1.
Gold Coast (British colony)
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The Gold Coast was a British colony on the Gulf of Guinea in west Africa that became the independent nation of Ghana in 1957. The first Europeans to arrive at the coast were the Portuguese in 1471 and they encountered a variety of African kingdoms, some of which controlled substantial deposits of gold in the soil. In 1482, the Portuguese built the Castle of Elmina, the first European settlement on the Gold Coast, from here they traded slaves, gold, knives, beads, mirrors, rum and guns. News of the successful trading spread quickly, and eventually British, Dutch, Danish, Prussian, the European traders built several forts along the coastline. The Gold Coast had long been a name for the used by Europeans because of the large gold resources found in the area. The slave trade was the exchange for many years. The British Gold Coast was formed in 1867 after the British government abolished the African Company of Merchants in 1821 and seized privately held lands along the coast. They also took over the interests of other European countries, purchasing and incorporating the Danish Gold Coast in 1850. Britain steadily expanded its colony through the invasion of local kingdoms as well, particularly the Ashanti, the Ashanti people had controlled much of the territory of Ghana before the Europeans arrived and were often in conflict with them. They are the largest ethnic community in Ghana, four wars, the Anglo-Ashanti Wars, were fought between the Ashanti and the British, who were sometimes allied with the Fante. During the First Anglo-Ashanti War, the two groups fought because of a disagreement over an Ashanti chief and slavery, tensions increased in 1874 during the Second Ashanti War when the British sacked the Ashanti capital of Kumasi. The Third Ashanti War occurred because the new Ashanti ruler Asantehene wanted to exercise his new title, from 1895–1896 the British and Ashanti fought in the Fourth and final Ashanti War, where the Ashanti fought for and lost their independence. In 1900 the Ashanti Uprising took place, resulting in the British capture of the city of Kumasi, at the end of this last Ashanti War, the Ashanti people became a British protectorate on 1 January 1902. By 1901, all of the Gold Coast was a British colony, with its kingdoms, the British exported a variety of natural resources such as gold, metal ores, diamonds, ivory, pepper, timber, grain and cocoa. The British colonists built railways and the transport infrastructure which formed the basis for the transport infrastructure in modern-day Ghana. They also built Western-style hospitals and schools to provide modern amenities to the people of the empire, by 1945, the native population was demanding more autonomy in the wake of the end of the Second World War and the beginnings of the decolonisation process across the world. By 1956, British Togoland, the Ashanti protectorate, and the Fante protectorate were merged with the Gold Coast to create one colony, in 1957, the colony gained independence under the name of Ghana. By the late century, the British, through conquest or purchase occupied most of the forts along the coast
2.
Colonial Nigeria
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Colonial Nigeria was the area of West Africa that became the modern day Nigeria, during the time of British rule in the 19th and 20th centuries. British influence in the region began with the prohibition of trade to British subjects in 1807. Britain annexed Lagos in 1861 and established the Oil River Protectorate in 1884, British influence in the Niger area increased gradually over the 19th century, but Britain did not effectively occupy the area until 1885. Other European powers acknowledged Britains power over the area in the 1885 Berlin Conference, from 1886 to 1899, much of the country was ruled by Royal Niger Company, authorized by charter, and governed by George Taubman Goldie. In 1900, the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and Northern Nigeria Protectorate passed from hands to the Crown. Progressive constitutions after World War II provided for increasing representation and electoral government by Nigerians, the colonial period proper in Nigeria lasted from 1900 to 1960, after which Nigeria gained its independence. Administration and military control of the territory was primarily by white Britons. Following military conquest, the British imposed a system designed to profit from African labour. The essential basis of system was a money economy—specifically the British pound sterling—which could be demanded through taxation, paid to cooperative natives. The amalgamation of different ethnic and religious groups into one federation created internal tension which persists in Nigeria to the present day. In the 1700s, the British Empire and other European powers had settlements and forts in West Africa but had not yet established the plantation colonies which existed in Americas. Adam Smith wrote in 1776 that the African societies were established and more populous than those of the Americas. Local leaders, cognizant of the situation in the West Indies, India, and elsewhere, recognized the risks of British expansion. A chief of Bonny in 1860 explained that he refused a British treaty due to the tendency to induce the Chiefs to sign a treaty whose meaning they did not understand, and then seize upon the country. European slave trading from West Africa began before 1650, with people taken at a rate of about 3,000 per year and this rate rose to 20,000 per year in the last quarter of the century. The slave trade was heaviest in the period 1700–1850, with an average of 76,000 people taken from Africa each year between 1783 and 1792, at first, the trade centered around West Central Africa, now the Congo. But in the 1700s, the Bight of Benin became the next most important hub, ouidah and Lagos were the major ports in Biafra. From 1790–1807, predominantly British slave traders purchased 1000–2000 slaves each year in Lagos alone, the trade subsequently continued under the Portuguese
3.
