Final Final Question -- Best Wishes!

The final exam question, due in TurnItIn.com by Wednesday, 12/13, 1:30 pm is

What impact has European colonialism had on Africa and African societies up to the present? Please focus on African agency in your response. The strongest answers will include illustrations from the three non-textbook sources: Things Fall Apart for West Africa, The River Between for East Africa, and Kaffir Boy for South Africa. You may submit your answer in outline or essay form.  

For inspiration, I strongly encourage you to read the recent New York Times Book Review article by Ngugi wa Thiong’o, the author of The River Between. 

And if you have an aching unsatisfied feeling after watching the movie, take a look at the photos in the collection titled, "The Real Rebels of Timbuktu."

Final Exam Questions

This is the last week to blog (due before midnight on Wednesday), and it's time to decide our final exam questions. We've been working on the idea of having one question on the movie, Timbuktu, and the other on African agency in the colonial period, but we should also consider questions that were on the previous years' final exams:

1. Compare and contrast the role of Christianity in Things Fall Apart and The River Between or compare and contrast the role of education in The River Between and Khaffir Boy.
2. Since independence, what have been the greatest challenges for African countries?
3. List and describe the most significant or surprising thing you have learned about Africa's history in each of the following categories: (a) precolonial, (b) colonial, and (c) post-independence.
4. How did European colonialism change Africa and African societies? (see especially 11/3 blog post)

Would you choose two of these for our exam or something else? Please comment below.

In the Time of AIDS

We will finish our textbook readings this week and spend Monday and Wednesday watching the movie Timbuktu. It is imperative that everyone arrive to class on-time.

For Friday, please read AFRICANS, Chapter 13, and prepare answers to the following questions:

Structural Adjustment

• In the 1980s, what did the IMF (define IMF) require of African countries wanting loans? 
• What is "democratic demand inflation"?
• What was the price of success in Ghana and Uganda?
• Where were the IMF's reforms least important, and where were they most damaging?
• What were the consequences for Zimbabwe?
• In 1997, the IMF switched strategies to what?

State Contraction and Cultural Change

• What happened to the education system?
• What happened to healthcare?
• What was the new focus of migration?
• What were the effects of unemployment? Informal occupations?
• What happened to the status of women?
• What created ethnic/social solidarities?
• Anything interesting going on with religion?
• What are millenarian beliefs? Radical dualism?
• What was "the most common urban disturbance"?
• Describe the phenomenon of youth cultures.
• What is an NGO?

Political Change

• What was the political situation in 1989, and what was it five years later?
• What brought about the change?
• What influence did social groups and the military play?
• What effect did the end of the Cold War have?
• How was democratization viewed by urban and rural communities?
• Why did some analysts in 1997 think that democratization had failed? Were they right?
• What is the difference between presidential and parliamentary forms of democracy?
• Where did Islamic fundamentalism originate?
• What made some guerrilla movements destructive and others less so?
• What led to the Rwanda genocide? (start with first full paragraph on p. 307)

Fertility Decline

• What was the main reason for a decline in fertility?

The AIDS Epidemic

• When and where did AIDS originate?
• FYI antenatal = prenatal
• Why did HIV spread less quickly into West Africa?
• Why were African governments slow to respond to the crisis?
• What were the two sources of hope after the mid-90s?

Industrialization and Race

There will be no class meeting tomorrow (Friday, 11/17). Please read Kaffir Boy and the following chapters for next week.

Reading Questions for AFRICANS, Chapter 12:

• How did the Witwatersrand goldfield differ from the Kimberly diamond mines? 
• Why were African miners wages so low?
• How did rural economies and families adapt?
• What were "distinctive features" of South African industrialization?
• Following the Anglo-Boer War (if you don't remember what that is, look it up here), what did the British do to try to retain their supremacy over the Afrikaner South African Republic?
• What was the Group Areas Act of 1950, and what made the government so powerful then?
• Why was mass non-violent nationalism like Gandhi's not successful in South Africa?
• What was the Soweto Uprising of 1976, and why was it important?
• What was the significance of the township revolt of 1984? What were important international developments?
• At the end of the chapter, the author says that there was a deeper reality than confrontation between the races. What was it?

Reading Questions for SHORT, Chapter 7:

• What happened to the field of African history as "Africa entered a period of prolonged economic downturn and political turmoil"? 
• What is it about Africa that makes it seem like the continent is "locked in Permanent crisis"?
• Who is Waa Kamisoko, and how has he adapted his traditional role to modern circumstances? What was most controversial?
• What is the deal with the historical narratives of the Ndebele people? Heroes Day?
• What was the "first major reorientation in the field" of African history in the 1970s?
• What was the legacy of Marxist anthropology?
• Why is witchcraft now a focus of historians?
• What is your reaction to the photograph by the artist Samuel Fosso (figure 29) or the one above?
• Who is Mobutu Sese Seko? check the wiki page
• Who creates the dominant political narrative, and where can alternatives be found?
• What was the mission of African historians after the colonial period?
• What debates arose among historians and where did they mainly play out?
• Explain the issue of the relationship between history and heritage?
• How is the question relevant to the history of the slave trade and of South Africa?

Independent Africa

If you have not yet submitted your annotated bibliography, please have it into TurnItIn.com before Monday, 11/6. Instructions will be found on the Campus Portal page for our class.The research paper assignment can also be found there.

