Library: World History by Credo Reference: Africa

Places

Transvaal: Topic Page
Former province, NE South Africa.
Witwatersrand: Topic Page
Economic heartland of Gauteng province, South Africa. Gold was first found here in 1853.
Gold Coast
From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
Extending approximately from Axim, Ghana, in the west to the Volta River in the east, it was so called because it was an important source of gold. It was an area of intense colonial rivalry from the 17th century.

Events

Berlin Conference
From A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures: Continental Europe and its Empires
The Berlin Conference has often been regarded as the beginning of the partition of Africa. Yet the ‘Scramble for Africa’ started well before it.
Tripolitan War: Topic Page
1800–1815, conflict between the United States and the Barbary States.
Great Trek (1836–1838)
In The Companion to British History, Routledge
The Great Trek arose from exorbitant Boer land hunger, unsympathetic attitudes of British officials and missionaries to the Boer way of life and a rejection by the Boers of the British concept of equality before the law, which upset their labour relations.
Discovery of Gold on the Witwatersrand
From Encyclopedia of African History
After initial prospecting success in 1886, major gold reserves were considered well proven by the early 1890s.
Jameson Raid
From The Companion to British history
The uitlanders (non-Dutch Europeans) in the Boer republics (especially the Transvaal) represented the enterprise and capital, paid the taxes but had no rights. Numerous and noisy, they conspired (autumn 1895) against the Boer Govt. of Paul Kruger.
Boer War/South African War
From The Reader's Companion to Military History
1899–1902. The Boer War began when Sir Alfred Milner, the British high commissioner in South Africa, goaded the Boers in the South African republics into declaring war on October 12, 1899.
Conquest of Abyssinia
From Chambers Dictionary of World History
The bellicose venture by Mussolini aimed at winning popular support at home, an increase in Italian prestige and strategic gains to pressurize the British in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Terms and Ideas

African Diaspora
From Africa and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and HistoryIn Encyclopedia of Race and Racism
The concept of “diaspora” suggests the spread or scattering of a specific population or race of people to different and far-flung places throughout the world.
Apartheid: Topic Page
Racial-segregation policy of the government of South Africa from 1948 to 1994.
Colonization: Topic Page
Extension of political and economic control over an area by a state whose nationals have occupied the area and usually possess organizational or technological superiority over the native population.
Colony: Topic Page
Country under the control of immigrants who remain subject to the jurisdiction of the parent state.
Imperialism: Topic Page
Broadly, the extension of rule or influence by one government, nation, or society over another.
Orientalism: Topic Page
Orientalism, as an area of study, has multiple definitions: It is an academic field that seeks to study the Orient, as well as a term for a more general interest in all things “Oriental.”
Protectorate
In The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Formerly in international law, a small state under the direct or indirect control of a larger one. Former British protectorates include Aden, Zanzibar, Nigeria, Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia, and Uganda.
Racism: Topic Page
Racism can be described as an extreme form of ethnocentrism (i.e., seeing one’s language, customs, ways of thinking, and material culture as preferable).
Uitlanders
From Chambers Dictionary of World History
The name given to Europeans of a variety of national origins who flocked to the Transvaal after the discovery of gold there in 1886.
"White Man's Burden"
From Brewer's Dictionary of Modern Phrase and Fable
In the days of imperialism the duty supposed to be imposed upon the white races, especially the British, to govern and to educate the more 'backward' coloured peoples.

Trade and Technology

Saharan and Trans-Saharan Trade
From Encyclopedia of World Trade From Ancient Times to the Present
Trade both within and across the Sahara has existed since prehistoric times, when the Sahara was considerably less dry, to the present.
Gold Production and Trade in West Africa
Gold was an important staple in the trans-Saharan trade. The lure of gold spurred the Portuguese exploration down the African coast.

Slavery

Slavery: Topic Page
Institution based on a relationship of dominance and submission, whereby one person owns another and can exact from that person labor or other services.
Slave Trade: Topic Page
A trade in Africa which started in ancient times.
Triangle Trade
From Encyclopedia of World Trade From Ancient Times to the Present
Atlantic trade between Europe, Africa, and the Americas from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries.
Abolitionism: Topic Page
A movement culminating in the late 18th and early 19th centuries that aimed first to end the slave trade, and then to abolish the institution of slavery and emancipate slaves. The movement took place in Europe, mainly in the UK, and in the USA.

General History

Africa: Topic Page
Second-largest continent (after Asia), straddling the equator and lying largely within the tropics. Africa's first great civilization emerged in ancient Egypt in c.3400 BC. Carthage was founded by Phoenicians in the 9th century BC.