West Africa
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West Africa, also called Western Africa and the West of Africa, is the westernmost subregion of Africa. Early human settlers from northern Holocene societies arrived in West Africa around 12,000 B. C, sedentary farming began in, or around the fifth millennium B. C, as well as the domestication of cattle. By 1500 B. C, ironworking technology allowed an expansion of productivity. Northern tribes developed walled settlements and non-walled settlements that numbered at 400, in the forest region, Iron Age cultures began to flourish, and an inter-region trade began to appear. The desertification of the Sahara and the change of the coast cause trade with upper Mediterranean peoples to be seen. Local leather, cloth, and gold also contributed to the abundance of prosperity for many of the following empires. Also, based on the archaeology of city of Kumbi Saleh in modern-day Mauritania, three great kingdoms were identified in Bilad al-Sudan by the ninth century. They included Ghana, Gao and Kanem, the Sosso Empire sought to fill the void, but was defeated by the Mandinka forces of Sundiata Keita, founder of the new Mali Empire. In the 15th century, the Songhai would form a new dominant state based on Gao, in the Songhai Empire, under the leadership of Sonni Ali, further east, Oyo arose as the dominant Yoruba state and the Aro Confederacy as a dominant Igbo state in modern-day Nigeria. The Kingdom of Nri was a West African medieval state in the present-day southeastern Nigeria, the Kingdom of Nri was unusual in the history of world government in that its leader exercised no military power over his subjects. The kingdom existed as a sphere of religious and political influence over a third of Igboland, the Eze Nri managed trade and diplomacy on behalf of the Nri people, and possessed divine authority in religious matters. The Oyo Empire was a Yoruba empire of what is today Western, established in the 15th century, the Oyo Empire grew to become one of the largest West African states. It rose through the organizational skills of the Yoruba, wealth gained from trade. The Benin Empire was an empire located in what is now southern Nigeria. Its capital was Edo, now known as Benin City, Edo and it should not be confused with the modern-day country called Benin, formerly called Dahomey. The Benin Empire was one of the oldest and most highly developed states in the hinterland of West Africa. Olfert Dapper, a Dutch writer, describing Benin in his book Description of Africa and its craft was the most adored and treasured bronze casting in the history of Africa. It was annexed by the British Empire in 1897 during the invasion, in the early 19th century, a series of Fulani reformist jihads swept across Western Africa
4.
British Empire
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The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It originated with the possessions and trading posts established by England between the late 16th and early 18th centuries. At its height, it was the largest empire in history and, for over a century, was the foremost global power. By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23% of the population at the time. As a result, its political, legal, linguistic and cultural legacy is widespread, during the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal and Spain pioneered European exploration of the globe, and in the process established large overseas empires. Envious of the great wealth these empires generated, England, France, the independence of the Thirteen Colonies in North America in 1783 after the American War of Independence caused Britain to lose some of its oldest and most populous colonies. British attention soon turned towards Asia, Africa, and the Pacific, after the defeat of France in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, Britain emerged as the principal naval and imperial power of the 19th century. In the early 19th century, the Industrial Revolution began to transform Britain, the British Empire expanded to include India, large parts of Africa and many other territories throughout the world. In Britain, political attitudes favoured free trade and laissez-faire policies, during the 19th Century, Britains population increased at a dramatic rate, accompanied by rapid urbanisation, which caused significant social and economic stresses. To seek new markets and sources of raw materials, the Conservative Party under Benjamin Disraeli launched a period of imperialist expansion in Egypt, South Africa, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand became self-governing dominions. By the start of the 20th century, Germany and the United States had begun to challenge Britains economic lead, subsequent military and economic tensions between Britain and Germany were major causes of the First World War, during which Britain relied heavily upon its empire. The conflict placed enormous strain on the military, financial and manpower resources of Britain, although the British Empire achieved its largest territorial extent immediately after World War I, Britain was no longer the worlds pre-eminent industrial or military power. In the Second World War, Britains colonies in Southeast Asia were occupied by Imperial Japan, despite the final victory of Britain and its allies, the damage to British prestige helped to accelerate the decline of the empire. India, Britains most valuable and populous possession, achieved independence as part of a larger movement in which Britain granted independence to most territories of the empire. The transfer of Hong Kong to China in 1997 marked for many the end of the British Empire, fourteen overseas territories remain under British sovereignty. After independence, many former British colonies joined the Commonwealth of Nations, the United Kingdom is now one of 16 Commonwealth nations, a grouping known informally as the Commonwealth realms, that share a monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. The foundations of the British Empire were laid when England and Scotland were separate kingdoms. In 1496, King Henry VII of England, following the successes of Spain and Portugal in overseas exploration, Cabot led another voyage to the Americas the following year but nothing was ever heard of his ships again
5.
