KlahowyaSecondary School

AFRICA AND THE ATLANTIC WORLD

1. African politics and societies in early modern times
2. The states of west Africa and east Africa
3. The Songhay empire was the dominant power of west Africa, replacing Mali
4. Expansion under Songhay emperor Sunni Ali after 1464
5. Elaborate administrative apparatus, powerful army, and imperial navy
6. Muslim emperors ruled prosperous land, engaged in trans-Saharan trade
7. Fall of Songhay to Moroccan army in 1591
8. Revolts of subject peoples brought the empire down
9. A series of small, regional kingdoms and city-states emerged
10. Decline of Swahili city-states in east Africa
11. Vasco da Gama forced the ruler of Kilwa to pay tribute, 1502
12. Massive Portuguese naval fleet subdued all the Swahili cities, 1505
13. Trade disrupted; Swahili declined
14. The kingdoms of central Africa and south Africa
15. Kongo, powerful kingdom of central Africa after fourteenth century
16. Established diplomatic and commercial relations with Portugal, 1482
17. Kings of Kongo converted to Christianity sixteenth century; King Afonso
18. Slave raiding in Kongo
19. Portuguese traded textiles, weapons, and advisors for Kongolese gold, silver, ivory, and slaves
20. Slave trade undermined authority of kings of Kongo
21. Deteriorated relations led to war in 1665; Kongo king decapitated
22. Kingdom of Ndongo (modern Angola) attracted Portuguese slave traders
23. Queen Nzinga led spirited resistance to Portuguese, 1623-1663
24. Nzinga able to block Portuguese advances but not expel them entirely
25. By end of the seventeenth century, Ndondo was the Portuguese colony of Angola
26. Southern Africa dominated by regional kingdoms, for example, Great Zimbabwe
27. Europeans in south Africa after the fifteenth century
28. First Portuguese, then Dutch mariners landed at Cape of Good Hope
29. Dutch mariners built a trading post at Cape Town, 1652
30. Increasing Dutch colonists by 1700, drove away native Khoikhoi
31. South Africa became a prosperous European colony in later centuries
32. Islam and Christianity in early modern Africa
33. Islam popular in west Africa states and Swahili city-states of east Africa
34. Islamic university and 180 religious schools in Timbuktu in Mali
35. Blended Islam with indigenous beliefs and customs, a syncretic Islam
36. The Fulani, west African tribe, observed strict form of Islam, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
37. Christianity reached sub-Saharan Africa through Portuguese merchants
38. Also blended with traditional beliefs
39. Antonian movement of Kongo, a syncretic cult, addressed to St. Anthony
40. Charismatic Antonian leader, Dona Beatriz, executed for heresy, 1706
41. Social change in early modern Africa
42. Kinship and clans remained unchanged at the local level
43. American food crops, for example, manioc, maize, peanuts, introduced after the sixteenth century
44. Population growth in sub-Sahara: 35 million in 1500 to 60 million in 1800
45. The Atlantic slave trade
46. Foundations of the slave trade
47. Slavery common in traditional Africa
48. Slaves typically war captives, criminals, or outcasts
49. Most slaves worked as cultivators, some as administrators or soldiers
50. With all land held in common, slaves were a measure of power and wealth
51. Slaves often assimilated into their masters' kinship groups, even earned freedom
52. The Islamic slave trade well established throughout Africa
53. Ten million slaves may have been shipped out of Africa by Islamic slave trade between eighth and the eighteenth centuries
54. Europeans used these existing networks and expanded the slave trade
55. Human cargoes
56. The early slave trade on the Atlantic started by Portuguese in 1441
57. By 1460 about five hundred slaves a year shipped to Portugal and Spain
58. By fifteenth century African slaves shipped to sugar plantations on Atlantic islands
59. Portuguese planters imported slaves to Brazil, 1530s
60. Spanish settlers shipped African slaves to the Caribbean, Mexico, Peru, and Central America, 1510s and 1520s
61. English colonists brought slaves to North America early seventeenth century
62. Triangular trade: all three legs of voyage profitable
63. European goods traded for African slaves
64. Slaves traded in the Caribbean for sugar or molasses
65. American produce traded in Europe
66. At every stage the slave trade was brutal
67. Individuals captured in violent raids
68. Forced marched to the coast for transport
69. The dreaded middle passage, where between 25 percent and 50 percent died
70. The impact of the slave trade in Africa
71. Volume of the Atlantic slave trade increased dramatically after 1600
72. At height--end of the eighteenth century--about one hundred thousand shipped per year
73. Altogether about twelve million brought to Americas, another four million died en route
74. Profound impact on African societies
75. Impact uneven: some societies spared, some societies profited
76. Distorted African sex ratios, since two-thirds of exported slaves were males
77. Encouraged polygamy and forced women to take on men's duties
78. Politically disruptive
79. Introduced firearms; fostered conflict and violence between peoples
80. Dahomey, on the "slave coast," grew powerful as a slave-raiding state

  III.        The African diaspora

1. Plantation societies
2. Cash crops introduced to fertile lands of Caribbean early fifteenth century
3. First Hispaniola, then Brazil and Mexico
4. Important cash crops: sugar, tobacco, rice, indigo, cotton, coffee
5. Plantations dependent on slave labor
6. Plantations racially divided: one hundred or more slaves with a few white supervisors
7. High death rates in the Caribbean and Brazil; continued importation of slaves
8. Only about 5 percent of slaves to North America, where slave families more common
9. Resistance to slavery widespread, though dangerous
10. Slow work, sabotage, and escape
11. Slave revolts were rare and were brutally suppressed by plantation owners
12. 1793: slaves in French colony of Saint-Domingue revolted, abolished slavery, and established the free state of Haiti
13. The making of African-American cultural traditions
14. African and Creole languages
15. Slaves from many tribes; lacked a common language
16. Developed creole languages, blending several African languages with the language of the slaveholder
17. African-American religions also combined elements from different cultures
18. African-American Christianity was a distinctive syncretic practice
19. African rituals and beliefs: ritual drumming, animal sacrifice, magic, and sorcery
20. Other African-American cultural traditions: hybrid cuisine, weaving, pottery
21. The end of the slave trade and the abolition of slavery
22. New voices and ideas against slavery
23. American and French revolutions encouraged ideals of freedom and equality
24. OlaudahEquiano was a freed slave whose autobiography became a best-seller
25. Slavery became increasingly costly
26. Slave revolts made slavery expensive and dangerous
27. Decline of sugar price and rising costs of slaves in the late eighteenth century
28. Manufacturing industries were more profitable; Africa became a market
29. End of the slave trade
30. Most European states abolished the slave trade in the early nineteenth century
31. British naval squadrons helped to stop the trade
32. The abolition of slavery followed slowly: 1833 in British colonies, 1848 in French colonies, 1865 in the United States, 1888 in Brazil