1. Professor Chee
Lecture 2- European Conquest of Africa -
Why? How?
Europeans carved 20% of
the world’s landmass in
the last quarter of the
nineteenth century

2. African States
Before conquest
c. 1880s

3. European/American Image of Africa as Sleeping
& Exotique
Daniel Chester French, 1902-7, French is also the sculptor of Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln
Memorial.Africa Statue, the US Custom House in NYC.

4. Indirect & Direct Agents of
European colonialism
Indirect Agents
– Explorers - travel tales of exotic Africa
– Missionaries/educators – civilizing mission
Direct Agents – Charter Companies
– “charter” – allows a company to rule in the name
of a country, for profit (private military)
– East India Company (India & East Africa)
– British South Africa Company
– Royal African Company – West Africa

5. What did these explorers &
missionaries find?

6. British Explorer James Bruce & Ethiopia
1768 – a Scot, James
Bruce, traveled to
Ethiopia, and upon his
return in 1783, told
stories of the the
mystique of the Gondar
castles of Ethiopia
only a few believed that
Africans could have
built such a splendid
city.

7. Chateau Gondar, Ethiopia

8. Ethiopia: Axum – Obelisk (stelaes) –
largest single stone stelae in the world
funerary or grave marker

9. Ethiopia: Axum King Ezana (r.320-360)
Creates the first Christian Empire in the World
o Axum stopped erecting stelaes or obelisks and
changed to building crosses
o The Roman Emperor Constantine Asks Ezana for
Advice, 4th Century, two Superpowers of the time
Obelisk (stelaes) at over 115 feet– largest
funerary or grave markers in the world
Axum (Ethiopian) coin – 4th Century CE

10. King Solomon & Queen Sheba
Thirteenth century text
– Oxford Library?
Menelik - Solomonic
dynasty
Axum - Ark of the
Covenant

11. Axum – Lalibela churches
ninth century to the Twelfth centuries
11 churches cut from rock

12. The trading world of the Indian Ocean
Thousands of years of trading between Africa and Asia (with India & Ceylon at the center

13. Connecting to the Silk Road

14. Indian Ocean Trade – African flask
Ilha de Mozambique Museum

15. Indian Ocean Trade – Indian flask
Ilha de Mozambique Museum

16. Indian Ocean Trade – Chinese flask
Ilha de Mozambique Museum – Early Sixteenth Century Ming
Ceramics

17. East African Swahili Coast –
important Indian Ocean trading site

18. Great Zimbabwe –
Trade links to the
Swahili Coast
Chinese pottery
Arabian coins
East African goods

19. Southern Africa: Great Zimbabwe –
Great Stone Buildings – Eleventh to the Fifteenth Centuries

20. Indian Ocean Trade with links to
Trans-Saharan Trade and West Africa including
Timbuktu

21. Trans-Saharan Trade with Camel Travel
• Seventh Century BCE - Camels arrive from SW Asia
• Fourth century CE – 70-90 days journey
• 25K camels crossing at its height

22. British Explorer
Mungo Park
Reached
Timbuktu but Died
en Route Back
1795-7, 1805-6 Park, a Scot, visited the
Niger with the African Association for
Promoting the Discovery of the Interior
Parts of Africa, or the African Association,
a British society dedicated to the
exploration of West Africa.

23. René Caillié Reaches Timbuktu & Publishes
Volumes
o Travels through Central Africa to Timbuctoo; and across the Great Desert, to Morocco,
performed in the years 1824-1828 (2 Vols), London: Colburn & Bentley, 1830.
o Journal d'un voyage à Temboctou et à Jenné, dans l'Afrique centrale ... pendant les années
1824, 1825, 1826, 1827, 1828 ... (3 Vols), Paris: Imprimerie Royale. 1830
Rue René Caillié in Timbuktu

24. Travel on the Niger River

25. Famous Timbuktu
from the tenth century

26. Sankore University

27. Mosque – Jenne, Mali
ninth century?

28. Djenne Mosque

29. Jenne (Djenne) Mali Residential Street
1906 Edward Fortier postcard

30. Streets of Djenne

31. C. Fifteenth Century: Chinese Stop Exploring
Europeans Start & Conquer

32. Global Balance of Power Shift:
Growing European Rivalry in the
Nineteenth Century
British defeat China
British conquer India
French & Dutch conquer Southeast Asia
Spanish, Portuguese, English already conquered the Americas and took
African Slaves
Why did Europeans want to conquer and colonize Africa?

