H15A - Final

Legitimate Commerce

"Legitimate commerce" was trade, especially between Europe and Africa, in which human beings did not change hands as property. When: This is a British term that arose during the abolition movement in the U.K., which culminated in the Slave Trade Act of 1807. Significance: The ending of the trade was of tremendous significance for Africans and Europeans on the Guinea Coast. It upset the trading habits of four full centuries, undermined systems of government, disrupted social customs and opened the way for European intervention. The ending of the slave trade caused an 'economic crisis' for African societies, leading to political upheaval.

Afonso I

Afonso I was the ruler of Kongo in west-central Africa and the first of a line of Portuguese vassal kings that lasted until the early 20th century. What: He was the son of the first Christian king of Kongo. In 1491 he and his father were baptized by Portuguese priests and assumed Christian names. King Afonso I worked to create a version of the Roman Catholic Church in Kongo, providing for its income from royal assets and taxation that provided salaries for its workers. Significance: During his reign, Afonso extended Kongo's relations with Portugal, reaching an agreement with Manuel I of Portugal by which the Kongo accepted Portuguese institutions, granted extraterritorial rights to Portuguese subjects, and supplied slaves to Portuguese traders. In 1526, Afonso established an administrative system to oversee the slave trade, which reached considerable proportions during his reign.

Kongo

An African kingdom located in west central Africa in present-day northern Angola. When: 1400s - 1800s Significance: The high concentration of population around Mbanza Kongo and its outskirts played a critical role in the centralization of Kongo. By the time of the first recorded contact with the Europeans, the Kingdom of Kongo was a highly developed state at the center of an extensive trading network. The Kingdom of Kongo became a major source of slaves for Portuguese traders and other European powers. The Cantino Atlas of 1502 mentions Kongo as a source of slaves for the island of São Tomé. Slavery had existed in Kongo long before the arrival of the Portuguese, and Afonso I's early letters show the evidence of slave markets. They also show the purchase and sale of slaves within the country and his accounts on capturing slaves in war which were given and sold to Portuguese merchants.

Battle of Adwa

Battle of Adwa, (1896), was a military clash at Adwa, Ethiopia, between the Ethiopian army of Emperor Menilek II and Italian forces. The Ethiopian army's victory checked Italy's attempt to build an empire in Africa. The victory had further significance for being the first crushing defeat of a European power by African forces during the colonial era. Marked the end of colonialism & was a prelude to the decolonization of Africa. This not only affirmed the power of the possibilities of unity in diversity but also placed issues of freedom and internal perform at the top of the national agenda.

Zanzibar

During the Age of Exploration, the Portuguese Empire was the first European power to gain control of Zanzibar, and kept it for nearly 200 years. In 1698, Zanzibar fell under the control of the Sultanate of Oman, which developed an economy of trade and cash crops, with a ruling Arab elite and a Bantu general population. 1. Plantations were developed to grow spices. 2. Another major trade good was ivory, the tusks of elephants that were killed on the Tanganyika mainland - a practice that is still in place to this day. 3. The third pillar of the economy was slaves, which gave Zanzibar an important place in the Arab slave trade.

Who: a historian and author specializing in African American Studies. What: John Thornton presents a rebuttal to Walter's Rodney's argument in an article from ~1980. He refutes Rodney by saying that the Transatlantic slave trade did not lead to the underdevelopment of Africa largely because there was a pre-existing system of slavery there prior to it. Where: He provides a secondary source article that is included in David Northrup's "The Atlantic Slave Trade." Significance: He argues that local slavery played a huge part socially, politically and economically and that the Transatlantic slave trade didn't contribute that much more strife than was already present. believes that Rodney's argument is problematic because the drain of population is exaggerated. He asserts that because the majority of women remained, so did their capacity to reproduce and replace the men that were lost. Thornton's agency is that people were being traded by internal forces before the Transatlantic slave trade intervened.

John Thornton

Tabora

Tabora was founded by Arab traders in the 1850s (known then as Kazeh) and became a centre of the slave trade. The German East Africa protectorate was proclaimed over the region in 1885. As a major station on the Central Line it became the most important administrative centre of central German East Africa. In 1916 the colonial garrison had an emergency mint at Tabora, making some gold pieces as well as large numbers of crude copper and brass German East African rupie minor coins Mint marked with a "T". During the Tabora Offensive in the East African Campaign of World War I, colonial armed forces of the Belgian Congo captured the town on 19 September 1916.

