Comparing Regions of Africa

Using SPICE

Nigeria After Independence

• Government lacked stability• Economy relied upon subsistence farming and

oil exports• Africa’s most populous nation 132 million people

Three Major Nigerian Ethnic Groups Igbo, Hausa , Yoruba

Yoruba

Igbo

Hausa

Biafran WarThe Nigerian civil war, popularly known all over the world as the

"Biafran War" was fought from 2 July 1967 to 15 January 1970. The war was between the then Eastern Region of Nigeria and the rest of the country. The Eastern Region declared itself an independent state (Biafra) which was regarded as an act of secession by the Federal Military Government of Nigeria. To avoid disintegration of the country, the central government was left with only one choice of bringing back the region to the main fold by force.

Biafran War – Long Term Cause

The British left Nigeria only in 1960. When they left, there were two essential tribes there, Ibos and Hausas. The Ibos were sort of the civil service class, the governing class, and the Hausas were not. As soon as the British left, the two ethnic groups were in a civil war against each other in a quest for power.

Effects of Colonialism in Nigeria

Under British colonial rule, the Ibos had become an educated élite and after independence there was much resentment of them. In 1966 thousands of lbos living in the north were killed in ethnic rioting, and as a result many Ibos fled their homes and moved to traditional Ibo territory in the south-east of Nigeria.

Reader, Recorder, Reporter

• Why was the Biafra created and what was the result?

Hall Of Fame – Wole Soyinka

Soyinka explores the issues of colonialism and independence in many of his writings. He mostly writes from the perspective of the Yoruba culture and his love of human liberty, often criticizing colonialism and condemning the repression and corruption in African politics. He was jailed several times for expressing his views. Best known for his plays, in 1986 Soyinka became the first African to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Hall of Fame or Wall of Shame

Translate the following phrases. Identify the POV:

• “we cannot meet them on their turf”• “The spirit becomes important, and no gun

can silence that”?Do you think Ken Saro-Wiwa was a hero? Why

or why not? Write a thesis statement in response.

Nigeria Today

• Democratic and free elections in Nigeria• Subsistence Farming• Biggest oil exporting country • End of 30 yr military rule• President Olusegun Obasanjo leader since

1976 but officially elected as president in 1979.

Kenya

What foreign powers controlled parts of Kenya during its history?

Arabs, Portuguese, British

How did the British expand the settlement of Kenya? It encouraged Europeans to establish large farms

Trade Across Regions in Africa

East African trading cities were situated along the coast. Although none of the goods traded were the same in the cities, silk, precious stones, and certain spices would have been considered luxury goods in Italy.

Why did East African trading cities depend on trade winds?

They did not have overland routes that European traders did.

Mau Mau Rebellion

During British occupation, native East African groups led by the Kikuyu established the Kenya African Union to protest British rule. Within this organization, som Kikuyu members (referred to as the Mau Mau) secretly pursued more aggressive actions to force the British to enact reforms. In response, the British launched a military campaign to crush this freedom movement. The fighting resulted in the deaths of more than 11,000 Kenyans and about 2,000 other Africans and those who supported the British.

Sports Kenyan Athletes

As the end of 2006, Kenyan runners held the world track and field outdoor records for 1,000 meter, 3,000 meter and marathon races in the men’s division and the 20,000 and 30,000 meter races in the women’s division.

The Many Faces of South Africa

This slide show will introduce you to some of the key structural dynamics

of the country’s history

South Africa is….• A “TRADITIONAL” SOCIETY• A MULTILINGUAL SOCIETY• A SETTLER SOCIETY• A SLAVE SOCIETY • A FRONTIER SOCIETY• AN IMPERIAL SOCIETY• A PLANTATION SOCIETY• AN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY

Because it has a long history of settlement by “Bantu-speaking” African peoples, South Africa today has eleven official languages. Two are derived from European settlers; nine are African languages. Zulu and Xhosa speakers make up about 40% of the population. Still, many if not most South Africans are multilingual.

Language

Language Policy—the imposition of Afrikaans in “Bantu education”—helped spark the Soweto student revolt of 1976

African Chiefdoms

King Shaka, Zulu warrior

“Traditional” Societies

• The original inhabitants of southern Africa consisted of many different African cultures.

• As the previous map shows, each group had a different encounter with European expansion. Some, like the Khoi and San peoples of the Western Cape, were mostly wiped out or enslaved. Others, like the Xhosa, Zulu, and Sotho, were conquered, incorporated, or preserved nominal independence, at different historical moments and through different processes.

“Traditional” Societies, cont.• All these African groups found they had to negotiate

a delicate balance between preserving their own traditions, cultures, and social/political structures and giving way to the forces of modernity—industry, Christianity, empire—brought to their world by Europeans.

• The key moment in Zulu tradition was the rise and fall of King Shaka, 1816-1828. For Xhosa, it can be seen as the Cattle-Killing of 1856-57.

“Tradition”

• Listen to this short podcast on the problem of “tradition” in South African history.

Click here for Podcast

Slave Trade Routes to CapeBetween 1658 and 1808, the Dutch and British empires transported 60,000 slaves to the Western Cape.

As you can see, this was part of the Indian Ocean slave trade, not the Atlantic trade.

The British ended the slave trade in 1808, and abolished slavery in their empire in 1833. There were 38,000 slaves in the Cape in 1833,

By 1795, the city of Cape Town had 25,000 slaves and 25,000 free inhabitants.