The Gambia
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The Gambia, officially the Republic of The Gambia, is a country in West Africa that is entirely surrounded by Senegal except for its coastline on the Atlantic Ocean at its western end. It is the smallest country in mainland Africa, the Gambia is situated on either side of the Gambia River, the nations namesake, which flows through the centre of The Gambia and empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Its area is 10,689 square kilometres with a population of 1,882,450 at the April 2013 census, Banjul is the Gambian capital, and the largest cities are Serekunda and Brikama. Later, on 25 May 1765, The Gambia was made a part of the British Empire when the government formally assumed control, in 1965, The Gambia gained independence under the leadership of Dawda Jawara, who ruled until Yahya Jammeh seized power in a bloodless 1994 coup. Adama Barrow became The Gambias third president in January 2017, after defeating Jammeh in December 2016 elections, Jammeh initially refused to accept the results, which triggered a constitutional crisis and military intervention by the Economic Community of West African States, resulting in his exile. The Gambias economy is dominated by farming, fishing, and especially tourism, in 2008, about a third of the population lived below the international poverty line of US$1.25 per day. The name Gambia is derived from the Mandinka term Kambra/Kambaa, meaning Gambia river, upon independence as a Commonwealth realm, the country used the name The Gambia. Following the proclamation of a republic in 1970, the name of the country became Republic of The Gambia. The administration of Yahya Jammeh changed the name to Islamic Republic of The Gambia in December 2015. On 29 January 2017 the new President Adama Barrow said the name will go back to Republic of The Gambia. Arab traders provided the first written accounts of the Gambia area in the ninth and tenth centuries, during the tenth century, Muslim merchants and scholars established communities in several West African commercial centres. Both groups established trans-Saharan trade routes, leading to an export trade in slaves, gold and ivory. At the beginning of the 14th century, most of what is today called Gambia was part of the Mali Empire, the Portuguese reached this area by sea in the mid-15th century, and began to dominate overseas trade. In 1588, the claimant to the Portuguese throne, António, Prior of Crato, letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I confirmed the grant. In 1618, King James I of England granted a charter to an English company for trade with the Gambia, between 1651 and 1661, some parts of the Gambia were under the rule of the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia, and were bought by Prince Jacob Kettler. The British Empire occupied the Gambia when an expedition led by Augustus Keppel landed there following the Capture of Senegal in 1758. The 1783 First Treaty of Versailles gave Great Britain possession of the Gambia River and this was finally ceded to the United Kingdom in 1856. As many as three million slaves may have taken from this general region during the three centuries that the transatlantic slave trade operated
6.