33. 1860s shift…
• Explorations – large expeditions, rather
than individual wandering romantics
• Charter Companies
• King Leopold II
• German unification (1871) & desire for
colonies

34. Nineteenth Century Inventions
• Steamships
• Rifles
• Quinine
1840 – British defeated China in the Opium War. China’s
nemesis also became Africa’s nemesis.

35. Another Example:
Egypt’s Suez Canal Sparks
More European Rivalry!
British & French Both Want
Egypt

36. 1882 – British Invades Egypt
When the French are not looking…

37. Another Example:
Why do the British Conquer South Africa?
Diamonds discovered in 1869, British South
Africa Company start Kimberly Mines

38. Cecil Rhodes,
British South
Africa Company
“…we are the finest race in the
world, and that the more of the
world we inhabit the better it is
for the human race.”
Look at his shadow

39. Berlin Conference 1883-84
Bismarck leads Gentlemen’s Agreement
Paper Partition?
•European power
to announce their
territorial claims
•Claims only valid
if they are able to
colonize &
effectively rule
they check British power in
Africa, opening more to
French, Germans and King
Leopold II

40. British Africa Territorial Gains
in Africa from 1873 to 1903

41. Another Example: Why Was the Belgian
King Leopold Interested in the Congo?
Belgian Steamship on the
Congo River

42. Invention of Bicycles – Baden, (Germany) c.
1820

43. Invention of cars – Benz model, (Germany)
c. 1885

44. Dr. David Livingstone – Medical doctor
Missionary, Explorer (1813-1873)
• Africans called him an old man
possessed by baraka or spirituality
• Scottish Presbyterian missionary
and explorer for the London
Missionary Society.
• First to make a trans-continental
journey across Africa
• a proponent of new missions and
trade, in southern/central Africa.

45. Source of the Nile – Lake Victoria
Livingstone
•1866 - Proved that Lake
Victoria was the source of the
Nile and names it Lake
Victoria.
•Zambezi Expedition - First
to see Victoria Falls, and
named it after Queen Victoria

46. King Leopold Hired Stanley to chart the Congo
River
•Livingstone was missing
the last 6 years of his life –
the NY Herald sent Stanley
to find him.
•How I Found Livingstone
by Henry Morton Stanley
became a bestseller.
•“the very worst book
about the very best
subject,” said
Florence Nightingale

47. Africa –
Rivers
Map

48. King Leopold II of
Belgium
Private company
Private army – la Force
Publique
700% profit off of rubber, free
forced labor
$1.1 billion in personal wealth,
one of the largest at that time
Burnt royal archives to destroy
evidence

49. First Human Rights Activist?
Edward Dene Morel Uncovers Genocide in the
Belgian Congo
Along with British Consul
Roger Casement, uncovers the
genocide in the Belgian Congo,
Shipping Clerk, Chief Clerk,
Congo Business
•Leading expert journalist on
West/Central African Affairs
•Started the West African Mail,
newspaper
•Circulated 15K brochures,
3750+ letters on the “Secret
Society of Expert Murderers”

50. 1906 Punch
political cartoon
King Leopold & the
Democratic Republic
of Congo or Zaire
Rubber – 700% profit
10 million African
Deaths, ½ the population (Native
Colonial Affairs)
# of hands cut off?
Tappers forced to work

51. Africa Before & After Partition

52. 1880s –Polish Artist Epitomizes
the Power Struggle Over Africa

53. Who/What/When/Where/Why/How
Europeans Colonized Africa?
Copyright Grace Chee
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