Redrawing the Map of Africa

By: John Cannella

Outline Facts and Statistics

Contemporary Africa

Colonialism

The Scramble For Africa

Decolonization

Redrawing the Map of Africa

Facts & Statistics of Africa

The second largest Continent on Earth covering an area of approximately 11,724,000 square miles (30,365,000 square km)2010 Population Estimated at

surrounded by the Mediterranean to the North, Both the Suez Canal and the Red Sea alongside the Sinai Peninsula to the northeast, The Indian Ocean to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west

Africa is a land that encompasses a number of varying Landscapes each with their own unique climate and Ecology

Africa has widely been accepted by Scientists to be the origin of Homo Sapiens some 200, 000 Years ago

Contemporary Africa

Africa today consists of 54 sovereign states.

The total Population of Africa equaled 1,022,234 000 (2009)

At the national level, the languages of Africa is largely distributed between seven official languages.

While countries do possess native African languages as co- official, the Majority of recognized languages consists of English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Afrikaans, Swahili.

Christianity and Islam, as well as small pockets of traditional African religions make up the religious make up of contemporary Africa

Things to consider…….. http

://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Religion_distribution_Africa_crop.png

http://www.zonu.com/fullsize-en/2009-11-18-11151/Official-languages-in-Africa.html

History of Africa:Colonialism

The roots of African Colonization by Europeans can be traced back to the 15 th century with the arrival of Portuguese explorers attempting to find a trade route to India

Many other European powers including, the Spanish, the French, the Dutch and the British would follow suit between the 15th and 18th century and began exploring The coastal areas of Western Africa

The exploration of coastal regions of Africa gave way to the Atlantic slave trade in which hundreds of thousands of Africans from various tribes and kingdoms were systematically captured and taken by European settlers and brought to the new world in order to be used as labour to expropriate natural resources for the emerging European powers.

The African slave trade was the first step in how the Map of Africa would be redrawn from its original state at the hands of European colonizers.

The slave trade was abolished in the mid to late 19th century by European powers.

The slave trade allowed European powers to expand their economies and form into Capitalist societies at the hands of the African people.

Marx argued that the slave trade was part of what he termed the 'primitive accumulation' of European capital, the 'non-capitalist' accumulation of wealth that preceded and created the financial conditions for Britain's industrialization

The Scramble for

Africa The scramble for Africa was the process

of invasion, occupation, colonization and annexation of African territories by European imperial powers

The scramble for Africa between 1880-1914.

As trade no longer became exclusive along the coast, European powers began expropriating resources within the interior of Africa

In 1879 over 90 percent of Africa was ruled by Africans. By 1900, all but a tiny fraction of Africa was governed by Europeans.

In 1884, The berlin conference divided Africa up between imperial powers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uu6-TLC0NRQ&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PLCA66B1335CC7CC36

The Impact of Colonialism in Africa

The immediate effects of colonialism in Africa was the depletion of natural resources and raw materials for the benefit of Europeans powers at the expense of African societies.

At the linguistic level, Regions of Africa under imperial control were Promoted to speak the imperial powers respective language. The standardization of imperial languages over African peoples native tongue would have an irreversible effect on their language resulting in the loss and extinction of hundreds of African languages

At the religious level, Christian Missionaries brought education, literacy and hope for the disadvantaged. However, the spread of Christianity in its rigid European form, denied people pride in their culture and ceremonies. Christianity's ability to spread across the masses led to the decline of traditional African religions

At the Cultural Level, Europeans desire to alter the physical landscape in order to create a desired landscape would displace native African tribes and kingdoms, who’s languages, beliefs, customs, traditions, and religions relied and were fundamental to there cultures.

Impact of Decolonizati

on The demise of European imperial

powers at the end of World War II began the process of decolonization

Growing resentment in Africa towards colonialism led to a stream of uprising movements such as the Mau Mau uprising

As colonial regions won independence, arbitrary lines of demarcation that overlooked, linguistic, ethnic and religious differences were established by colonial rulers.

Civil war, military dictatorships economic and social opression would be the outcome.

The Rwandan Genocide of 1994 is a prime example of an ethnic conflict directly linked to Colonial influence.

Redrawing the map of

Africa Constant contact with influence of

civilizations from outside of Africa have made it near to impossible to envision an accurate remapping of Africa.

Africa is a continent Rich in diversity

Africa Contains thousands of different languages, Hundreds of traditional African religions as well as hundreds of different ethnicities.

The most effective way of redrawing the map of Africa is to map each of these contributing factors and attempt to combine them with equal consideration into a nation

http://worldmap.harvard.edu/africamap/