Induna

The title was reserved for senior officials appointed by the king or chief, and was awarded to individuals held in high esteem for their qualities of leadership, bravery or service to the community. InDuna is a Zulu title meaning advisor, great leader, ambassador, headman or commander of a group of warriors. It can also mean spokesperson or mediator, as the izinDuna often acted as a bridge between the people and the king. For example, Mbopa was an inDuna serving under Shaka before his death in 1828.

Who: Deemed that the Transatlantic slave trade underdeveloped Africa. What: Argument demonstrated in "The Unequal Partnership Between Africans and Europeans" is a demographic one. 1. sheer number of people extracted from the continent had a profound impact and consequence on the capacity to develop Africa. 2. the majority of slaves taken from Africa were young males, and that taking away the youth of a country equates to taking away the people who have the most capacity to innovate and develop it. Without them, the rest of Africa's ability to create and improve productive technology such as mineral smelting, cloth and basket-making and etc., was deeply hindered. When: 1973 Significance: Rodney's agency was that forces external to Arica were damaging its development.

Walter Rodney

Battle of Blood River

What: The Battle of Blood River is the name given for the battle fought between the Voortrekkers and the Zulu on the bank of the Ncome River on 16 December 1838. Battle between the Zulu and the Voortrekker Boers in South Africa. Its proximate cause was a clash over land rights in Natal and the massacre of Voortrekkers by the Zulu king Dingane. Significant because it marked the coming downfall of the zulu kingdom.

Shakaland

What: popular South African theme park, Shakaland is an attraction in South Africa. It pays homage to the Zulu nation's history, explores its contribution to modern society, and allows visitors to experience a taste of this culture. (Replica of a traditional Zulu homestead). Significance: Visitors to Shakaland are invited to attend (and even participate in) authentic zulu traditions and customs. Shakaland bears such important testimony to the South African heritage and shows how great an impact King Shaka had in the identity of his people.

Usman dan Fodio

Who: 1754 - 1817 born in Gobir, Hausaland, died 1817, Sokoto,( Fulani empire). Fulani mystic, philosopher, and revolutionary reformer who, in a jihad (holy war) between 1804 and 1808, created a new Muslim state, the Fulani empire, in what is now northern Nigeria. Significance: Usman was the most important reforming leader of the western Sudan region in the early 19th century. His importance lies as a renewer of the faith of Islam throughout the region; and partly in his work as a teacher and intellectual. In the latter roles he was the focus of a network of students and the author of a large corpus of writings in Arabic and Fulani that covered most of the Islamic sciences. Usman's importance lies in his activities as founder of an Islamic community in Africa, the Sokoto caliphate, which brought the Hausa states and some neighboring territories under a single central administration for the first time in history.

Asante

Who: Asante are an ethnic group native to the Asante Region of modern-day Ghana. The empire was founded by Osei Kofi Tutu I What: During the time of the Transatlantic slave trade, two kingdoms came on the rise - Asante and Dahomey. Asante is often assumed to mean "because of wars". The Ashanti limited British influence in the Ashanti region. When: 1701 - 1896/present Significance: The wealthy gold-rich Asante people developed the large and influential Empire Sited at the crossroads of the Trans-Saharan trade routes, the strategic location for trade. Ashanti gave little to no deference to colonial authorities and was one of the few African states that seriously resisted European colonizers. Ashanti continues to make significant contributions to Ghana's economy.

Joseph Inikori

Who: Author of "Guns for Slaves" within Northrup journal. Inikori believes that the introduction of firearms represented an important technical innovation in slave gathering. Slave gathering was a state affair, with raids often provoking neighbors of nearby states. Guns were needed for defense. Where: The presence of guns in trade was so great that the the Bonny trading area in present-day Nigeria became the largest and most prominent firearm importer in West Africa during the 17th - 19th century. Significance: The implication is that the firearms imported into West Africa by Europeans endorsed warfare - Europeans increased political instability in West Africa

Princess Salme/Emily Ruete

Who: Emily Ruete was born in Zanzibar as Salama bint Said and was a Princess of Zanzibar and Oman. She was the youngest of the 36 children of Sayyid Said bin Sultan. (pg. 326 in Harms - excerpt of personal memoir) When: 1844 - 1924 Significance: had a dual perspective, lived in germany but also grew up in zanzibar. Attempted to defend the slavery system. Her mother was not a wife, but concubine, thus she had a lower status in zanzibar but still is a proponent of how slavery had a different meaning to her then the western notion of slavery. Blurred the black and white categories that people in Europe were using to make sense of it.

