Africa and the Arrival of Europeans

1. Africa and the Arrival of Europeans HIST 1004 1/28/13

2. How was North America different? Roanoke Colony (est. 1586)

3. Structural Differences • English and French colonization started a century later than Spanish and Portuguese • Over that century… • Economic and demographic growth in Europe • Protestant Reformation • Increased Indian Ocean and African trade • England and France had developed other colonies • Not as much interest in financing an expensive colonial bureaucracy

4. Demographics, Commerce, and Colonization • 1566: Colonization of Ireland • Land cleared of native population • Sold to English investors • Investors purchased “plantations” and hired “settlers” • 150,000 English and Scottish immigrants within a century

5. Private Investors and Jamestown • 1606: Virginia Company established • 1607: Establishment of Jamestown colony • Within 15 years, 80% of colony is dead… • Total opposite of South America • No mineral wealth • No passage to the Pacific • No exploitable native population • 1624: English crown dissolves Virginia Company

6. How to make North America profitable? • No mineral wealth… • Furs, timber, and tobacco • No exploitable native population… • Need more Europeans to relocate, indentured servitude • In the end, greater rural development, few centralized cities

7. The Protestant Reformation and Colonization • Lack of direct government control means opportunity for political dissidents. • Pilgrims: wish to break completely with Church of England • 1620: Mayflower lands on Plymouth Rock • 100 settlers, includes whole families, greater gender balance than any other colony

8. Puritans and the Massachusetts Bay Colony • Seek to “purify” the Church of England • 1630: Begin emigrating from England in large numbers • Massachusetts Bay Colony: joint-stock company under control of Puritan leadership, given acknowledged rights and obligations to English crown • Develop own political and economic institutions. • Area favors merchants involved in trans-Atlantic trade

9. Triangular Trade(classic model)

10. Triangular Trade(revised model)

11. Not just triangles(a global perspective)

12. Trans Saharan Trade

13. Gold-Salt Trade

14. Early African States

15. Empires of West Africa

16. Mansa Musa (r. 1307-1332)

17. Songhai Empire (r. 1340-1591) • Sahel • askias – emperors • Patronage of Islamic institutions • Library of Timbuktu • Center of trade and learning

18. Great Mosque of Jenne

19. Africa and the Slave Trade • Europeans showed little interest in colonizing Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries. • As demand for slaves rose, trade moved from gold, ivory, and timber to slaves. • Non-slave goods still Made up 40% of trade with Africa.

20. Africa and the Slave Trade • African states on the Gold and Slave Coast maintained control over trade with Europeans. • Europeans established trading “castles” • African merchants benefited from competition between different European trading companies.

21. James Barbot • Frenchman sailing on a British slave-trading expedition. • Kalabari Kingdom: on the Niger Delta • 17th century: King OwerriDaba initiates slave trade with Europeans in Kalabari and Bonny. • Purchase slaves from Igbo to the north and sell them to Europeans. • How does Barbot portray the slave trade at Kalabari?

22. Sources of Slaves • Primarily prisoners of war, also criminals and victims of kidnapping. • Wars not begun for purposes of acquiring slaves, not giant slave raids. • Get rid of young men who could challenge authority in newly conquered territories. • Trade with Europeans did give certain African powers advantage over neighbors through guns and other technologies.

23. Societies with Slaves to Slave Societies • Need more guns to defend against rivals… • Need slaves to trade for guns… • Ashanti Empire (1670-1902) • Kingdom of Dahomey (1600-1900)

24. OlaudahEquiano (ca. 1745-1797) • Also known as GustavusVassa • Igbo from southeastern Nigeria • Kidnapped and forced into domestic slavery in Nigeria at age 11. • Passes through a number of owners in Nigeria before reaching the coast and sold to European slave traders. • Transported to the Caribbean and then Virginia.

25. OlaudahEquiano • Sold to Lt. Michael Henry Pascal of the Royal Navy • Traveled with Pascal and served on his ship during the Seven Years War (1756-1763). • Sent to Britain where he learned to read and converted to Christianity. • Sold again, and sent back to the Caribbean.

26. OlaudahEquiano • Robert King: A Quaker merchant from Philadelphia • Furthers Equiano’s education and puts him to work in his shipping business. • King allows Equiano to conduct some private trading in order to earn money to buy his freedom. • Equiano buys his freedom for 40 pounds in his early twenties. • Offered a partnership with King, but instead returns to England where he felt safer (1772, slavery outlawed in England)

27. OlaudahEquiano • In England, joins abolitionist movement. • Becomes a popular speaker • 1789: Publishes his autobiography • One of the first slave autobiographies