A Basic History of Africa…
The countries in Africa are very young and new. The people who have always lived there are called Africans; we live in Europe and are called Europeans. The story of Africa is all to do with Africans and Europeans (who actually acted quite badly towards the African people).
Africa until the 1870s
…there had always been a lot tribes and groups of people living fairly well together. They lived simple lives and did not have any technology or machinery. There weren’t many white faces in Africa at the time except on the coasts where there were some ports and trading posts where European traders would visit to buy materials like gold and cotton from African traders. There were some powerful tribes and kingdoms but no-one really mixed with Europeans except for occasional trade. However there was a British colony (settlement) in South Africa, right at the bottom of the continent. European maps showed an outline of Africa and the only details and names of places were around the edge where Europeans visited for trade. The inland areas were just big blank spaces.
After 1870
At this time, lots of explorers and traders decided that there were lots of things in Africa which they wanted. They saw that they could make a lot of money going to Africa and buying or just taking these goods. This period is called “The Scramble for Africa” because Europeans went to Africa and literally started to ‘grab’ big areas of land and announcing they were now to be ruled by their country. These explorers had money, power, maps and most importantly modern weapons. They could take the land they wanted either by doing a deal with the local people or by bullying them. Sometimes they just killed the local people and took over. The countries that did this were Britain, Germany, France, Portugal, Italy and Belgium. Africa was now an important place for Europe to control because they realised they could get popular materials like gold, cotton, ivory, peanuts, palm oil and, maybe worst of all, slaves to work in America.
Battle of Isandlwana, 22nd January 1879, many British soldiers were killed in a war with the Zulu tribe
The weird thing was that the new maps of Africa were created in European cities where the leaders met up and decided who would own which part of Africa –the people of Africa didn’t have any voice or any choice! That is why, on a map of Africa, the lines are so straight – it’s because the leaders and map makers used the lines of longitude and latitude to create the borders of the new countries. These were often very straight lines for hundreds of miles. Often these lines cut right through the middle of old African tribal areas and settlements. This meant that old happy groups and lands were split up or sometimes old groups that did not get on became part of the same country. Within 15 years, 30 new colonies (countries) were created. After a number of years this led to arguments and wars. Over the years, millions of Africans have died in wars and battles and this carried on even today (although it is a lot better and more peaceful now). In October 2008 – there was an uprising (or battle) between tribes who want different things in Congo, a country in Africa. Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children were driven from their homes by violence and fear of death and starvation because one of the groups said they would not let the people have any food or water unless they went away to other lands.
After World War 1 – 1918
Because Germany was beaten in the first world war, the other European countries decided to take over the countries that they ‘owned’ and split them up between all the other European countries.
Change
In the early and middle of the 20th century, Europeans realised that, actually they were not making as much money as they had hoped from Africa – they had made lots more money from taking over in Asia and the Far East. One of the reasons was that the Europeans did not spend much money in Africa on building good roads, railways and systems for water, sewage and power. After the Second World War in the late 1950s and 60s, most of the European countries decided that they would ‘pull out’ of their African countries and hand power over to the Africans. We call this period ‘Independence’ because the African countries became independent and started to rule themselves.
This should have been an exciting time but it was very hard. They faced three main problems:
1. They weren’t ready to grow as their own countries and did not have the skills, experience and expertise (In one country, Burundi, there were only two people who had been to university when the country became independent!) There were no big organisations to organise the country and very poor roads, and railways.
2. The countries were becoming independent but they didn’t really have anything holding them together. Europeans had decided where their borders would be but this didn’t mean much to the African people who had always lived there. There was nothing making it ‘special’ to be part of that party. In Wales, we have a very strong cultural identity, we are very proud of our country and we protect our customs and traditions. In the African countries, they did not feel this way. Traditional groups and tribes were split up or old warring tribes and groups were now grouped together. There was not much harmony or agreement.
3. The new leaders took over the buildings and houses that the old European leaders used (and they really enjoyed their new luxurious lives) but the rest of the people in the country were very very poor. Their lives were different to most people and they did not want to give up these luxuries. They often did not fully understand the problems or do what had to be done to put them right.
The 1980s
The countries did their best for around 20 years and made some progress but by the 80s (when Mr King was a teenager) things changed quite a bit and real problems started. The African people had tried to work together to build their countries but now there were quite a lot more wars and arguments. Sometimes one group thought they could do a better job of running the country so they started a ‘coup’ (an armed take over). Sometimes there were dictatorships (where a country is ruled by a leader who doesn’t rule fairly and who used fear to control people). Another problem was corruption. This means that people in power steal money and food for themselves rather than using it to make the country better. War, corruption and dictatorships often led to famine (people starving because there was not enough food) and disease (because of no enough food and dirty water). In turn, this led to millions of people dying, often from diseases which could easily be cured if the people had the right medicine. The 80s were a very difficult times from many African countries with many droughts (no rain, not enough water) and famines.
This is Birhan Woldu. In 1985 she was the face of famine and starvation in Ethiopia. Experts said that she was 10 minutes from dying. In 2005, she was the star of Live 8, a concert to raise awareness orf the poverty that is still very common across many parts of Africa.
The 1990s
Things got worse again in the 90s as new disease started to be spread. One of the main diseases which was deadly and which spread quickly between people was called HIV which leads to the disease called AIDS. This disease cannot be cured and eventually leads to death. The two main problems with these and other disease in Africa are:
People cannot afford to buy the drugs and medicines to make them better (or less ill) from these diseases. Sometimes there aren’t even any of the drugs in the whole country. There aren’t lots of doctors and hospitals in many African countries and it is hard to get these drugs to distant doctors’ surgeries because there are not enough roads.
Secondly people do not understand about the disease and how to avoid catching them and stay safe. More people die in Africa from Malaria because they don’t know about the disease which is spread by mosquitoes. There are lots of medicines which can stop people catching malaria but the people either can afford them or don’t know they exist! Part of this problem is because most African countries don’t have many schools and so they just don’t learn!