(i) Europeans were attracted due to the resources of land and minerals of Africa. (ii) They came to Africa to establish plantations and exploit mines. (iii) African countries were militarily weak and backward.
Why did Europeans come to Africa?
(i) Europeans were attracted due to the resources of land and minerals of Africa. (ii) They came to Africa to establish plantations and exploit mines. (iii) African countries were militarily weak and backward.
How did Europeans explore Africa in the 17th century?
Overall, the European exploration of Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries was very limited. Instead, they were focused on the slave trade, which only required coastal bases and items to trade. The real exploration of the African interior would start well into the 19th century.
How did Europe get rich in Africa?
Europeans instead grew rich trading gold, gum, ivory, and enslaved people with coastal merchants. Science, Imperialism, and the Quest for the Nile In the late 1700s, a group of British men, inspired by the Enlightenment ideal of learning, decided that Europe should know much more about Africa.
How were the Europeans normally welcomed in Africa?
The Europeans were normally given a warm welcome by chiefs and people of the African continent. Below are some of the major reasons why the Europeans travelled to Africa: The zeal to discover more – one of the major reasons the Europeans came to Africa was because they wanted to discover other parts of the world.
Why did Europeans make little inroads into Africa?
What did the explorers of Africa do?
What did the Enlightenment do to Africa?
What did the Portuguese do in Africa?
What was the prize for the first explorer who could reach Timbuktu?
When did Ptolemy create the map of Africa?
Who were the Explorers who were able to find the Nile?
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About this website
What attracted Europeans to colonize Africa?
Europeans first became interested in Africa for trade route purposes. They were looking for ways to avoid the taxes of the Arab and Ottoman empires in Southwest Asia. Sailing around Africa was the obvious choice, but it was a long voyage and could not be completed without “pit stops” along the way.
What were the 4 main reasons that Europe colonized Africa?
The major reasons for the colonization of Africa by the Europeans are the search for new markets, the need to obtain raw materials, the desire to invest surplus capital outside Europe, and the claim that Africans needed to be civilized through western education and religion.
Why did Europe take over Africa?
Commercial greed, territorial ambition, and political rivalry all fuelled the European race to take over Africa. This culminated in Africa's partition at the Berlin Conference 1884-5. The whole process became known as "The Scramble for Africa".
What were the 3 reasons for European colonization?
Historians generally recognize three motives for European exploration and colonization in the New World: God, gold, and glory.
Why did Europe want to colonize?
The opportunity to make money was one of the primary motivators for the colonization of the New World. The Virginia Company of London established the Jamestown colony to make a profit for its investors. Europe's period of exploration and colonization was fueled largely by necessity.
How did European imperialism in Africa start?
European imperialism in Africa started in the early 1800s with the establishment of colonies, or areas under the control of a faraway region. In a famous gathering in 1884-1885 called the Berlin Conference, European nations carved up control over Africa.
What are the 4 features of colonialism?
There are four common characteristics of colonialism:political and legal domination over an alien society.relations of economics and political dependence.exploitation between imperial powers and the colony.racial and cultural inequality.
What are the reasons for the exploration of Africa?
The Portuguese began exploring Africa in the 1400s. Prince Henry sent ship after ship to explore the west coast of Africa. The Portuguese wanted to establish trade with western Africa. Gold, ivory, and enslaved Africans had long been traded across the Sahara to Muslims in the north.
Systematic Exploration Of Africa By Europeans - About History
ZANZIBAR. The chapter in the history of African exploration concerning Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke is the most tragic of all. In 1856 Richard Burton, perhaps the greatest British adventurer of his generation, was commissioned by the Royal Geographic Society to find the source of the Nile.
European empires in Africa: 1415 - 1990 - Oxford Reference
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European exploration of Africa - Wikipedia
The geography of North Africa has been reasonably well known among Europeans since classical antiquity in Greco-Roman geography.Northwest Africa (the Maghreb) was known as either Libya or Africa, while Egypt was considered part of Asia.. European exploration of Sub-Saharan Africa begins with the Age of Discovery in the 15th century, pioneered by the Kingdom of Portugal under Henry the Navigator.
How did European exploration contribute to the loss of ... - BRAINLY
Answer: Many African communities fell victim to the slave trades and some cultures were entirely erased from the history because of this. Moreover, at certain times, the military actions taken by the Colonial powers led to mass murders and massacres of African tribal people.
Why did Europeans make little inroads into Africa?
Europeans made few inroads into Africa, though, until the 1800s, due to the strong African states they encountered, tropical diseases, and a relative lack of interest. Europeans instead grew rich trading gold, gum, ivory, and enslaved people with coastal merchants.
What did the explorers of Africa do?