Sierra Leone
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Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north-east, Liberia to the south-east, Sierra Leone has a tropical climate, with a diverse environment ranging from savannah to rainforests. Sierra Leone has an area of 71,740 km2. Sierra Leone is divided into four regions, the Northern Province, Eastern Province, Southern Province and the Western Area. Freetown is the capital, largest city and its economic and political centre, Bo is the second largest city. The other major cities are Kenema, Makeni and Koidu Town, Sierra Leone is a constitutional republic with a directly elected president and a unicameral legislature. Sir Milton Margai built his government based on democratic principles. Throughout his time in power, Sir Milton Margai was very popular across Sierra Leone, the main opposition APC, led by its leader Siaka Stevens, narowly defeated the ruling SLPP under the leadership of Albert Margai in the 1964 general elections. Stevens ruled for eighteen years in a government, in which his critics. Soldiers and politicians convicted of plotting a coup to topple Stevens were executed, under president Stevens, the APC was made the only legal political party in Sierra Leone, and all other political parties were banned, including the main opposition. Stevens handpicked successor, retired major general Joseph Saidu Momoh, lacked the political dominance of Stevens, Momoh reestablished the country as a multi party democracy in 1991. The current constitution of Sierra Leone was adopted in 1991 during the presidency of Joseph Saidu Momoh, the rebels started the civil war in 1991 in the eastern part of the country during Momohs presidency. Momoh was very unpopular, and Public anger against the Momoh government increasingly grew due to corruption, poor economy. In 1992 a group of officers in the army led by a 25-year-old captain, Valentine Strasser. In 1996 during the war, another military coup of soldiers within Strassers inner circle, led by a 32 year old Brigadier General Julius Maada Bio, toppled Strasser. Since independent to present, Sierra Leones politics has been dominated by two political parties, the Sierra Leone Peoples Party and the All Peoples congress. From 1991 to 2002, the Sierra Leone civil war was fought and this proxy war left more than 50,000 people dead, much of the countrys infrastructure destroyed, and over two million people displaced as refugees in neighbouring countries. In January 2002, then Sierra Leones president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, fulfilled his promise by ending the civil war, with help by the British Government, ECOWAS
7.
Nigeria
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Its coast in the south lies on the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean. It comprises 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where the capital, Nigeria is officially a democratic secular country. Modern-day Nigeria has been the site of numerous kingdoms and tribal states over the millennia, the modern state originated from British colonial rule beginning in the 19th century, and the merging of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and Northern Nigeria Protectorate in 1914. The British set up administrative and legal structures whilst practising indirect rule through traditional chiefdoms, Nigeria became a formally independent federation in 1960, and plunged into a civil war from 1967 to 1970. Nigeria is often referred to as the Giant of Africa, owing to its large population, with approximately 184 million inhabitants, Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the seventh most populous country in the world. Nigeria has one of the largest populations of youth in the world, Nigeria is divided roughly in half between Christians, who live mostly in the southern part of the country, and Muslims in the northern part. A minority of the population practise religions indigenous to Nigeria, such as native to the Igbo. As of 2015, Nigeria is the worlds 20th largest economy, worth more than $500 billion and $1 trillion in terms of nominal GDP and it overtook South Africa to become Africas largest economy in 2014. The 2013 debt-to-GDP ratio was 11 percent, Nigeria is a member of the MINT group of countries, which are widely seen as the globes next BRIC-like economies. It is also listed among the Next Eleven economies set to become among the biggest in the world, Nigeria is a founding member of the African Union and a member of many other international organizations, including the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations and OPEC. The name Nigeria was taken from the Niger River running through the country and this name was coined in the late 19th century by British journalist Flora Shaw, who later married Lord Lugard, a British colonial administrator. The origin of the name Niger, which applied only to the middle reaches of the Niger River, is uncertain. The word is likely an alteration of the Tuareg name egerew n-igerewen used by inhabitants along the middle reaches of the river around Timbuktu prior to 19th-century European colonialism. The Nok civilisation of Northern Nigeria flourished between 500 BC and AD200, producing life-sized terracotta figures which are some of the earliest known sculptures in Sub-Saharan Africa, further north, the cities Kano and Katsina have a recorded history dating to around 999 AD. Hausa kingdoms and the Kanem-Bornu Empire prospered as trade posts between North and West Africa, the Kingdom of Nri of the Igbo people consolidated in the 10th century and continued until it lost its sovereignty to the British in 1911. Nri was ruled by the Eze Nri, and the city of Nri is considered to be the foundation of Igbo culture, Nri and Aguleri, where the Igbo creation myth originates, are in the territory of the Umeuri clan. Members of the clan trace their lineages back to the patriarchal king-figure Eri, in West Africa, the oldest bronzes made using the lost-wax process were from Igbo Ukwu, a city under Nri influence. The Yoruba kingdoms of Ife and Oyo in southwestern Nigeria became prominent in the 12th and 14th centuries, the oldest signs of human settlement at Ifes current site date back to the 9th century, and its material culture includes terracotta and bronze figures
8.
