-
Before the Sahara became a desert, it was full of vegetation and lakes. it was basically a huge oasis spreading over 3.5 million square miles, but then it became unlivable within a few thousand years. When the Sahara started to die, the African people started searching for new food and water sources, and they decided to make their way south in search of watering holes. They needed watering holes because they started to have to rely on agriculture for food while they tried to make their way south
-
The Ghana Empire started and they grew fairly quickly because of the trans Saharan trade. The Empire also had in their control 3 major gold fields and Ghana only grew in power over the years, and especially when the Arabs moved to Egypt the trade intensified. Ghana also had power because they collected taxes on gold trading. Ghana also had iron mines that they used to produce strong weapons and tools. With Ghana having so much Gold, they were able to trade with other nations.
-
In Ghana, the king would concentrate a lot on trade when he wasn’t concentrating on the military. This would contribute to them being great with trade. Some of the items they would trade were: gold, ivory, and slaves. They would trade for things like horses, clothes, swords, salt, and books. There was tons of gold in Ghana, which made them a great place for trading. They would trade the gold for salt from Arab and get a lot from it, this allowed them to get rich very quickly.
-
Europeans, Dutch and Portuguese, would do good trading with Africa. They would give them things like cloth, and metalware in return for things such as spices (things like pepper), ivory, and gold (raw materials). The Africans had made trade links in the Mediterranean Sea, and these links would come across the Europeans to trade with. They would create warehouses on the coast so they could store their goods because the companies in Europe made ties so they could make constant trade with them.
-
In the late 15th century, Benin helped Portugal capture and export slaves. The reason that they helped the Portuguese was to get control of their supplies, they used these supplies to trade with Europeans off the coast. Around 2000 slaves overall were transported to Portugal. The reason that Portugal wanted the slaves was because of the shortage of laborers. Black slaves were more popular and wanted, it was easier to convert their faith, and it was harder for them to escape.
-
In 1870 the slave trade was abolished in Western Africa but not in all parts of the world. The majority of slaves were captured in wars or raids. Around 20 million slaves were overall traded to America. There was a slave act that was put into a vote. The vote was 40 to 20 and the winning side was anti slaves. As of 1870, the Slave Trade Act was passed. Once the slave act was over there was still some slavery throughout parts of Africa.
-
After World War 1, the Europeans went through a huge loss. They doubted that they were able to take care of the colonies in Africa and they started to have less faith that they could manage them during the Great Depression. They planned on using the colonies for natural resources to fix the situation. Britain was able to pay for this plan, but France wasn’t. Africa’s education got better, which brought more in more African leaders. They were able to start riots and regain their land.
-
The region of West Africa started gaining independence in 1957 and by 1973 the region was completely independent. The first who gained independence was Ghana. There was a huge campaign called “Self independence now”. Kwame Nkrumah was the leader of this said campaign. Guinea-Bissau was the last West African country to gain independence. The other countries did not have to fight for independence. Guinea-Bissau had to fight the French to gain control of their own territory.
-
This event was the worst event in Ivory Coast’s history, and it started when the elections started. During this time, it was one of the most dangerous places in the world. The political leaders started exploiting ethnic division to help their side. This ended up with people rioting on the streets, but during this time, there had been more cases of torture and violence than killings, and they also had a corrupt government with a weak police force. The police were overly violent because of this.
-
The disease had originally started in southeastern Guinea. It was said that there was an 18-month old boy that had gotten the disease by being infected by bats. After 5 cases of fatal diarrhea, there had been a medical warning sent out. The Ebola breakout was accelerated from human to human spread, and also the lack of vaccines. During the epidemic, the virus also spread to Italy, Mali, Nigeria, Segal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