People

Leo Africanus
From Encyclopedia of African History
Africanus completed his magnum opus on African geography, according to his own words, on March 10, 1526.
Napoleon: Topic Page
Shortly after landing at Aboukir (Abu Qir), he won a brilliant victory over the Mamluks in the battle of the Pyramids (July, 1798). His successes, however, were made useless when the French fleet was utterly destroyed (Aug. 1–2) by Nelson in Aboukir Bay.
Olaudah Equiano: Topic Page
In his autobiography and his later Miscellaneous Verses, Equiano idealized his African past, taking pride in his race yet condemning those Africans who trafficked in slavery.
Lord Frederick John Dealtry Lugard
From An African Biographical Dictionary
Lord Frederick John Dealtry Lugard was a British imperialist and colonial administrator who drafted the most comprehensive theory of colonialism, which became the basis of much British colonial management.
William Wilberforce: Topic Page
English reformer. He was instrumental in abolishing slavery in the British Empire.
Leopold II
From Encyclopedia of African History
King of Belgium (r. 1835: 1865-1909); closely associated with the “Scramble” for Africa, the formation of the Congo State, and Belgian colonial expansion.
David Livingstone: Topic Page
1813–73, Scottish missionary and explorer in Africa, the first European to cross the African continent.
Henry Morton Stanley: Topic Page
Fixed in the popular mind for his rescue of Dr. David Livingstone in 1872. Besides this feat, however, he was a significant explorer in his own right, crossing the continent and securing the Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) for the king of the Belgians.
Andries Wilhelmus Jacobus Pretorius
From An African Biographical Dictionary
Founder of the Transvaal Republic; one of the leaders of the Great Trek, during which much of the Afrikaner population moved away from British dominance to establish their own independent states.
Barney Barnato
From An African Biographical Dictionary
Barnett Isaacs Barnato—financier, speculator and diamond merchant—was prominent among the White entrepreneurs who became wealthy in South Africa before the Boer War.
Cecil Rhodes: Topic Page
A trip in 1875 through the rich territories of Transvaal and Bechuanaland apparently helped to inspire Rhodes with the dream of British rule over all southern Africa; later he spoke of British dominion "from the Cape to Cairo."
Leander Starr Jameson
From An African Biographical Dictionary
Friend and confidant of Cecil Rhodes; a leading figure in early South African politics; best remembered as the commander of a disastrous military attack against the Transvaal Republic, for which he was tried and imprisoned.
Paul Kruger
From An African Biographical Dictionary
President of the Transvaal (1883–1902), born in Colesberg, Cape Colony, SC South Africa.

Companies and Organizations

De Beers Consolidated Mines
From Chambers Dictionary of World History
The diamond mining company formed by Cecil Rhodes in 1887 from the amalgamation of several companies operating at Kimberley, Cape Province.

Colonialism

"Scramble for Africa"
In The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Drive by European nations to establish colonies in Africa. It began in the 1880s, and by 1914 only two African countries remained completely independent.
African Colonialism and Independence
From World Politics Since 1945
The Europeans took possession of Africa at the height of the Industrial Revolution. The effect of industrialization was heavily adverse for the African. A first pan-African conference of African political leaders was held in 1900, followed by a second in Paris during the peace conference of 1915. A mere ten years later West Africa was leading the way to independence from European rule.
British Empire: Topic Page
Empire covering, at its height in the 1920s, about a sixth of the landmass of the Earth, all of its lands recognizing the United Kingdom (UK) as their leader.
Europe: Explorers, Adventurers, Traders
From Encyclopedia of African History
Between about 1770 and 1880, exploration of Africa made possible accurate maps and publishable information on the continent.

Colonial Products

Coal: Topic Page
Fuel substance of plant origin, largely or almost entirely composed of carbon with varying amounts of mineral matter.
Coffee: Topic Page
A tree, its seeds, and the beverage made from them.
Diamond: Topic Page
Mineral, one of two crystalline forms of the element carbon (see allotropy), the hardest natural substance known, used as a gem and in industry.
Gold: Topic Page
Gold has been known from prehistoric times and was possibly the first metal used by humans.
Ivory: Topic Page
Type of dentin present only in the tusks of the elephant. Ivory historically has been obtained mainly from Africa.

Subject Guide

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Books

Encyclopedia of African History
Covering the entire continent from Morocco, Libya, and Egypt in the north to the Cape of Good Hope in the south, and the surrounding islands from Cape Verde in the west to Madagascar, Mauritius, and Seychelles in the east, the Encyclopedia is an A-Z reference resource on the history of the entire African continent.