Postcolonialism
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Postcolonialism or postcolonial studies is an academic discipline that analyzes, explains, and responds to the cultural legacy of colonialism and imperialism. Postcolonialism speaks about the consequences of external control and economic exploitation of native people. As a genre of history, postcolonialism questions and reinvents the manner in which a culture is being viewed. Anthropologically, it records human nations between the colonists and the peoples under colonial rule, seeking to build an understanding of the nature and practice of colonial rule. It also examines the effects of rule on the cultural aspects of the colony and its treatment of women, language, literature. Postcolonialism is aimed at destabilizing these theories by means of which colonialists perceive, understand, Colonialism was presented as the extension of civilization, which ideologically justified the self-ascribed racial and cultural superiority of the Western world over the non-Western world. Especially in the colonisation of the Far East and in the late-nineteenth century Scramble for Africa, hence, Belgium and Britain, and France and Germany proffered theories of national superiority that justified colonialism as delivering the light of civilisation to unenlightened peoples. A decolonised people develops a postcolonial identity that is based on interactions between different identities which are assigned varying degrees of social power by the colonial society. e. Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania, in The Wretched of the Earth, the psychiatrist and philosopher Frantz Fanon analysed and medically described the nature of colonialism as essentially destructive. Its societal effects—the imposition of a subjugating colonial identity—are harmful to the health of the native peoples who were subjugated into colonies. Fanon wrote the ideological essence of colonialism is the denial of all attributes of humanity of the colonised people. Such dehumanization is achieved with physical and mental violence, by which the colonist means to inculcate a servile mentality upon the natives, for Fanon the natives must violently resist colonial subjugation. Hence, Fanon describes violent resistance to colonialism as a mentally cathartic practice, which purges colonial servility from the native psyche, thus he supported the Front de Libération Nationale in the Algerian War for independence from France. Michel Foucault argues that colonial discourses are where power and knowledge become intertwined and his work implies that power does not exist for punitive measures but rather, power provides a consistent gratification during its perpetual expression. Orientalism thus conflated and reduced the world into the homogeneous cultural entity known as the East. In Edward Said, The Exile as Interpreter, about Saïds Orientalism and that the applied power of such cultural knowledge allowed Europeans to rename, re-define, and thereby control Oriental peoples, places, and things, into imperial colonies. The power–knowledge binary relation is conceptually essential to identify and understand colonialism in general, with this described binary logic, the West generally constructs the Orient subconsciously as its alter ego. Therefore, descriptions of the Orient by the Occident lack material attributes and this inventive, or imaginative interpretation subscribes female characteristics to the Orient and plays into fantasies that are inherent within the Wests alter ego
9.
Barclays
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Barclays /ˈbɑːrkliz/ is a British multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in London. It is a bank with operations in retail, wholesale and investment banking, as well as wealth management, mortgage lending. It has operations in over 50 countries and territories and has around 48 million customers, Barclays is organised into four core businesses, Personal & Corporate, Barclaycard, Investment Banking and Africa. Barclays traces its origins to a banking business established in the City of London in 1690. James Barclay became a partner in the business in 1736, in 1896 several banks in London and the English provinces, including Backhouses Bank and Gurneys Bank, united as a joint-stock bank under the name Barclays and Co. Over the following decades Barclays expanded to become a nationwide bank, in 1967, Barclays deployed the worlds first cash dispenser. Barclays has a listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE100 Index. It has a listing on the New York Stock Exchange. According to a 2011 paper by Vitali et al, Barclays traces its origins back to 1690 when John Freame, a Quaker, and Thomas Gould started trading as goldsmith bankers in Lombard Street, London. The name Barclays became associated with the business in 1736, when James Barclay, in 1728 the bank moved to 54 Lombard Street, identified by the Sign of the Black Spread Eagle, which in subsequent years would become a core part of the banks visual identity. In 1896 several banks in London and the English provinces, notably Backhouses Bank of Darlington and Gurneys Bank of Norwich, united under the banner of Barclays, between 1905 and 1916 Barclays extended its branch network by making acquisitions of small English banks. In 1925 the Colonial Bank, National Bank of South Africa, in 1938 Barclays acquired the first Indian exchange bank, the Central Exchange Bank of India, which had opened in London in 1936 with the sponsorship of Central Bank of India. In May 1958, Barclays was the first UK bank to appoint a female bank manager, hilda Harding managed Barclays Hanover Square branch in London until her retirement in 1970. In 1965, Barclays established a US affiliate, Barclays Bank of California in San Francisco, Barclays launched the first credit card in the UK, Barclaycard, in 1966. On 27 June 1967, Barclays deployed the worlds first cash machine, the British actor Reg Varney was the first person to use the machine. In 1969, a merger with Martins Bank and Lloyds Bank was blocked by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. Also that year, the British Linen Bank subsidiary was sold to the Bank of Scotland in exchange for a 25% stake, Barclays DCO changed its name to Barclays Bank International in 1971. In August 1975, following the secondary banking crash, Barclays acquired Mercantile Credit Company, in 1980, Barclays Bank International expanded its business to include commercial credit and took over American Credit Corporation, renaming it Barclays American Corporation
10.