Explorers' accounts of their travels downplayed the assistance they received from African guides, leaders, and even slave traders. They also presented themselves as calm, cool, and collected leaders masterfully directing their porters across unknown lands. The reality was that they were often following existing routes and, as Johann Fabian showed, were disoriented by fevers, drugs, and cultural encounters that went against everything they expected to find in so-called savage Africa. Readers and historians believed explorers' accounts, though, and it was not until recent years that people began to recognize the critical role that Africans and African knowledge played in the exploration of Africa.
What did the Enlightenment do to Africa?
In the late 1700s, a group of British men, inspired by the Enlightenment ideal of learning, decided that Europe should know much more about Africa. They formed the African Association in 1788 to sponsor expeditions to the continent. With the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1808, European interest in the interior of Africa grew quickly. Geographical Societies were formed and sponsored expeditions. The Parisian Geographical Society offered a 10,000 franc prize to the first explorer who could reach the town of Timbuktu (in present-day Mali) and return alive. The new scientific interest in Africa was never wholly philanthropic, however. Financial and political support for exploration grew out of the desire for wealth and national power. Timbuktu, for instance, was believed to be rich in gold.
What did the Portuguese do in Africa?
By the 1400s, Portuguese sailors, backed by Prince Henry the Navigator, began exploring the West coast of Africa looking for a mythical Christian king named Prester John and a way to the wealth of Asia that avoided the Ottoman s and the powerful empires of South West Asia. By 1488, the Portuguese had charted a way around the South African Cape and in 1498, Vasco da Gama reached Mombasa, in what is today Kenya, where he encountered Chinese and Indian merchants. Europeans made few inroads into Africa, though, until the 1800s, due to the strong African states they encountered, tropical diseases, and a relative lack of interest. Europeans instead grew rich trading gold, gum, ivory, and enslaved people with coastal merchants.
What was the prize for the first explorer who could reach Timbuktu?
Geographical Societies were formed and sponsored expeditions. The Parisian Geographical Society offered a 10,000 franc prize to the first explorer who could reach the town of Timbuktu (in present-day Mali) and return alive. The new scientific interest in Africa was never wholly philanthropic, however.
When did Ptolemy create the map of Africa?
Updated January 17, 2020. Europeans have been interested in African geography since the time of the Greek and Roman Empires. Around 150 CE , Ptolemy created a map of the world that included the Nile and the great lakes of East Africa.
Who were the Explorers who were able to find the Nile?
Explorers like David Livingstone, Henry M. Stanley, and Heinrich Barth became national heroes, and the stakes were high. A public debate between Richard Burton and John H. Speke over the source of the Nile led to the suspected suicide of Speke, who was later proven correct.
When did the colonists explore Southern Africa?
Expeditions exploring Southern Africa were made during the 1830s and 1840s, so that around the midpoint of the 19th century and the beginning of the colonial Scramble for Africa, the unexplored parts were now limited to what would turn out to be the Congo Basin and the African Great Lakes.
Who explored the interior of Africa?
Exploration of the interior of Africa was thus mostly left to the Muslim slave traders, who in tandem with the Muslim conquest of Sudan established far-reaching networks and supported the economy of a number of Sahelian kingdoms during the 15th to 18th centuries.
What country did the Portuguese settle in?
The Portuguese presence in Africa soon interfered with existing Arab trade interests. By 1583, the Portuguese established themselves in Zanzibar and on the Swahili coast .
What was the name of the island that the Portuguese explored?
Two years later, a chart already showed an elongated island east of Africa that bore the name Madagascar. But only a century later, between 1613 and 1619, did the Portuguese explore the island in detail.
What is the name of the fortified factory in West Africa?
The large castle in West Africa represents the São Jorge da Mina (Elmina castle) fortified factory. In 1469, Fernão Gomes rented the rights of African exploration for five years. Under his direction, in 1471, the Portuguese reached modern Ghana and settled in A Mina ( the mine ), today's Elmina.
What is Africa named after?
Africa is named for the Afri people who settled in the area of current-day Tunisia. The Roman province of Africa spanned the Mediterranean coast of what is now Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria. The parts of North Africa north of the Sahara were well known in antiquity.
Where did Portuguese sailors build their fortress?
In 1443, they built a fortress on the island of Arguin, in modern-day Mauritania, trading European wheat and cloth for African gold and slaves.
Why did Europeans travel to Africa?
Below are some of the major reasons why the Europeans travelled to Africa: The zeal to discover more – one of the major reasons the Europeans came to Africa was because they wanted to discover other parts of the world. The Europeans knew that there were other places in the world besides Europe.
When did Europeans first come to Africa?
Europeans began to arrive in the African continent as far back as the early 15th century. For instance, in an African country like Ghana, which was formerly called the Gold Coast, the first Europeans to set foot in the country were the Portuguese. According to records, the Portuguese came to the Gold Coast in the year 1471. Portugal as at that time was ruled by Prince Henry the Navigator.