Fulani

Who: In the 1790s a Fulani divine, Usman dan Fodio (1754-1817), who lived in the Hausa state of Gobir quarreled with its rulers. Accusing the Hausa kings of being little more than pagans, he encouraged the Hausa people to revolt. Joined both by Hausa commoners and by Fulani pastoralists alike, the jihad, or holy war, swept through Hausaland. What: Numbering between 38 and 40 million people in total, are one of the largest ethnic groups in the Sahel and West Africa, widely dispersed across the region. As an ethnic group, they are bound together by the Fula language and their Islamic religious affiliation,their history and their culture. A significant proportion of the Fula are pastoralists, making them the ethnic group with the largest nomadic pastoral community in the world. Inhabiting many countries, they live mainly in West Africa. Many of the Fulani continued to pursue a pastoral life; some, however, particularly in Hausaland, gave up their nomadic pursuits, settled into existing urban communities, and were converted to Islām.

Congo Free State

Who: It was ruled personally by Leopold II, king of belgium. What: The Congo Free State was a large state in Central Africa from 1885 to 1908. The regime, under Leopold's control, became notorious for its treatment of the Congolese. Forced labour was used to gather wild rubber, palm oil, and ivory. Beatings and lashings were used to force villages to meet their quotas. Significance: The truth about Leopold's brutal regime eventually spread, largely owing to the efforts of the Congo Reform Association, an organization founded by British citizens in the early 20th century. In 1908 the Congo Free State was abolished and replaced by the Belgian Congo, a colony controlled by the Belgian parliament.

Mungo Park

Who: Mungo Park was a Scottish explorer of West Africa. He was the first Westerner known to have travelled to the central portion of the Niger River. He wrote a popular and influential travel book about it titled Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa which became a popular success and made him famous. What: His subsequent studies of the plant and animal life of Sumatra won for him the backing of the African Association to explore the true course of the Niger River. Significance: Commissioned a captain, he led a party of 40 Europeans to Pisania on Aug. 19, 1805. Reached Bamako (now in Mali) on the Niger, but later drowned. His death started the myth of Africa being the white man's grave; the deeper you go into africa, the likelier you are to perish. Tries to paint a picture of what slave trade looked like, gives a quantitative source of the general conditions of those who were slaves and how they were enslaved. Contributed to pseudo-racist stereotypes of africans by documenting them as being slaves and violent

Mzilikazi

Who: Mzilikazi was a Southern African king who founded the Matabele Kingdom, Matabeleland, in what became British South Africa Company-ruled Rhodesia and is now Zimbabwe. His name means "the great road". What: Many consider him to be the greatest Southern African military leader after the Zulu king Shaka. David Livingstone, in his autobiography, referred to Mzilikazi as the second most impressive leader he encountered on the African continent. Where: He took his people, the Khumalo, on a 500 mi journey from the Zulu Kingdom to what is now called Zimbabwe. Along the way he was able to weld his own people and the many tribes he conquered into a large and ethnically diverse but centralized kingdom. He was originally a lieutenant of Shaka but had a quarrel with him in 1823 and rebelled. Rather than face ritual execution, he fled northwards with his people.

Olaudah Equiano

Who: Olaudah Equiano, was a former enslaved African, seaman and merchant who wrote an autobiography depicting the horrors of slavery and lobbied Parliament for its abolition. He records he was born in what is now Nigeria, kidnapped and sold into slavery as a child. He then endured the middle passage on a slave ship bound for the New World. Significance: Equiano knew that one of the most powerful arguments against slavery was his own life story. He published his autobiography in 1789. It became a bestseller and was translated into many languages. The tens of thousands of people who read Equiano's book, or heard him speak, started to see slavery through the eyes of a former enslaved African. It was a very important book that made a vital contribution to the abolitionists' cause.

Sultan Said/Imaum of Muscat

Who: Said bin Sultan Al-Said was Sultan of Muscat and Oman from 1806 to 1856. What: Seyyid Said, also known as Said ibn Sultan, was the sultan of Oman who moved the capital from Arabia to Zanzibar in order to initiate clove production and also greatly expanded the East African slave trade. Said agreed to a treaty with Britain in 1823 that forbade slave trading in the Persian Gulf between Said's Muslim subjects and any Christian power. The treaty, however, did not exclude slave trading on the East Coast of Africa. Said invaded and conquered Mombasa in what is now Kenya in 1837. After that victory, Said moved the capital of his empire from Muscat, Oman, to the island of Stone Town, Zanzibar, in 1840, making him the first Sultan of Oman and Zanzibar. Significance: Said brought renewed prosperity to Oman and Zanzibar through these plantations and Arab-Indian alliance until his death in 1856. After his death, the alliance deteriorated due to British interference, succession disputes, and political arguments.

