Week Three

In our second class we discussed which continents were most directly impacted by European colonialism and imperialism.  Given my previous knowledge of the slave trade, I assumed that Africa was one of those continents.  The second half of Chapter Fourteen of Ways of the World made clear to me that while Africa was obviously impacted by European expansion, it was impacted in different ways than I had thought and in very different ways than Australian and the Americas were. 

Europeans did not infiltrate the continent of Africa and never used military conquest like they did in Australia and the Americas.  They remained on the coast lines rather than traveling inland where they were more likely to catch tropical diseases, to which they had no immunity, and to become involved in conflict with the native people who were fully equipped and prepared to fight them off (690).  The slave trade network in Africa was made possible by the fact that African people were capturing and selling other Africans to sell to the Europeans waiting on the coast. The many independent societies in Africa did not share a common identity and were often feuding with each other.  They generally did not sell people from their own communities and societies into slavery. Instead, they sold marginalized people: prisoners of war, criminals, debtors (693).  Unlike in the Americas, where almost all of the indigenous people lost their autonomy, some people in Africa, namely those capturing others, had power and freedom in their lives.

The population in Africa was impacted but not in the same way as in Australian and the Americas.  Rather than collapsing as it did on those continents, the growth of population in Africa slowed down.  This fact can be seen in the statistic found on page 694 of the textbook: Sub-Sahara Africa represented 18% of the world population in 1600 and 6% in 1900 (694).

European presence did not eliminate entire societies like it did elsewhere, but it did not create any real economic, agricultural, or industrial booms (694).  Instead, it impacted societies differently from place to place.  In small kinship-based communities people lived in fear of the towns being raided by Africans looking to capture people to sell to the Europeans.  With access to firearms and trade opportunities, outlying parts of larger kingdoms declared their independence, causing those kingdoms to fall apart.  In contrast, some regions became heavily involved in the slave trade, taking advantage of the new economic opportunities it offered (695).

In reading this section on the slave trade, I was surprised by what I learned about its impact on Africa, especially in comparison to other continents.  While it clearly made a huge difference in the lives of the individuals and descendants of those who were captured and forced into slavery, European colonialism stalled the economic, political, and social growth of Africa, rather than completely eliminating and recreating it like it did in Australia and the Americas.