Lecture 20: The Scramble for Africa 1 - Colonial Wars 1415-1902

in 1415, under the Portuguese prince, henry, the Portuguese captured

ceuta on the coast of north africa

ceuta

a. protected port

b. a foothold in africa, its trade

c. a base to control north africa piracy (a problem into the 19th c)

when it comes to african trade, what the rich wanted was

luxury good like spices

goodies from africa

a. gold

b. ivory

c. slaves

d. spices

we have a 14th c account of the trans saharan trade by ibn battuta - he gives us a picture of the difficulties

a. 1000 miles one way trip

b. 3 months one way

c. heat

d. cold

e. sand storms

f. raiders

and there are goodies from the east

1. spices

2. silk

a problem (besides the ones we’ve seen):

middle men who raise the prices

how do you avoid the middlemen?

the Portuguese had the idea of sailing around them and maybe going farther east

after years of sailing expeditions, in 1498,

vasco de gama reached india

the portuguese then developed a trading empire all the way to

japan

Portuguese helped by technology

a. astrolabe - tells you where you are

b. magnetic compos - tells where you are going

c. shipboard artillery

d. Portuguese created a new hybrid ship — the caravel

meanwhile spain, looking on , wants to profit like

Portugal

a difficulty, from, 711 AD, most of spain controlled by north africans (moores) —

only gradually did the christian spanish retake spain (reconquista)

by 1492

all of spain in the hands of ferdinand and isabella

f + i profited from

a. seizing the moores possessions

b. during out jewish populations and seizing their possessions

in 1492

christoforo colombo arrived in spanish court, asking for backing for a voyage westward

colombos trip

no easy passage to the far east but land in between might be useful

the spanish colonized some of the islands colombo had discovered and in 1519,

a spanish adventurer, cortez, took an expedition to the main land - mexico

the spanish found the

aztec empire w lots of unhappy allies

the spanish will conquer them w

a. superior technology

b. those unhappy allies

having conquered mexico, spanish went on to conquer central america and

down into most of south america

this made the spanish incredibly rich and make other european powers

look to the west as well

the french explored eastern canada in the 1530s

no gold or silver but for a while, beaver

but beaver will be replaved by silk in the 19c and

france will lose canada in 1763

france out of colonial business til

post waterloo (1815)

england gets involved in the new world in the 1580s,

but successful colony: jamestown (1607)

english will lose their american colonies in 1783 and

will focus upon india

one last country - the neatherlands- was

fighting an 80 years war against the spanish, the dutch

they still traded, explored, colonized

among other places colonized

a. new york

b. northern NJ

c. southern tip of africa