Assegai

Who: Shaka of the Zulu invented a shorter-style spear. It was used as a stabbing weapon during mêlée attacks. The traditional spear was not discarded but was used for a softening range attack on enemy formations before closing in for close quarters battle with the assegai. This tactical combination originated during Shaka's military reforms. What: An assegai or assagai is a pole weapon used for throwing. Where: The use of various types of the assegai was widespread all over Africa and it was the most common weapon used before the introduction of firearms. The Zulu and other Nguni tribes of South Africa were renowned for their use of the assegai. Significance: Africans were able to hold off the british who had guns, by use of the assegai. Shows their determination and formidable skill.

Assegai

Who: Shaka of the Zulu invented a shorter-style spear. It was used as a stabbing weapon during mêlée attacks. The traditional spear was not discarded but was used for a softening range attack on enemy formations before closing in for close quarters battle with the assegai. This tactical combination originated during Shaka's military reforms. Where: The use of various types of the assegai was widespread all over Africa and it was the most common weapon used before the introduction of firearms. The Zulu and other Nguni tribes of South Africa were renowned for their use of the assegai. Significance: Africans were able to hold off the british who had guns, by use of the assegai. Shows their determination and formidable skill.

Shaka

Who: Shaka was a great Zulu king and conqueror. He lived in an area of south-east Africa between the Drakensberg and the Indian Ocean. In 1816, Shaka Zulu took power of his Zulus after distinguishing himself in battle, and began a campaign of conquest to unite all of the clans in the region under his rule. Shaka began with a systematic reorganization of Zulu warriors, implementing a rigid training program, new blade weaponry that replaced the traditional spear, new attack formations and a strict code of obedience. Zulu society — much like Sparta — was entirely restructured to support the army. In just a couple of years, his clan had formed one united nation — the biggest and most powerful in southern Africa. Besides creating a political entity in the Zulu Kingdom, Shaka's military campaigns caused the massive displacement of people, a crisis that became part of a decades-long period of turmoil historians call the Mfecane (or the "scattering"). Significance: Created both a state and a powerful sense of identity for the region's largest group — a common culture that remains today.

Social Darwinism

Who: Social Darwinism is a belief, which became popular in England, Europe and America, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Herbert Spencer, an English philosopher in the 19th century was one of the most important Social Darwinists. Social Darwinism applied the 'survival of the fittest' to human 'races' and said that 'might makes right'. It was therefore natural, normal, and proper for the strong to thrive at the expense of the weak. White Protestant Europeans had evolved much further and faster than other "races." Social Darwinism is a pseudoscience that was used to rationalize imperialism, colonialism, racism and poverty. This was used to bolster the belief that 'white civilized' industrial nations that had technologically advanced weapons had the moral right to conquer and 'civilize' the 'savage blacks' of the world.

Berlin Conference

Who: The Berlin Conference of 1884-85, regulated European colonization and trade in Africa during the New Imperialism period. The conference was organized by Otto von Bismarck, first Chancellor of Germany. The conference ushered in a period of heightened colonial activity by European powers, which eliminated or overrode most existing forms of African autonomy and self-governance, known as the Scramble for Africa. When: By 1902, 90% of all the land that makes up Africa was under European control.

Nyamwezi

Who: The Nyamwezi are one of the Bantu groups of Southeast Africa and the second-largest of over 120 ethnic groups in Tanzania. The term Nyamwezi is of Swahili origin, and translates as "people of the moon" in one hand but also means "people of the west", the latter being more meaningful to the context. The Nyamwezi subsist primarily by cereal agriculture, their major crops being sorghum, millet, and corn (maize). Rice is a significant cash crop. The Nyamwezi have long been famous as travellers and workers outside their own country; as porters they became known throughout East Africa.

Sokoto Caliphate

Who: The Sokoto Caliphate was an independent Islamic Sunni Caliphate, in West Africa. It was abolished when the British defeated the caliphate in 1903 and put the area under the Northern Nigeria Protectorate. When: Founded during the jihad of the Fulani War in 1809 by Usman dan Fodio Significance: Showed the spread and effect of Usman Dan Fodio's rule in this region and the presence of Islam.

