weaker societies. • As a result of the slave trade, there was an increased level of general warfare in the west African interior. • There was a serious loss of productive potential in the region. • Those sold were the young most productive sector of the population mostly between 14 and 35.

21. The Outcome. • There was a large about of disregard of human && dignity to slaves. • Becoming a slave marked the beginning of a short life of appalling degradation && suffering. • Captives were no longer treated as human beings but, rather as property like animals who were to be herded together && examined. They were chained together && put in cages while waiting to be transported. • The main causes of death were overworking && underfeeding. • In the 18th century, it was cheaper to import slaves from Africa then allow them to rear there own children. • Productive wealth of the New World rested heavily of the shoulders of the African workers. • As dependence upon European imports increased, further development of African craft industries declined. • Import of European guns made African warfare more effective && increased the supply of slaves.

22. The 'Scramble' for Africa • Since the emergence of ‘legitimate commerce’ in place of the Atlantic slave trade. European merchants had been increasingly interested in gaining control over the trading systems of the African interior. • Europeans recognized African authority and so, they acted through alliances with local African rules. • Portugal had long maintained claims to an African • By the end of the 1800s a massive colonial onslaught known as the European ‘Scramble for Africa’ had brought most of the continent within the sphere

23. Britain’s position as the leading industrial nation in the world was not challenged until the second half of the nineteenth century. • Britain produced the cheapest European goods in the largest quantity and had the largest merchant navy for shipping them to Africa. • In the 1870’s Western Europe’s factories were producing too many cheap goods, which was causing them run out of customers. • Europe turned more and more to Africa to sell their clothing, alcohol, guns, and metal manufactured goods. • France and Germany realized that the way to beat the British was to establish colonies/protected areas in Africa. • Europeans believed that large stretches of Africa’s interior contained unwrapped wealth and raw materials.\ • China?

24. The European Background • There were vegetable oils; ivory, rubber, diamonds, and gold were found in Africa. • The possession of colonies in Africa became a point of national prestige within Europe. • Colonial conquest of Africa was only possible because of 2 factors. • The first place was because colonists were able to exploit traditional and longstanding rivalries between African states. • The second place was because Europe gained an advantage in military technology. • In the 1870’s/80’s African armies were rapidly overtaken by advances in European weaponry, for example the Maxim gun, which was the worlds first highly mobile modern machine gun.

25. The French constructed a railway from Dakar to link their colony of Senegal with the upper Niger valley. By doing this the French government hoped to gain control of a huge protected market across the Sanelian savannah regions of West Africa. • The Berlin West Africa Conference was an attempt by European leaders to add some kind of international European agreement to the carving-up of Africa that was already under way. • Africans did not lightly lay down their independence and the 1890s was a period of widespread African resistance to European conquest. • Although the British did not conquer so much territory as the French, they ended up with two of the wealthiest states in the region, Gold Coast and Nigeria.

26. George Goldie had united several British trading companies into the National African Company. This company alone controlled virtually all the palm-oil exports between the Niger/Benue confluence and the Delta. • Most of the vast inland territory of modern Nigeria was gradually brought under British rule. But much of the region had to be taken by force, for the various Nigerian peoples fought hard against their conquerors. • The British in Nigeria, faced some of their toughest opposition from those small groupings of ‘stateless’ peoples who and no large centralized authority that could be overthrown.

27. The Savannah and forest zones of Sub-Saharan West Africa were the regions where African initiative was best able to respond to the new market opportunities of the early colonial period • On the whole the production of raw materials in the region was left in the hands of African peasant farmers in both French and British zones • African farmers were encouraged to turn away from food crops and produce cash crops for the European market • Senegaiese peasants migrated seasonally into the less densely populated Gamba river valley to cultivate the crop and sell their exports down stream to the Coast at Bathurst • The development of cocoa as an export crop from Gold Coast was a striking example of African initiative

28. By 1914 Gold Coast had become the worlds largest single producer of cocoa • The British expected the Hausa of northern Nigeria to become major producers of cotton but to their surprise the farmers in Hausa region turned instead to groundnuts • Experienced local Hausa traders quickly spread the word and organized the local marketing networks • Peasants produced in many parts of tropical Africa undoubtedly benefited from the imported transport facilities roads and railways which were developed in the early colonial period • In many cases railway construction companies received huge free grants of African land • European merchants and manufacturers who benefited mostly from the increased trade paid nothing for the transport infrastructures of the colonies from which they profited

29. All 'systems' of colonial admin. were remarkably similar in practice  • French originally sought to "assimilate" colonial subjects into cultural Frenchmen, regardless of skin color  • Were to have full legal & political rights of French citizenship (i.e. right to send reps to French parliament in Paris) • Late 19th century --- large scale colonization of continent began • French abandoned "assimilation" for all BUT the citizens of • original four Senegalese towns (Dakar, St Louis, Gorée and Ruñsque) as well as select few highly-educated French- speaking Africans • Authorities made educational qualifications for African "assimilation" extremely difficult to achieve • Few Africans sought the status • Reaching for status involved rejecting their personality & culture • 15 million of France's tropical African empire were classified as subjects by 1930 • 50,000 were the 'Four Communes' of Senegal,  and few add. of selected assimilated Africans --- less than 500 