Dutch Gold Coast
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The Dutch Gold Coast or Dutch Guinea, officially Dutch possessions on the Coast of Guinea was a portion of contemporary Ghana that was gradually colonized by the Dutch, beginning in 1598. On 6 April 1872, the Dutch Gold Coast was, in accordance with the Anglo-Dutch Treaties of 1870–71, the Portuguese were the first Europeans to arrive in contemporary Ghana. By 1471, they had reached the area that was to become known as the Gold Coast because it was an important source of gold. The Portuguese trading interests in gold, ivory and pepper so increased that in 1482 the Portuguese built their first permanent trading post on the western coast of present-day Ghana. This fortress, a castle called São Jorge da Mina, was constructed to protect Portuguese trade from European competitors. The Portuguese position on the Gold Coast, known as Portuguese Gold Coast, after Barent Eriksz successfully sailed to the Gold Coast in 1591, Dutch merchants began trading in the area. Pieter de Mareess publications greatly increased the interest of merchants in the region, Dutch traders then petitioned the States-General of the Dutch Republic to build a fort on the coast. The States-General were receptive of their demands, and sent Jacob Clantius, after the Twelve Yearss Truce ended in 1621, the Dutch West India Company was established, which tried to seize the Portuguese colonies in Africa and America as part of the Groot Desseyn plan. After failing in 1625, the managed to capture Elmina Castle from the Portuguese in 1637. Fort San Sebastian at Shama and Fort Santo Antonio at Axim followed in 1640 and 1642 respectively, the Dutch West India Company was given the monopoly on trade in the West Indies, including the Gold Coast, in 1621. Mismanagement meant that several disillusioned employees of the Dutch West India Company left the company to work for another European power. Hendrik Carloff, for example, was a former high-ranking officer in the company, whereas Swedish presence on the Gold Coast turned out to be only temporary, British and Danish settlement in the area proved to be permanent. From 1694 until 1700, the Dutch West India Company fought the Komenda Wars with the British over trade rights with the Eguafo Kingdom, in addition, Brandenburgers also had forts in the area from 1682 onwards, until they were bought out by the Dutch in 1717. The Portuguese had completely left the area, but still the Gold Coast had the highest concentration of European military architecture outside of Europe, the European powers were sometimes drawn into conflicts with local inhabitants as Europeans developed commercial alliances with local political authorities. Another way conflicts with the inhabitants was avoided was through marriage. European men often created alliances with the local African people through a known as cassare or calisare. Casar is derived from the Portuguese, which means to marry, Dutch men and other Europeans would marry African woman whose familys had ties to the Atlantic slave trade. In this way, both Africans and Europeans benefited from other and allowed for peaceful trading partnerships
11.