What religion is the biggest in Africa?
Today the Christian religion is the biggest religion in Africa. Trade – the Europeans came to Africa because they wanted to engage in trade with the people of Africa. You see, Africa is a continent that has since time immemorial been blessed with so many natural resources such as gold, cocoa, bauxite, and what have you.
Where did the Europeans buy slaves?
They bought slaves from many parts of Africa – especially western Africa and took them outside the continent of Africa to work.
Which African country was not the only to receive Portuguese?
Portugal as at that time was ruled by Prince Henry the Navigator. Ghana, formerly Gold Coast, was not the only African country to receive the Portuguese and Portugal was not the only European country to go to Ghana or other parts of Africa. The Europeans were normally given a warm welcome by chiefs and people of the African continent.
Did Africans believe in Christianity?
Many Africans had never even heard of the name Jesus Christ let alone a religion called Christianity. Many believed in the Traditional African Religion where they worshiped smaller gods and poured libations to these lesser gods.
Which country controlled the most African territory in the late 19th century?
Angola and Mozambique in the late 19th century. Although Portugal failed in its major territorial ambitions in the late 19th century, it nonetheless acquired about 800,000 square miles (2,000,000 square km) of African territory, of which it controlled about one-tenth.
Why did Britain annex the Cape?
The main impulse behind Britain’s annexation was to protect its sea route to India.
What was the flow of slaves in the 1840s?
The flow of slaves was augmented by turmoil in the interior of Southern Africa and by slaves captured by the Chikunda soldiers of the Zambezi warlords; by the 1840s rival Zambezi armies were competing to control the trade routes to south-central Africa.
How did the slave trade affect the Ndongo?
Accounts of Ndongo as rich and populous in the 16th century gave way to lamentations about its desolation in the 17th. The processes of border raids, wars of conquest, and civil strife, which affected the Ndongo and then the kingdoms of the Kwango River valley in the 17th century, were repeated to the south and east in the course of the 18th century as the slave frontier expanded. The ending of more overt violence as the slave frontier moved on left the weak—women, children, and the poor—vulnerable to innumerable personal acts of kidnapping and betrayal, a process exacerbated by the indebtedness of local traders to coastal merchants and the dependence of the traders on the transatlantic economy.
What did the Ovambo trade?
Initially trading in salt, copper, and iron from the Etosha Pan region to the north, and supplying hides and ivory to Portuguese traders, the Ovambo largely had been able to avoid the slave trade that ravaged their more populous neighbours.
How many slaves were exported from Africa in the 17th century?
In the 17th century some 10,000 to 12,000 slaves were exported annually from Luanda.
What was the most important export in Africa?
Ivory became the most important export from west-central Africa, satisfying the growing demand in Europe. The western port of Benguela was the main outlet, and the Ovimbundu and Chokwe, renowned hunters, were the major suppliers.
Who were the first Europeans to enter Africa?
The first Europeans to enter Southern Africa were the Portuguese, who from the 15th century edged their way around the African coast in the hope of outflanking Islam, finding a sea route to the riches of India, and discovering additional sources of food. They reached the Kongo kingdom in northwestern Angola in 1482–83; early in 1488 Bartolomeu Dias rounded the southern tip of the continent; and just over a decade later Vasco da Gama sailed along the east coast of Africa before striking out to India. Although the voyages were initially unpromising, they marked the beginning of the integration of the subcontinent into the new world economy and the dominance of Europeans over the indigenous inhabitants.
What was the Portuguese influence in West Central Africa?
Portuguese influence in west-central Africa radiated over a far wider area and was much more dramatic and destructive than on the east coast. Initially the Portuguese crown and Jesuit missionaries forged peaceful links with the kingdom of the Kongo, converting its king to Christianity. Almost immediately, however, slave traders followed in the wake of priests and teachers, and west-central Africa became tied to the demands of the São Tomé sugar planters and the transatlantic slave trade.
What was the name of the band of marauders that fought against the Ndongo kingdom?
By the end of the 16th century well-organized military bands of marauders, known as the Imbangala, began to appear along the coast south of Luanda. In their eagerness to swell slave numbers, Portuguese governors allied with these war bands, and together they dealt the final blow to the Ndongo kingdom about 1622. By that time the Imbangala had retreated to the middle Kwango, where they founded the kingdom of Kasanje. Over the next two centuries this kingdom replaced Ndongo as the chief slave-trading entrepôt between the coast and the east, where the highly centralized and militarist Lunda kingdoms became increasingly important in supplying slaves by the 18th century.
When did the Imbangala retreated to the middle Kwango?