Look at the graph on the next slide; Cape slavery, in world terms, was much less significant than slavery in the Western hemisphere.

The descendants of South African slaves, mixed with the original inhabitants of the Cape, as well as the first Dutch settlers, generated a large mixed-race population in the western third of South Africa—the “coloured” population.

This group of people spoke (and speak) Afrikaans, and embraced Christianity (some remained Muslims). Yet whites continued to treat them as second-class citizens. At the same time, unlike Xhosa, Zulu, and other “bantu” peoples, they had little claim to an African “tradition”, way of life, or geographic territory of their own.

0

500

1,000

1,500

2,000

2,500

3,000

3,500

4,000

Brazil USA BWI Cape(38,000)

Slaves

# of slaves @ emancipation(1000s)

Settler Societies• As Europeans began to colonize Africa, two models of

colonial power developed. In most cases, the French, Dutch, Portuguese, and British planted a flag, a few administrators, soldiers, and missionaries, and exploited local resources.

• But in a few places—South Africa was one—they developed settler societies, planting a fully European way of life, culture, and political system in a new land. Of course, they didn’t bother to ask the original inhabitants.

• Both the Dutch and the British developed competing settler societies in Southern Africa, though the Dutch got there first.

What is a Frontier?

• European settlers who establish themselves on the edge of a continent—North America, Africa, Australia—never seem willing to stay put….they imagine that the “untamed” land beyond the next mountain range is not being used properly by the “natives”, or needs Christianity and civilization. So, as the maps on the next slide indicates, they expand their territorial ambitions. In S. Africa, Europeans moved from the West eastwards, eventually encountering Bantu-speaking Africans. This caused conflict.

The “Frontier”and the Great Trek

Three frontiers• From the early 19th century, the British empire

controlled the Cape. As British settlers moved westward, they brought certain beliefs, ideas, and governmental structures with them.

• Many Dutch—or Boers—didn’t like living in the British empire. So, in the 1830s, 6,000 of them set out on the “Great Trek”, expanding their own “frontier” values into the African interior. Look again at the following maps.

The “Frontier”and the Great Trek

For a glimpse at the rationale for the Boers’ trek, click here and here. Why did they want to leave the British empire? We will return to this important issue next week.

A Third Frontier: Mfecane• But Africans had their own

“frontier.” King Shaka’s “Mfecane” (1820s) drove many non-Zulu to the South and west, where they collided with Europeans.

• In 1838, the voortrekkers (Boers) came into contact with the Zulu in Northern Natal—an encounter that became central to the historical mythology of both peoples.

For a description of the competing memories of the Zulu-Boer conflict, see the excerpt from A. Hochschild, The Mirror at Midnight, pp. 61-70.

British Empire, 1850/1910

A Corner of the Empire• The British presence in Southern Africa made the region part

of the enormous British Empire—precisely what the Boers rejected.

• Until the discovery of diamonds (1867) and gold (1886), it remained a relatively unimportant corner of the empire as far as the Brits were concerned

• But imperial ideology had a major impact on all those who lived in southern Africa. It led to the abolition of slavery; to a particular form of control over land, labor, minerals, and the region’s African inhabitants; and to war, between the Boer Republics and the Empire, and between the Empire and Africans.

• In Module 1 we will consider the competing values and ideology of the British imperial worldview and that advanced by their European rivals, the Boers, who sought a republican form of government in the Transvaal and Orange Free State, in the North & East of SA.

Indian Indentured Labour, 1860-1911The British imperial system made it possible for sugar plantations in Natal to secure a non-African labor force through a contract, or indentured labor system. Between 1860-1911, about 150,000 Indians came to Natal on 5-year indentures..

What would these workers, pejoratively called “coolies”, do when their contract was complete? What would their status in southern Africa be? This question was addressed by the Indian community’s most famous member, Mohandas K. Gandhi, who arrived in 1894.

As late as 1970, South Africa’s Indian population continued to be concentrated near Durban, in Natal, near where their forbears had arrived a century before.

Like the coloured people of the Western Cape, they formed an intermediate layer, facing racism and discrimination, but having more rights than Africans. Unlike coloured people, after 1947 they had an independent national entity—India—to speak up for them.

An Industrial Society

• Unlike much of Africa, by the 20th century SA began to develop an industrial economy—but of a special type

• Originally, economic growth depended on minerals, especially gold. This required massive inputs of cheap labor—the crucial question of the “mineral revolution” was how to get this labor

By the mid-20th century, manufacturing began to dominate the South African economy. What kind of labor force did this require?

In either case—mining & manufacturing—economic growth brought dramatic changes to SA society. It meant:

The spread of wage labor

The expansion of the migrant labor system

The development of urban areas

The question of trade unions

BUT how could this process be made compatible with a social order built on slavery, segregation, colonialism, coerced labor, and racial subordination?

In other words: was the growth of capitalism in South Africa promoted or retarded by the country’s racial system?

European--Brit--Boer

SettlersFarmersEmpire

“Frontier”Great Trek

EnglishAfrikaans

Coloured IndigenousSlaves from East

Western Cape

AfrikaansIslamChristianity

Indian Indentured workers

Natal HindiEnglishGandhi

African--Xhosa--Zulu

IndependentMigrant labor

Eastern part of SA

“Tradition”Cattle-killingShaka