African History (European Partitioning)

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European Partitioning

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Word Cloud

What do you remember about your study of the Triangle Trade?

Multiple Choice

Why were the Europeans first interested in colonizing Africa?

• Abundant natural resources and potential for new markets and trade routes
• To escape political turmoil and seek new land for settlement
• To establish religious missions and convert the local population
• To spread democracy and freedom

Multiple Choice

Lasted from the 1500's until the middle of the 1800's 12-15 million Africans were captured and sent on overcrowded ships across the Atlantic.

• Transatlantic slave trade
• Pacific slave trade
• Arctic slave trade
• Indian Ocean slave trade

•

Europeans first became interested in Africa for
trade route purposes.

•

They were looking for ways to avoid the taxes of
the Arab and Ottoman empires in Southwest Asia.

•

Sailing around Africa was a long voyage and could
not be completed without “pit stops” along the
way.

•

Europeans created ports in southern and eastern
Africa so traders could restock supplies before
heading home.

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Multiple Choice

What was one of the main trades that started from European involvement in Africa?

• Slave trade
• Tea trade
• Silk trade
• Spice trade

• During the 16thcentury, Portuguese

explorers became engaged in the African
slave trade.

• They kidnapped Africans and forced them

to work on plantations and mines in their
colonies in the New World.

• Other European countries soon participated

in the slave trade as well.

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• The trans-Atlantic slave trade lasted from

the 1500s to the mid-1800s.

• Even after the slave trade had ended,

European interest in Africa was still going
strong.

• European countries saw that Africa was a

continent full of vast natural resources
and mineral wealth.

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Multiple Choice

What is Imperialism?

• When one strong country fights another strong country

• When a weak country fights a strong country

• When a strong country takes wealth and resources from a weak country

• When a strong country helps a weak country with its economy

•

The end of the 19th century is called the “Age
of Imperialism” because that is when
European countries competed for land and
power throughout Asia and Africa.

•

Imperialism is a system were a strong
country takes wealth and raw materials from
another country.

•

A “strong” country was supposed to have
many colonies to increase its wealth and
importance around the world.

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Age of Imperialism

Multiple Select

What resources did the European countries want from Africa?

• Rubber

• Diamonds

• Timber

• Gold

• During this time, many European countries

expanded their empires by aggressively
establishing colonies in Africa.

• They wanted to exploit and export

Africa’s resources (rubber, timber,
diamonds, gold, etc.).

• Europeans also wanted to protect their

trade routes.

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Multiple Choice

What event caused the Europeans to want Africa's resources?

• French Revolution
• Renaissance
• Industrial Revolution
• Age of Exploration

• Economic motivation played a large part in

the colonization of Africa.

• The 19thcentury was a time of great

industrialization in Europe (Industrial
Revolution).

• Factories required raw materials that

could be manufactured into marketable
products.

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• When Europeans returned to Africa for

more resources, they brought back the
manufactured goods and sold them to
Africans.

• Africa became a new market for Europe

to sell goods.

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Multiple Choice

What religion sent many missionaries into Africa during the 1800s

• Buddhism
• Christianity
• Judaism
• Islam

• Christian missionary work gained strength

during the 1800s as European countries
were becoming more involved in Africa.

• The idea of “Christianizing” Africa also

made many Europeans look favorably on
the colonization of the continent.

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Multiple Choice

What was the main political reason for colonization in Africa?

• Nationalism

• Industry

• Wars

• Famine

•

Politics in Europe also led to the colonization of
Africa.

•

Nationalism, a strong sense of pride in one's
nation, resulted in competition between European
nations.

•

No major nation wanted to be without colonies,
which led to this “Scramble for Africa”.

•

The competition was particularly fierce between
Great Britain, France, and Germany, the strongest
European nations in the 1800s.

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• Look at the picture. Let’s do a "see, think, wonder". 

• Take 1 minute to look at the picture

• 2 minutes to talk to your shoulder partner

• 2 minutes to talk with your group. 

• We will share one idea from each group.

​

What do they mean "Scramble for Africa"? What did Europe need from Africa?

Multiple Choice

What is partitioning?

• Deleting a dataset entirely
• Combining multiple datasets into one
• Dividing a large dataset into smaller parts
• Sorting a dataset in alphabetical order

• Please have one person from your table read the questions to your group. 

