Atlantic Slave Trade

Remember that Research Proposals (about 1 paragraph) are due on Friday, October 5, on TurnItIn.com (instructions on our class page on the Campus Portal)

No class meeting on Friday!

Reading Questions, Part I (AFRICANS, Chapter 7):

• Slavery had existed in Africa as a response to what shortage? (p. 133)
• What kind of societies in Africa refused to participate in the slave trade and resisted slavery the most? (p. 133)
• Why did the Portuguese start trading in slaves? (p. 133)
• Why did the King of Kongo try to back out of the trade and what was the response? (p. 134)
• Why in 1519 did the Portuguese begin shipping slaves directly to the Americas? (p. 134)
• What sources are used to determine the numbers of slaves exported from Africa? (p. 135)
• Why did slave trading boom in the mid 17th century? (p. 135)
• What percentage of exported slaves went to the Caribbean? Brazil? North America? (p. 135)
• How could someone become a slave? (p. 136f.)
• What were slaves traded for? (pp. 138f.)
• What percentage of enslaved people died before they even started to work as slaves? (p. 139)
• How does one estimate the demographic impact of the slave trade on Africa? (pp. 141f.)
• What were the political consequences of the trade in Africa? (pp. 143ff.)
• Did the trade effect Western Africa's economic development? Why or why not? (p. 150)
• How did the trade influence religion and medicine? What is the Lemba society? (pp. 151f)
• What European nation abolished the trade, and what did they do to enforce the ban? (pp. 152f.)
• Was the transition to legitimate (non-slave) trade entirely beneficial? (pp. 154-158)
• Why did the Kongo Kingdom embrace Christianity? (pp. 158f.

Reading Questions, Part II (SHORT, Chapter 4):

• "How does the history of Africa fit into that of the rest of the world?"
• Describe two examples of how Islam and Christianity were integrated into local African cultures.
• What do the Atlantic slave trade and the Islamic slave trade have in common, and how do they differ?
• Would you agree that the Atlantic slave trade has been given too much prominence? (p. 81)
• What are two things make Baquaqua' narrative unusual/unique?
• Why should the idea of diaspora include Africa itself? (p. 85)
• What is notable about the Sokoto caliphate? (p. 88)
• What changed the balance of power in many regions? (p. 89)
• How do the four themes of this chapter illustrate the trick of "getting the balance right" between the agency of Africans and the impact of global forces (done/done to)?

The Dutch plus Historical Sources

Reading Questions for AFRICANS, pp. 126-130: 

• When did the first Dutch colonists land in what is now South Africa?
• Who was living at the Cape of Good Hope when the Dutch arrived?
• How did indigenous peoples make their livings and how did they interact?
• What were the Dutch East India Company's plans for the Cape initially?
• Why did the Dutch import slaves and from where?
• What were conditions for slaves in the Dutch colony?
• What was "the Dutch regime's lasting legacy to South Africa"?
• Who were the Trekboers? Why did they think of themselves as Afrikaners?
• When did the British take control of the Cape from the Dutch?

Reading Questions for SHORT, Chapter 3:

• What were the two battles that pioneers of African historical studies had to fight? (p. 49)
• What passed for African history before 1950 and what were its flaws? (p. 50)
• What were some early indigenous written records? (pp. 51f.)
• What role did the Bible play in increasing indigenous written records? (p. 53)
• How about colonial rule? Why? (p. 56)
• Define "oral tradition." (p. 57)
• What historical information can and cannot be gotten out of oral traditions? (pp. 58ff.)
• Name five other disciplines that historians have mined for the African past and explain their advantages and limitations. (pp. 60ff.)
• What are the three types of written records by outsiders are being reevaluated? (p. 67ff.)

Colonizing Eastern & Southern Africa

Reading Questions for AFRICANS, Chapter 6, pp. 100-126:
(questions for AFRICANS, pp. 126-130 and SHORT, Chapter 3 will be posted Monday)

• What four central themes does the history of southern and eastern Africa share with western Africa?
• How does their history differ and why? (record, values, environment, interactions)
• What role does pastoralism play in the east and south? How does it effect settlement. society, and culture?
• fissiparation? (p. 103)
• What complex changes took place in what is now Zimbabwe? (p. 103f)
• Describe Great Zimbabwe. (pp. 104f. and 121f.)
• How did the kingdom of Munhumutapa interact with the Portuguese? (p. 105)
• Why was cattle less important in Central Africa?
• Describe Luba and the two major political systems it shaped.
• What could people do to keep their rulers in line?
• In the East African savanna, what were the Bantu up to, and where did the Maasai come from?
• What evidence is there for the region being stateless? (p. 109)
• How did cattle give their owners a demographic advantage? (pp. 109 and 118)
• In the Great Lakes region of East Africa states like Bunyoro and Buganda developed later. How did those states operate, and how did they reduce succession problems?
• How does the author say the distinction between Tutsi and Hutu may have evolved? (p. 111)
• What new crops were adopted in eastern and southern Africa, and where did they come from?
• "Human mobility was the essence of this empty world" -- list reasons people might move. (p. 114)
• What precautions were taken against the risk of famine, and what increased mortality in famine years? Who rarely suffered famine? (p. 116)
• What does the Zulu proverb, "the feud is in the testicle," mean? (p. 118)
• Did southern African women have a lower or higher status than western African women? Why? What about the women of Central Africa? (p. 119)
• Why did patriarchal, cattle-owning societies have severe generational tension, and how did they handle it? (p. 120)
• Was slavery more or less common in eastern and southern Africa than in West Africa? (p. 120)
• Why was trade more limited in southern and eastern African than in West Africa? (p. 122)
• How did San and Khoikhoi religion differ from Bantu religion? (pp. 124f.)

