CHAPTER 17

Section 3: European Claims in Sub-Saharan Africa

Objectives:List the features of West Africa that made the region particularly

appealing to French and British imperialists.

Describe European claims made in Central and East Africa.

Explain why South Africa was so valuable.

Explain how European imperialism affected Africa.

The Age of Imperialism

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West Africa• Formerly dealt

primarily in slaves• Late 19th century

turned to trading palm oil, feathers, ivory, and rubber.

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France wouldfight the rebel Samory Toure for 18 years for control of West Africa.

Britain would fightthe Ashanti kingdomfor the territory theywould name theGold Coast (Ghana).

Liberia would bethe only state to remainindependent.

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Stanley & Livingston

1869 reporter Henry Stanleybegan his search for missing missionaryDr. David Livingston.

He found him in 1871. Livingston had been in Africa for years looking for the source of the Nile River. “Dr. Livingston, I presume?”

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King Leopold II of Belgiumwould carve a personal colonyof over 900,000 square miles.

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East Africa

……also divided into colonies.

Famine and rinderpest (a very infectious cattle/buffalo disease) weakened any African resistance to colonization.

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South AfricaEuropean settlement began in 1652with Dutch settlement of Cape Town…which would grow into Cape Colony.

…which the British will take over in the early 1800s.

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The Great Trek

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The Boers (Dutch for “farmer”) carved out threecolonies:

• Natal

• Orange Free State

•Transvaal

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Shaka ~ the most influential leader of the Zulu Kingdom.

The British would defeat the Zuluin 1879.

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The story of diamonds in South Africa begins between December 1866 and February 1867, when 15-year-old Erasmus Jacobs found a transparent stone on his father's farm, on the south bank of the Orange River. Over the next 15 years, South Africa yielded more diamonds than India had in over 2,000 years.

Cecil Rhodeswould arrive in

South Africain 1870.

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Cecil RhodesWithin twenty years, Rhodes completelycontrolled South African diamondproduction through his company, De Beers. De Beers held a near-total monopoly (90%!) on worldwide diamond production until the year 2000.

He would later organize a colony to thenorth in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

Political CartoonEuropean Claims in Sub-Saharan Africa

"To think of these stars that you see overhead at night, these vast worlds which we can never reach. I would annexe the planets if I could; I often think of that. It makes me sad to see them so clear and yet so far."

"I contend that we are the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race...If there be a God, I think that what he would like me to do is paint as much of the map of Africa British Red as possible..."

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The Boer War• 1895 ~ Rhodes tried to overthrow the

Transvaal gov’t because the Boers had kept the British from opening mines.

• 1899 ~ The Boer War broke out.• After three horrible years, the British

defeated the Boers.• 1910 ~ united Cape Colony and the

three Boer colonies into the Union of South Africa.– The new constitution made it almost

impossible for non-whites to vote. – The beginning of apartheid.

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Effects of Imperialism on Africa

• Paternalism – limiting a group’s liberty “for their own good.”

• New crops & ways of farming• Western medicine• Roads and railroads were built.• Improved communications

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Emperor Menelik IISome African leaders attempted to work with the Europeans.

1899 negotiated a treaty with Italy. Italy claimed this made Ethiopia a protectorate, while Ethiopia claimed otherwise.

Italy would later try to invade Ethiopia, but would not be successful, as Menelik had spent his reign modernizing his army. Ethiopia would be the only African nation to remain independent.

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Assimilation: when people give up their own culture completely and adopt another culture.

The Africans did not accept European culture and would continue to live much as they had for centuries.