Ibn Battuta has idiosyncrasies, prejudices, and arrogance. He is also a man of curiosity, and conviction. It is because Ibn Battuta represents or comes across so much like ourselves that it is easy to dive more deeply into his writing and stories and see things through his eyes. What the reader can see is a picture of African civilization before European influence. Battuta’s stories
Cinthya Perez History 102 “Letters to King Jao of Portugal,” was written by the king of Kongo, King Affonso, who’s real name was Nzinga Mbemba. King Affonso writes this letter directed to the king of Portugal, King Jao, to inform him about his concerns of his people. The letter is dated 1526 and takes place in the Kingdom of Kongo, which by during this time slave trade is going on (705). Throughout the letter of King Affonso seems to beg King Jao for help rather than being demanding, “again we beg of your Highness to agree with it”(707), remarks King Affonso.
1. There are different experiences of the slave trade that are reflected in these documents such as those of an enslaved person (Olaudah Equiano), a European slave trader (Thomas Phillips – an English merchant), an African monarch (King Jao) whose kingdom and personal authority suffered from the slave trade, and an
5680629 November 20, 2014 Essay Assignment ICSO210 Aj.James Warren Vasco da Gama: Round Africa to India, 1497-1498 CE This essay is analysis essay to the excerpt from a journal “The Journal of the first voyage of Vasco da Gama” written by an anonymous during the early modern period, translated and edited by E. G. Ravenstein and published by the Hakluyt Society in 1989. The article is primary source of travel journal by sea of Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese navigator, from Africa to India in 1497-1498, the era of European commercial and imperial expansion. The article written by anonymous who was an eyewitness that participated in the voyage of Vasco da Gama to seeks new sea route from Portugues to India.This essay will summarize and analyze
The first chapter in Boahen’s book is titled “Eve of Colonial Conquest” and this section gives the readers a background of the colonialism in Africa through a look at the fundamental economic, political, and social changes that occurred just a few decades before colonialism took root. Boahen states that the trade of “natural products” is the most significant economic change in Africa by 1880. Just before the trading of “natural products” slave trades were abolished.
“Compare and contrast the early colonial empires of Portugal, Spain, and England in terms of motives, economic foundations, and relations with Africans and Native Americans. What factors explain the similarities and differences in the two ventures?” Darwin proclaimed that when push comes to shove, only the robust characters would survive. Outfitted
In letters written by the Manikongo, Nzinga Mbemba Afonso, to the King João III of Portugal, he talks about that the resources coming in through the merchants is what is making the trading successful. He requests the King only send missionaries and not send anymore merchandise.The letter reveals the anger and frustration between the African residents and the merchants. The African residents did not feel like they were being treated right and that they could have been treated a lot fairer then they were at the moment. This problem at the time was the beginning of racism between Europeans and African people. The Europeans felt they were superior to the Africans and thought they could treat them in a bad way because of that. Countries would try
17. What kinds of changes were transforming the societies of the West African Igbo and the North American Iroquois as the fifteenth century unfolded?
Another of Jordan’s sub topics in this book deals with the Savage behavior exhibited by Africans and viewed among the English explorers. The English were at sometimes appalled with the differences in morals, table manners, and most visible
"Clearly, turmoil, victimization, and disappointment are themes that have pervaded Angola's history, especially since the arrival of the Europeans in the fifteenth century" (Collelo xxi). "In 1576, in effective control of the countryside and facing no organized Kongo opposition, the Portuguese founded the town of Luanda, in effect establishing the colony of Angola" (Bender 24). After the Portuguese began reaching the interior, they soon appointed royal governors who tried to impose their ideas and beliefs upon the people (Halladay 82). Many African leaders resisted this foreign rule and the Europeans only managed to "establish insecure footholds along the coast" (Collelo 9).
This essay deals with the nature of a cross cultural encounter between the Benin people and Portuguese traders in the 15th and 16th centuries, which resulted in the depiction of Portuguese figures in Benin brass plaques. It will propose that this contact between people with different cultures was on the basis of 'mutual regard' (Woods, K. 2008, p. 16), and although the Portuguese had qualms about idolatry in Benin it will show that assumptions by Europeans up to the 20th century of the primitive nature of tribal African societies was inaccurate with regard to the Benin people, who had a society based on the succession of the King or 'Oba', a Royal Family and Nobility. The essay will finally suggest that Benin’s increase in wealth following
Assess the Impact of European commercial activities in the Atlantic Islands and West Africa from 1415 to 1600.
Throughout history, a common theme that can be seen is the stronger, acquisitive society preying on the weaker society for their own gain of land, people, materials, and more. The Atlantic Slave Trade had a profound effect on the way states were constructed and transformed in West Africa. Some societies became very powerful, militarized centralized societies, like Dahomey and Kongo, and others were decentralized societies, like Balanta and Igbo. Many scholars argue that the centralized societies targeted these decentralized societies and kidnapped people for the slave trade or for their own lineages, but this issue of strong and controlled preying on weak and dispersed is not as “black or white” as it may seem.
The ‘scramble for Africa’ was a phenomenon in the world between the years 1880-1914. The ‘dark continent’ was relatively untouched by Europeans up until this point, with few ports of control on the coasts in the west, which were remnants of the slave trade, and in the south, Britain held the Cape, taken from the Dutch during the French Revolutionary Wars. So, during a period of 30 years, it came to pass that almost the whole of Africa was taken by Europeans. (Except Liberia a colony for freed American slaves, and Abyssinia managed to hold out against Italian aggression). It will be my objective in this essay to analyse the economic factors which resulted in the almost complete colonisation and takeover of Africa, and also to determine to
The Kongo Empire was part of an extensive trade network that connected much of Africa to other regions. These trade routes brought wealth to not only the kingdom but also the attention of European traders, specifically the attention of the Portuguese. Due to European influence, specifically that of the Portuguese, the Kongo empire fell during the reign of Nzinga Mbemba in 1665. Through depopulation due to the dramatic increase in the slave trade, the changes in religious influence and eventual colonialism, the Kongo dissolved into Portuguese territories.