Colonizing Western Africa

Reading Questions for AFRICANS, Chapter 5, pp. 63-82:

Ife Terracotta

• What populations drifted/migrated southward into western Africa, and what led them to do it?
• What pattern did population clusters take?
• What were obstacles to population growth? (pp. 67-69)
• What strategies were used to overcome these obstacles?
• Define kafu and describe the constraints on political consolidation. (pp. 71ff)
• How were slaves and horses important to the Hausa? (pp. 75-78)
• "Microstates" seem to have been the rule in the western forest, except in the northwest--why? (p. 81)
• What was unusual about the Kongo kingdom in the equatorial forest? (p. 82)

Reading Questions for AFRICANS, Chapter 5, pp. 83-99:

• How did trade move through western Africa?
• What was the most important product transported by long-distance trade and who traded it?
• What did Hausa traders use as currency? What were its advantages and limitations?
• What craft specialization was most advanced? Who introduced it? Why couldn't it compete in the Atlantic economy (after 1450)?
• How and why was a distinction made between the cultivated and the wild in western African culture and religion?
• What are the main features of indigenous religions in western Africa?
• How did Islam and indigenous religions interact?
• What distinctive family structures existed in western Africa? Why?
• How was generational conflict created and what were the consequences of it?
• What is "mankala" and were you familiar with it before reading this chapter?

Identity plus Christianity & Islam

Reading Questions

Diversity, Unity, and most importantly, Identity (SHORT, chapter 2)

• What is it that makes a "makes a nonsense of pseudo-scientific theories of racial difference"? (Are you familiar with some of the theories?)
• In what ways are African people diverse? (pull from 4 paragraphs that follow the above quoted text)
• The variations are a consequence of what historical processes? (last paragraph p. 28)
• Define "Maghrib." What might being North African mean? (p. 29ff)
• What is meant by "A historian's definition of 'Africa' is necessarily broad and unracialized"?
• With all this diversity, where can we find unity or "interconnectedness"?
• Who wrote the first serious continent-wide history of Africa?
• What is Afrocentrism and what are the books arguments against it?
• How did Zulu and Yoruba identities develop?
• What are problems with the concept/term "tribe"?
• Who are the Tutsi and Hutu?
• How did the Mukogodo become Maasai?

Christianity & Islam (AFRICANS, chapter 4)

• How did Christianity come to Egypt and how popular was it (% of population)? 
• Define "Coptic" (language and religion).
• What is Aksum (or Axum)? Ga'ez?
• Why did Nubian Christianity not last the way Ethiopian Christianity has? (See image below for clue.)
• What helped the Muslims conquer Egypt?
• How may Egyptians were still Christians by the 14th century? Why?
• What role did Berbers play in the spread and practice of Islam (p. 43f) and in trans-Saharan trade (p. 52)?
• Why did trans-Saharan trade grow so fast in the early Islamic period?
• Describe Old Jenne (Jenne-jeno).
• What is the relationship between religion and trade in West and East Africa?
• What "created the basic pattern of the modern northern Sudan"?
• What effects did partial isolation have on Ethiopian religion?

Nubian Bishop

History & Archaeology

Reading Questions AFRICANS, Chapters 1-3:

(1) The frontiersmen of mankind

• According to Iliffe, what are the central themes of African history?
• Why was Africa underpopulated until the later 20th century?
• What effects did the African environment have on ideologies and social organization?
• How did European innovations lead to the late 20th century crisis in Africa? 
• What is "the thread that ties African history together"? 
• Besides archaeological evidence, what can we use to uncover the pre-literate past?

(2) The emergence of food-producing communities

• What are the important developments of the Microlithic period?
• List the four ancient language families of Africa and who spoke them.
• What led some Africans to begin producing food? What food? When?
• Describe the expansion/dispersal of Bantu speakers.

(3) The impact of metals

• Don't look for very much about metals until page 33.
• Why did so little Egyptian culture spread to the rest of the continent?
• What's so important about Iron for Sub-Saharan Africa?

The True Size of Africa

click to see full image
or go to article

Reading questions for Chapter 1 of Short, "The Idea of Africa":

• Why does the book say that African history is a very new topic?
• Who created the idea of Africa and where does the word "Africa" come from?
• What do different texts books and scholars  include or leave out of a definition of Africa and its history?
• How did the diaspora help shape the idea of Africa? (define diaspora and pan-Africanist)
• Briefly describe the physical landscape of Africa.
• How has the Sahara desert changed and what effects did the change have on people/history?
• What's so amazing about Jenne-Jeno?