In their eagerness to swell slave numbers, Portuguese governors allied with these war bands, and together they dealt the final blow to the Ndongo kingdom about 1622. By that time the Imbangala had retreated to the middle Kwango, where they founded the kingdom of Kasanje.
What was the Portuguese colony in the 17th century?
As the Portuguese were penetrating inland from Luanda at the beginning of the 17th century, they also moved southward. In 1617 they established a colony at Benguela , which, as in the case of the Kongo kingdom, was annexed as part of Angola in the 19th century. Expansion inland from Benguela, however, like the initial expansion farther north, was spearheaded by Afro-Portuguese slave traders, who used southern ports to outflank Portuguese control. As the slave frontier moved south, the process of constructing and then destroying slave-trading warrior kingdoms was repeated. Those who were not crushed by the process sought safety in woodlands and swamps or joined new heterogeneous communities of refugees, like the Chokwe (“Those Who Fled”) of the western savanna. These new communities often became slave raiders themselves.
How did the number of slaves increase?
The number of slaves increased along with the settler population, especially in the arable districts. Experiments in the use of indentured European labour were unsuccessful, and by the mid 18th century about half the burghers at the Cape owned at least one slave, though few owned more than 10. Slaves spoke the creolized Dutch that in the 19th century became Afrikaans. Many adopted Islam, which alarmed the ruling class. Divided in origin and dispersed geographically, slaves did not establish a cohesive culture or mount effective rebellions. Individual acts of defiance were frequent, however, and in the early 19th century there were two small uprisings. Nevertheless, in Cape Town itself slave culture provided the basis for a working-class culture after emancipation.
How did the expansion of plantations in the New World affect slaves?
The expansion of plantations in the New World doubled the numbers of slaves exported in the last third of the 18th century, when trade routes stretched as far as the Kunene River in the south and met up with the routes from Mozambique.
Why did Europeans make little inroads into Africa?
Europeans made few inroads into Africa, though, until the 1800s, due to the strong African states they encountered, tropical diseases, and a relative lack of interest. Europeans instead grew rich trading gold, gum, ivory, and enslaved people with coastal merchants.
What did the explorers of Africa do?
Explorers' accounts of their travels downplayed the assistance they received from African guides, leaders, and even slave traders. They also presented themselves as calm, cool, and collected leaders masterfully directing their porters across unknown lands. The reality was that they were often following existing routes and, as Johann Fabian showed, were disoriented by fevers, drugs, and cultural encounters that went against everything they expected to find in so-called savage Africa. Readers and historians believed explorers' accounts, though, and it was not until recent years that people began to recognize the critical role that Africans and African knowledge played in the exploration of Africa.
What did the Enlightenment do to Africa?
In the late 1700s, a group of British men, inspired by the Enlightenment ideal of learning, decided that Europe should know much more about Africa. They formed the African Association in 1788 to sponsor expeditions to the continent. With the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1808, European interest in the interior of Africa grew quickly. Geographical Societies were formed and sponsored expeditions. The Parisian Geographical Society offered a 10,000 franc prize to the first explorer who could reach the town of Timbuktu (in present-day Mali) and return alive. The new scientific interest in Africa was never wholly philanthropic, however. Financial and political support for exploration grew out of the desire for wealth and national power. Timbuktu, for instance, was believed to be rich in gold.
What did the Portuguese do in Africa?
By the 1400s, Portuguese sailors, backed by Prince Henry the Navigator, began exploring the West coast of Africa looking for a mythical Christian king named Prester John and a way to the wealth of Asia that avoided the Ottoman s and the powerful empires of South West Asia. By 1488, the Portuguese had charted a way around the South African Cape and in 1498, Vasco da Gama reached Mombasa, in what is today Kenya, where he encountered Chinese and Indian merchants. Europeans made few inroads into Africa, though, until the 1800s, due to the strong African states they encountered, tropical diseases, and a relative lack of interest. Europeans instead grew rich trading gold, gum, ivory, and enslaved people with coastal merchants.
What was the prize for the first explorer who could reach Timbuktu?
Geographical Societies were formed and sponsored expeditions. The Parisian Geographical Society offered a 10,000 franc prize to the first explorer who could reach the town of Timbuktu (in present-day Mali) and return alive. The new scientific interest in Africa was never wholly philanthropic, however.
When did Ptolemy create the map of Africa?
Updated January 17, 2020. Europeans have been interested in African geography since the time of the Greek and Roman Empires. Around 150 CE , Ptolemy created a map of the world that included the Nile and the great lakes of East Africa.
Who were the Explorers who were able to find the Nile?
Explorers like David Livingstone, Henry M. Stanley, and Heinrich Barth became national heroes, and the stakes were high. A public debate between Richard Burton and John H. Speke over the source of the Nile led to the suspected suicide of Speke, who was later proven correct.