Scramble for Africa
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The Scramble for Africa was the invasion, occupation, division, colonization and annexation of African territory by European powers during the period of New Imperialism, between 1881 and 1914. It is also called the Partition of Africa and the Conquest of Africa, in 1870, only 10 percent of Africa was under European control, by 1914 it had increased to 90 percent of the continent, with only Ethiopia, the Dervish state and Liberia still being independent. The Berlin Conference of 1884, which regulated European colonization and trade in Africa, is referred to as the starting point of the scramble for Africa. The latter years of the 19th century saw the transition from informal imperialism, by influence and economic dominance, to direct rule. But Europeans showed comparatively little interest in the interior for some two centuries thereafter, European exploration of the African interior began in earnest at the end of the 18th century. By 1835, Europeans had mapped most of northwestern Africa, in the middle decades of the 19th century, famous European explorers included David Livingstone and H. M. Stanley, each of whom mapped vast areas of Southern Africa and Central Africa. Arduous expeditions in the 1850s and 1860s by Richard Burton, John Speke and James Grant located the central lakes. By the end of the 19th century Europeans had charted the Nile from its source, traced the courses of the Niger, Congo and Zambezi Rivers, and realized the vast resources of Africa. Even as late as the 1870s, European states still controlled only ten percent of the African continent, the most important holdings were Angola and Mozambique, held by Portugal, the Cape Colony, held by the United Kingdom, and Algeria, held by France. By 1914, only Ethiopia and Liberia remained independent of European control, technological advances facilitated European expansion overseas. Industrialisation brought about rapid advancements in transportation and communication, especially in the forms of navigation, railways. Medical advances also played an important role, especially medicines for tropical diseases, the development of quinine, an effective treatment for malaria, made vast expanses of the tropics more accessible for Europeans. Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the last regions of the largely untouched by informal imperialism, was also attractive to Europes ruling elites for economic. In addition, surplus capital was more profitably invested overseas, where cheap materials, limited competition. Additionally, Britain wanted the southern and eastern coasts of Africa for stopover ports on the route to Asia and its empire in India. However, in Africa – excluding the area became the Union of South Africa in 1910 – the amount of capital investment by Europeans was relatively small. Consequently, the involved in tropical African commerce were relatively small. Rhodes had carved out Rhodesia for himself, Léopold II of Belgium later, John A. Hobson argued in Imperialism that this shrinking of continental markets was a key factor of the global New Imperialism period
12.
Ghana
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Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a unitary presidential constitutional democracy, located along the Gulf of Guinea and Atlantic Ocean, in the subregion of West Africa. Spanning a land mass of 238,535 km², Ghana is bordered by the Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, Togo in the east, Ghana means Warrior King in the Soninke language. The territory of present-day Ghana has been inhabited for a millennium, numerous kingdoms and empires emerged over the centuries, of which the most powerful was the Kingdom of Ashanti. Beginning in the 15th century, numerous European powers contested the area for trading rights, following over a century of native resistance, Ghanas current borders were established by the 1900s as the British Gold Coast. On 6 March 1957, it became the first sub-Saharan African nation to become independent of European colonisation, a multicultural nation, Ghana has a population of approximately 27 million, spanning a variety of ethnic, linguistic and religious groups. Five percent of the population practices traditional faiths,71. 2% adhere to Christianity and 17. 6% are Muslim and its diverse geography and ecology ranges from coastal savannahs to tropical jungles. Ghana is a country led by a president who is both head of state and head of the government. Ghanas economy is one of the strongest and most diversified in Africa, following a century of relative stability. Ghanas growing economic prosperity and democratic political system have made it a power in West Africa. It is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States, Group of 24, Ghana was already recognized as one of the great kingdoms in Bilad el-Sudan by the ninth century. Ghana was inhabited in the Middle Ages and the Age of Discovery by a number of ancient predominantly Akan kingdoms in the Southern and this included the Ashanti Empire, the Akwamu, the Bonoman, the Denkyira, and the Mankessim Kingdom. Until the 11th century, the majority of modern Ghanas territorial area was unoccupied and uninhabited by humans. Although the area of present-day Ghana in West Africa has experienced many population movements, by the early 11th century, the Akans were firmly established in the Akan state called Bonoman, for which the Brong-Ahafo Region is named. From the 13th century, Akans emerged from what is believed to have been the Bonoman area, to create several Akan states of Ghana and these states included Bonoman, Ashanti, Denkyira, Mankessim Kingdom, and Akwamu Eastern region. By the 19th century, the territory of the part of Ghana was included in the Kingdom of Ashanti. The Kingdom of Ashanti government operated first as a loose network, prior to Akan contact with Europeans, the Akan Ashanti people created an advanced economy based on principally gold and gold bar commodities then traded with the states of Africa. The earliest known kingdoms to emerge in modern Ghana were the Mole-Dagbani states, the Mole-Dagombas came on horseback from present-day Burkina Faso under a single leader, Naa Gbewaa. The death of Naa Gbewaa caused civil war among his children, some of whom broke off and founded separate states including Dagbon, Mamprugu, Mossi, Nanumba, Akan trade with European states began after contact with Portuguese in the 15th century
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