• As we watch the video think about the questions. 

• Scramble for Africa Video clip

​Scramble for Africa

Multiple Choice

Where did the European countries meet to discuss who controlled what land in Africa?

• Rome, Italy
• London, England
• Paris, Rome

• Berlin, Germany, France

Multiple Choice

How much of Africa was controlled by European countries before the Berlin conference?

• About 50%
• About 75%
• About 25%
• About 10%

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• ​In order to avoid armed conflict with each other, leaders of several European countries met at the Berlin Conference in 1885.

• At the conference, rules were created to determine how European countries could claim African land.

• They agreed to carve up Africa into vast empires, ignoring the rights of the African people already living in these areas.

• By 1900, most of Africa had been colonized by the Europeans.  Only Liberia and the Empire of Ethiopia remained independent.

• By the 1880s, Great Britain, France, Germany,

Belgium, Spain, and Portugal all wanted part of
Africa.

• To prevent a European war over Africa, leaders

from fourteen European governments and from
the United States met in Berlin, Germany, in
1884.
•

No Africans attended the meeting.

• At the meeting, the European leaders discussed

Africa’s land and how it should be divided.

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Berlin Conference

•

Going into the meeting, roughly 10% of Africa was
under European colonial rule.

•

By the end of the meeting, European powers
“owned” most of Africa and drew boundary lines
that remained until 1914.

•

Great Britain won the most land in Africa and was
“given” Nigeria, Egypt, Sudan, Kenya, and South
Africa after defeating the Dutch Settlers and
Zulu Nation.

•

The agreements made in Berlin still affect the
boundaries of African countries today.

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Political Boundaries after the Berlin Conference

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Multiple Choice

Borders created by people without considering religion and ethnicity is considered what?

• Artificial political borders

• Geographical borders

• Cultural borders

• Economic borders

Multiple Choice

Why did the European countries draw the boundaries in the way they did?

• Resouces

• Workforces

• Cultural and Ethnic Groups

• Population density

• European powers organized Africa’s population in

ways to make the most efficient workforce, ignoring
the natives’ cultural groups or existing political
leadership.

• Sometimes they grouped together people who had

never been united before.

• Sometimes they divided existing groups of people.

• The creation of these borders had a negative impact

on Africa’s political and social structures by either
dividing groups that wanted to be together or
combining ethnic groups that were enemies.

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Multiple Choice

How did the Europeans try to assimilate the African population?

• Give them European money.

• By providing equal rights and opportunities
• By encouraging independence and self-governance
• Have them give up their customs and traditions.

•

Europeans placed colonies into
administrative districts and forced the
Africans to go along with their demands.

•

Europeans also tried to assimilate Africans
by forcing them to give up their own
African customs and adopt European ones.

•

Protests and revolts were common and
starvation and disease became widespread.

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• Europeans took the best land by force.

• African farmers were forced to grow cash

crops like cocoa and coffee, causing there
to be a shortage of food in many areas of
Africa.

• Africans were forced to work under

terrible conditions on plantations, railways,
and logging.

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• In order to gain power, Europeans encouraged

Africans to fight against each other.

• New political boundaries caused ethnic groups to

clash.

• This has led to ethnic and political unrest in

Africa today.

• There have been over 50 ethnic conflicts in

Africa since WWII as a result of the colonial
lines drawn by Europeans.

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Multiple Choice

Why did the movement for independence form Europe begin?

• They wanted their own country

• Colonization only benefited the European countries.

• They were tired of wearing those weird wigs

• They didnt need the European help.

• By the mid-twentieth century, Africans began to

openly oppose European control of their
countries.

• It was obvious that colonialism was not fair, as it

only benefitted the Europeans.

• Africans were tired of being treated like second-

class citizens on their own land.

• They soon begin to demand freedom for

themselves and the desire for independence
spread across Africa.

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Multiple Choice

How long did the tribal unrest and conflicts in Africa last??

• 1960's

• 1980's

• 2000's

• 1970's

• After World War I, many African

countries began to gain independence;
however, they were not prepared for
self-rule.

• Tribal conflicts began to erupt and civil

wars started over the artificially drawn
European boundaries.

• Post-colonization conflicts continued until

almost 2000.

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Poll

Did I teach you something today?

• Yes

• No

• Maybe

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