30. Subject denied virtually any legal or political rights at all  • District & village chiefs appointed or dismissed at will by provincial French administration  • Duty of French-appointed "chiefs" was to collect taxes, recruit labor (especially forced corvée labor) & suppression of rural African opposition  • Any who failed to perform to French satisfaction were replaced  • Chiefs" became, in effect, French government officials   • Denied any independent religious or legal authority  • French affectively destroyed African customary law  • Notorious colonial law (indigénat) entitled French provincial administration to imprison any African sujet (subject) indefinitely & without charge or trial   • British also made use of "traditional" African rulers at local government level   • British had a "theory" of colonial administration "Indirect Rule" 

31. "Indirect Rule" was believed by British to be cheapest & most effective way of administering vast populations stretched over even vaster territories with minimum of European personnel  • Wherever possible, British used "traditional" African rulers to carry out basic functions of local government (i.e. collect taxes, recruit of labor, control of potential African unrest -- same as French)  • British made greater use of African "customary law" unlike the French  • Chiefs allowed to judge local civil disputes & to try minor criminal cases  • Never allowed to try serious criminal cases or any dispute involving a European  • Chief performed a whole range of legal duties which would otherwise have been costly & inconvenient to colonial administration • "Tribe" was deliberately used in a derogatory sense by European colonists who looked down upon African societies as "primitive" and "inferior"  • There was competition & conflict by groups that had existed. It was for political power or economic advantage rather than simply because they were of different tribes  • British made use of the age-old imperial maxim: "divide and rule" 

32. Portuguese administrative policy was similar to French in principle  • Tiny number of select individuals who'd adopted Portuguese language and culture were classified civilisado  • Civilisado excused labor & tax demands  • Never allowed voting rights in local or central government like French assimilated "citizens" in Senegal  • Civilisados were a very small minority (mostly mixed-race)  • Lived in towns, worked as clerks, teachers & petty traders . They were totally separated in culture and outlook from majority "indigenes" people   • Belgians used mix of French and British systems  • Education above rudimentary primary level was actively discouraged  • Use of chiefs in local government was fairly arbitrary. It was dependent on local circumstances and administrative convenience

33. In the smallest-scale society the chief was usually the guardian of religious shrines or protector of ancestral spirits • European destruction of African political authority also weakened the authority of traditional African religion • Major growth period for Christian missionary expansion was thus in the opening decades of the twentieth century • In the 1880s and 1890s in South Africa, African Christian clergyman had rebelled against European domination of their Churches

34. The tendency to reject European control and to form independent African Churches spread to central Africa in the wake of the spread of European colonialism • African Church leaders took the teachings of the Bible more literally than some of their European colleagues. they saw in the Bible the doctrines of justice and the equality of humankind • Perhaps the most famous African Christian 'rebel' of the period was John Chilembwe. He had founded his own mission station in the Shire Highlands, an area of white plantation settlement

35. AFRICA SINCE INDEPENDENCE “The roots of many of Africa’s recurrent Problems in the final decades of the twentieth century are to be found in the period of colonial rule of the previous eighty years or more.”

36. AFRICA SINCE INDEPENDENCE • The Political Legacy Of Colonial Rule • After revolting against the foreign governments, that was like an “alien dictatorship,” African people had trouble establishing governments. • The colonial governments were made of boundaries that had no correlation with previous states and cultures. • The various political leaders were mostly chosen based on ethnics rather than ethics. • Some one-party states could not vote out officials, however most of them deteriorated to dictatorships.

37. AFRICA SINCE INDEPENDENCE • The Economic Legacy of • Underdevelopment and Dependency • African economies had been directed towards exporting cheap agricultural raw materials and unprocessed minerals to Europe and in return, importing relatively expensive manufactured goods. • There had been little or no attempt to develop African economic self-sufficiency for that would have defeated the purpose of Europe’s possessing colonies. • In times of European depression, Africa was paid less for her exports, and in times of European inflation, Africans had to pay more for their import. • Each year more and more African effort had to be turned to producing cash crops. • As more effort was put into cash-crop production and laboring in the mines, subsistence cultivation for Africa’s basic food was neglected. • Africans on average were growing less than half of their own food needs. • Africa’s transport system was totally inadequate for the country’s internal development.

38. AFRICA SINCE INDEPENDENCE • The Economic Legacy of Underdevelopment and Dependency (Continued) • Roads were poorly developed and most of Africa’s road and rail networks showed no concern for a country’s internal development. • There were virtually no regional road or rail lines to help promote trade between one African country and another. • Tele communications were the same; internal rural networks were almost non-existent, it was easier to telephone from Africa to Europe that it was to telephone from one African capital to another. • African governments inherited two particularly repressive economic policies from their colonial predecessors: poll tax and agricultural marketing boards. • The lack of education was further debilitating legacy of the colonial period. Barely ten percent of the population was literate and independent.

