Africa and Summary
Overview
Statewide Dual Credit Modern World History: Unit 2, Lesson 4
Discussion of the impact of European colonization and the trans-Atlantic slave trade on Africa between 1500 and 1700, including the resulting rise of new kingdoms and religions in the African diaspora.
Africa
In the 17th and early 18th centuries, English, French and Dutch explorers began to colonize parts of the Americas and the Caribbean, partaking in the trans- Atlantic slave trade and exploiting people of African and Native American descent. This led to multiple slave uprisings, the most successful of which was the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) led by Touissant L’Ouverture (1743-1803), which resulted in the first independent state in the new world governed by former slaves. By the early 1800s, a wave of additional revolutions created sovereign states like Mexico, Honduras, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Argentina and Chile.
The African continent experienced many changes between the 15th and the 17th centuries. In some regions of Africa, Europeans only dealt with African intermediaries and never set foot into the interior. Africans who lived in coastal areas experienced the most significant changes. Some of the empires in the interior such as the declining Songhay Empire, the Hausa city-states, and the Kanem-Bornu Empire remained more focused on the trans-Saharan trade. In contrast, certain coastal kingdoms, such as Benin and Oyo, started to play an essential role in the emerging Atlantic trade.
A rise in international trade helped create new kingdoms in the Great Lakes region around Lake Victoria and Lake Tanganyika. Bunyoro-Kitara emerged as one of the most important regional powers, ruling over the kingdoms of Karagwe, Burundi and Buganda. By the late 18th century, the Kingdom of Buganda and coastal Swahili City-states likewise became key players in the Atlantic world. Great Zimbabwe experienced influences from the Portuguese and the Omani Arabs, whose trading monopolies intersected in the Indian Ocean. The Portuguese tried to dominate the East African ivory and gold trade. They established significant fortifications in Mozambique and Mombasa while controlling regional trading hubs such as Paté, Lamu, Malindi, Pemba, Zanzibar and Kilwa. In the 1660s, the dominance of the Portuguese in East Africa would be challenged by not only the Swahili but their Arab allies, especially the Imamate of Oman (in southeast Arabia).
The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade And Africans In The Making Of The Atlantic World
Beginning in the Early Atlantic Age (1450 – 1640), a ‘third zone’ of commercial encounter sprang up along the West African coast. Different European nations, such as the Portuguese, Castilians (Spanish), Dutch, English and French, began exchanging goods with African traders and middlemen along the coasts. New markets for existing commodities started to open, which initially stimulated domestic trade. These new markets provided copper and ivory from the Congo Basin, textiles from Benin, and enslaved people from western Sudan.
During the Middle Atlantic Age (1640 – 1800), English, Dutch, French, Danish and Spanish sugar planters in the Caribbean increased demands for slave labor. As European merchants began to pay West African chieftains for increasing numbers of slaves with produce and manufactured goods, the traditional practice of carrying goods from one African coastal area to another began to break down.
The shift in trade away from Central and West Africa and toward the Atlantic World also brought about tremendous political changes. Powerful empires such as the Oyo and Benin began to play important diplomatic and economic roles in the region. Women rose to prominent roles in West and Central African kingdoms. For example, in the Kingdom of Dahomey, women served as soldiers and administrators. New emerging states and the development of new trading networks in West-Central Africa marginalized some of the existing power players, such as the Kingdom of Kongo.
Spotlight On | Afro-Caribbean Religions – Santeria And Candomblé In The African Diaspora
The rise of the trans-Atlantic slave trade led to the spread of African religious practices through the African diaspora. The Yoruba people of present-day Nigeria were among the largest and the latest groups forcibly transported to the Americas. Many enslaved people retained memories of their religious practices while simultaneously merging such beliefs with those of other enslaved African groups and elements of Catholicism. In Cuba, these religious practices became known as Santeria; in Brazil, they were referred to as Candomblé.
The name Santeria comes from comparisons some followers made between Roman Catholic saints (santos) and the Yoruba deities known as orishas. Many modern practitioners refer to the religion as “the religion of the orishas” or the “Lucumi religion.” In Santeria, we can find many practices such as divination and spirit possession gleaned from West African religious traditions. Santeria was initially practiced by enslaved people and later by people of African descent. Many exiles fleeing the Cuban Revolution brought the faith to the United States.
Like Cuba, Brazil represented one of the largest importers of enslaved Africans. Salvador de Bahia became one of the centers for the practice of Nagô Candomblé. Like Santeria, its origins lay in Yoruba religious practices but also integrated Central Africa spiritual practices. Also, here, we can again find a duality of Catholic saints and African deities. After the downfall of the Oyo Empire and the rise of the Sokoto Caliphate, many Yoruba were forcefully enslaved and shipped across the Atlantic at the beginning of the 19th century. Because their faith resembled an organized religion, it made it easier to merge with Catholicism. An organized priesthood, complex religious ceremonies, and texts and prayers used in divination provided avenues for religious syncretism on many levels.
Both Santeria and Candomblé are examples of hybrid and creolized religious systems. On the one hand, they created something new and contributed to a newly emerging Afro-Caribbean culture. On the other, the ritual practices using the Yoruba language continued to maintain a strong connection to Africa.
SUMMARY
Between 1500-1700 the world underwent tremendous changes. Contact with Europeans rattled the African continent and led to one of the biggest genocides in world history – the trans-Atlantic slave trade. During this four-century ordeal, slave traders forcibly transported 15 million Africans to the Americas. Both the political and economic landscape in West and West-Central Africa was forever altered. Products imported to the African continent through the Columbian exchange changed the cuisines and diets of people. An emphasis on the trade in human beings contributed to the downfall of such powerful kingdoms like the Kingdom of Kongo, the rise and influence of European colonial powers on the African continent, and a change in the power dynamics providing coastal states with larger political and economic clout than they had previously held.