Tukolor Empire

Who: The founder of the empire, al-Ḥajj Umar (c. 1795-1864), was a Tukulor cleric of the Tijānīyah brotherhood who, in 1848, moved with his followers to Dinguiraye (now in Guinea), to prepare to found a new state that would conform to the stringent moral requirements of his order. He thus set about training an elite corps in which religious, military, and commercial considerations were combined. Equipped with European firearms, this force was ready by about 1850 to embark on a jihad, or holy war, against his neighbors. The Tukolor's succumbed to the French in 1893. The interesting thing about them is that they were thinking about what an islamic world should look like and how to actualize it within society, less interested in slavery

Tippu Tip

Who: Tippu Tip was a Swahili-Zanzibari slave trader, ivory trader, plantation owner and governor. He worked for a succession of the sultans of Zanzibar. Tippu Tip traded in slaves for Zanzibar's clove plantations. What: Tippu Tip built himself a trading empire that he then translated into clove plantations on Zanzibar. Significance: He met and helped several famous western explorers of the African continent, including David Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley. Between 1884 and 1887 he claimed the Eastern Congo for himself and for the Sultan of Zanzibar.

Heinrich (Henry) Barth

Who: a German explorer of Africa and scholar. What: Barth is thought to be one of the greatest of the European explorers of Africa due to his ability to speak and write Arabic and learn African languages. He carefully documented the details of the cultures he visited. He was among the first to comprehend the uses of oral history of peoples, and collected many. When: He established friendships with African rulers and scholars during his five years of travel (1850-1855). Significance: He wrote and published a five-volume account of his travels in both English and German. It has been invaluable for scholars of his time since.

Hajj

Who: a group of people who take issue with and criticizing the way things are when not living in a truly islamic world/society. What: The Hajj is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the holiest city for Muslims, and a mandatory religious duty for Muslims that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime Where: Mecca, Saudi Arabia When: 1700s - 1800s Significance: important to finding the true meaning of islam for the individual, important to the progress of the religion and the impact it had on the individuals

Sara Baartman

Who: she was a well known South African Khoikhoi women who was exhibited in an attraction in 19th-century Europe under the name Hottentot Venus. Where: Sara Baartman was born to a Khoikhoi family in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, on land taken over by Dutch farmers. When: In 1810, she was brought to England by her employer and an English doctor, they sought to show her for money on the London stage. Significance: Today she is seen by many as the epitome of colonial exploitation and racism, of the ridicule and commodification of black people.

Cecil Rhodes

Who: was a British businessman and politician who served as the prime minister of the cape colony in south Africa from 1890 to 1896. Rhodes and his British South Africa Company founded the southern African territory of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe and Zambia), which the company named after him in 1895. Significance: He built a large empire in Southern Africa, but in doing so he disregarded the rights of the people already living on the lands that he claimed. Some of the legislation passed while he was prime minister of the Cape laid the groundwork for the discriminatory apartheid policies of South Africa in the 20th century.

Dingane

Who: was a Zulu chief who became king of the Zulu Kingdom in 1828 What: Dingane came to power in 1828 after assassinating his half-brother Shaka with the help of another brother, Umhlangana, as well as Mbopa, Shaka's advisor. They were traditionally said to have killed Shaka because of his increase in brutal behaviour after the death of his mother Nandi. The assassination took place at present-day Stanger. When: Reigned from 1828 - 1840 Significance: Some modern historians have assessed Dingane as the king responsible for the decline of the Zulu military superiority in southern Africa. Dingane lacked Shaka's military and leadership skills; rebel chiefs broke away from his rule. Their dissension was exacerbated by armed conflict with the newly arrived Voortrekkers. His reign marked the end of the zulu kingdom.

Nana Asma'u

Who: was a princess, poet, teacher, and a daughter of the founder of the Sokoto Caliphate, Usman dan Fodio. She was born in 1793 and was a revered figure in northern Nigeria; she is held up by some as an example of education and independence of women possible under Islam, precursor to modern feminism in Africa. Significance: Nana Asma'u's legacy rests on her role in defining the values of the Sokoto state. Key figure in the islamization of Nigeria and carried on the legacy of her father, Dan Fodio.

São Tomé

Who: Álvaro Caminha founded the colony of São Tomé in 1493. What: The Portuguese came to São Tomé in search of land to grow sugarcane. Where: São Tomé and Príncipe Islands, in the Gulf of Guinea. Its name is Portuguese for "Saint Thomas" Significance: São Tomé, situated right on the equator, had a climate wet enough to grow sugarcane in wild abundance. The nearby African Kingdom of Kongo eventually became a source of slave labourers to work the sugar plantations. Important for Trade. - served as the introduction of European colonization in Africa