39. AFRICA SINCE INDEPENDENCE • The Early Drive for Economic Development • The new in-experienced rulers had high expectations of what could be achieved with political independence. • The dreams were shattered as the depth of the underlying economic crisis became apparent. • The new rulers of independent Africa made the initial mistake of modeling their development programs upon the industrialized economies of western Europe and north America. • Europe was “developed” and Africa was “undeveloped.” • Africa had to copy the European model or urban centralized industrialization. • African leaders accepted the model because they saw rapid industrialization as the means to achieve economic self-sufficiency.

40. AFRICA SINCE INDEPENDENCE • The Role of Military in African Politics • Most of the French-Speaking states went over to military during the 1960’s. • Military had often played a powerful role in the politics of the major pre-colonial states. • The military was held in reserve for internal use against potential rebellious subjects rather than for defense of the country against political hostile neighbors. • Gowon’s government grew increasingly inefficient and divorced from the needs of the country. • The vulnerability of African governments to military intervention was revealed when a military leader was assassinated by other officers. • The country was turned over to civilian rule in 1979. • The Nigerian civilian government was the freest time in Nigerian history. • Military rulers were just as likely to be corrupt as their civilian counterparts.

41. AFRICA SINCE INDEPENDENCE • Drought, Debt and Development: The Dilemmas of the 1980’s-1990’s • Two of the principal factors stifling African development in the 1980’s and 1990’s have been international debt and drought. • African governments have, with very few exceptions struggled to increase self-sufficiency and reduce their foreign debts. But the debts still rise. • Since 1960 Africa’s raw material exports have dropped in price 10 to 20 times in relation to manufactured imports. • Governments have had to turn to the International Monetary Fund for emergency foreign exchange and for further loans to help pay the interest on loans. • The problem is that the International Monetary Fund and its associated World Bank, both Washington-based, are financed by the banks of the ‘developed’ capitalist economics of western Europe and North America. • Since the 1950’s, there has been a noticeable fall in the average annual rainfall in many parts of the continent. • Some areas have been affected by the Civil War.

42. AFRICA SINCE INDEPENDENCE • Drought, Debt and Development: The Dilemmas of the 1980’s-1990’s (continued) • Warfare waged by South Africa backed up rebels. • Botswana had a stable economy and a stable political democracy. • Botswana was able to use its well-developed infrastructure and its economic reserves to establish effective drought relief projects. • Africans have in the past coped with climate changes and have evolved new pastoral and agricultural techniques for coming to terms with their environment. • Four countries are concentrating more on small scale labor intensive projects. • Local cooperative grain banks are being set up to provide local credit and to store grain fore consumption during times of need.

43. AFRICA SINCE INDEPENDENCE • International Cooperation and the Organization of African Unity • The first Pan-African meeting held in Africa was the All African People’s Conference. • It was held by Nkrumah in newly independent Ghana in 1958. • Nkrumah believed that the only way to achieve complete economic and political freedom from European domination was to create a powerful “United States of Africa.” • Only then would Africa be able to take its place on the world economic and political stage on terms of equality. • Nkrumah himself only achieved the appearance of internal political strength and unity by surpassing regional Asante opposition. • However, on the wider continent, individual African States and their newly-independent governments had too many of their own immediate problems to take political union seriously. • In May 1963, 32 heads of State of then Independent Africa came together in the Ethiopian Capital, to form the Organization of African Unity (OAU.)

44. AFRICA SINCE INDEPENDENCE • International Cooperation and the Organization of African Unity (continued) • This organization’s goal was to promote political and economic cooperation between independent states and to help speed the de-colonization of the rest of Africa. • A weakness of the OAU was the fact that it had no legal sanction to enforce its resolutions. • Nevertheless, the OAU has been a useful form for international African cooperation. • During June 1991, the heads of the OAU government signed a treaty in hopes of mainly towards an African Economic community. • During the 1980’s, Africa faced an economic crisis. • Jerry Rawlings of Ghana made a transition from a dictatorship to a democracy. • Nigeria demonstrated spectacular failure in the democratic process in Nigeria. • Forms of democracy were born in the early 1990’s and did not fulfill hopes and aspirations of the ordinary electorate who earned for a change in govt., to bring new and fresh ideas.

45. AFRICA SINCE INDEPENDENCE • International Cooperation and the Organization of African Unity (continued) • The new continent wide democratic movement, whatever its limitations, has opened a new era of direct African solutions. • Governments have acquired a new legitimacy which, combined with the concept of greater regional economic integration, opens up whole new horizons for the continents long-term future.

46. AFRICA SINCE INDEPENDENCE • Most of Africa is now flourishing despite news of Ebola and the AIDS crisis.

47. The End