Reading Questions for SHORT, Chapter 6:

• What caused the collapse of colonialism after WW II? 
• Which parts of Africa were independent in 1945, in the mid-50s, in the mid-60s?
• What is the debate over the dynamics of decolonization?
• What does the book mean by the "second colonial occupation," and what was its impact?
• What were the "crucibles of change"?
• How did France handle its colonies and colonial subjects after WW II?
• Describe most African politicians of the time and their main challenges.
• What was the South African model and whom did it appeal to?
• What is significant about Algeria's independence?
• What effects did nationalism and anti-colonialism have on the field of African history in the 1950s and 1960s?
• Was the new history useful to African politicians?
• What approaches to African history were more prominent in the French-speaking world?
• How did Congo become "Africa's first Cold War battlefield"?
• What were the goals of most African leaders in the 1960s?
• What happened in the 1970's?

Check out this movie trailer.

Reading Questions for AFRICANS, Chapter 11:

Rapid population growth 

• In contrast to population growth between WW I and WW II, what was the main reason for population growth after 1940?
• Modern medicine and what else led to "the most sudden and rapid population growth the world is ever likely to see"?

Liberation

• What effect did the defeated Mau Mau insurrection have on Kenyan politics?
• Contrast the politics of Uganda and Tanganyika.
• Why was support for nationalism so strong in the poorer rural areas of colonies of white settlement?
• How did nationalism effect women? 
• How did young men profit from nationalism?

Economic development

• Before the 1970s, what three main directions had economic growth taken in Africa? 
• What was the most fundamental reason for economic crisis?
• What role did oil play? (Look at oil producing African countries, too.)
• What did most 1960s economists think was the best way to achieve development?
• What were some of the diverse economic strategies, and why did they all lead to similar crises during the 1980s?
• What replaced labor as the crucial scarce resource?
• Why did extensive drought lead to famine in some countries and not others?

Politics

• What were the three underlying political realities? What compounded the problems?
• What were the two patterns of civil war represented by Sudan and Chad on the one hand and Angola and Mozambique on the other?
• What "bred blatantly ethnic, clientelist, and corrupt politics"?
• Describe the system of ruling elites?
• What three institutions supported ruling elites?
• What did newly independent regimes do in order to dominate society?

Colonial Change 1918-1950

Please finish reading The River Between in addition to reading AFRICANS, Chapter 10. If you missed class, please watch the documentary, "Pokot - Children of the Nile," which nicely illustrates the world of The River Between (first posted by Brooklyn on her blog).

Reading Questions for AFRICANS, Chapter 10:

Economic Change

• What was the major consequence of Africa's colonial period? 
• What's a lorry, and what effects did it have?
• What trades grew and which ones collapsed?
• How did agriculture change in this period?
• What were the impediments to capitalism? (p. 224)
• What happened with European agriculture?
• Why did Africans become migrants, and what effects did migration have? (pp. 225ff)
• What were African expectations and realities of urban life?
• What were consequences of the Great Depression in Africa?

Education and Religion

• What was the draw of education? 
• What was the main distinction between Indian and African education outcomes?
• Why were young people attracted to Christianity?
• How did Christianity interact with indigenous practices and traditions?
• Why did independent churches come about?
• How did Islam contrast with Christianity in this period? (p. 236)
• How did indigenous religions adapt?
• What kinds of movements became a characteristic of the colonial period?

Political Change

• What transformed Africa's politics? 
• Were colonial powers interested in maintaining control or transferring it to Africans?
• What is the Muslim Brotherhood, and where and when was it founded?
• What led to terrorist violence in Tunisia and militant insurrection in Algeria?
• What was the fate of Italy's colonies after after WW II?
• Who is Haile Selassie? Why is he important in Jamaica? Look him up here.
• What were the two major political levels in Africa? Why?
• What/who fostered tribal identities and why?
• Given that "territorial boundaries and identities were colonial creations," what did Africans focus political action on instead?
• Why did WW II focus African politics towards nationalism, and what were the main challenges nationalists faced?
• What was the Mau Mau guerrilla war? Look it up here.
• Why was Britain afraid of Northern and Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland joining South Africa?

The Family

• How did some young men gain greater freedom, and how did the old respond?
• Did the status of women change? (check region by region)
• Overall was there more change or more continuity in family relationships in the 20th century?

Health and Demography

• What was the most important consequence of colonial occupation? 
• What reduced mortality in times of famine?
• What was the focus of European medicine?
• Who were colonial Africa's "chief reservoir of misery"? What was the source of the problem?
• Was increased birthrate or a declining deathrate the dominant mechanism in population growth?
• What reduced infant mortality?

Colonialism

Please read Things Fall Apart for Monday, SHORT for Wednesday, and AFRICANS for Friday. Anticipate a pop quiz this week. The Annotated Bibliography is due Friday. You can find the handout for the assignment on the Campus Portal. Please submit through TurnItIn.com.

Reading Questions for SHORT, Chapter 5:

• How was colonial rule in Africa different from colonial rule in Latin America?
• How has the study of the colonial period changed?
• What are the "key facts" about European conquest?
• Who resisted the Europeans? (see alsoAFRICANS,  p. 201)
• What/who facilitated the conquest?
• What's special about Ethiopia?
• What was the Maji Maji rebellion? (see also AFRICANS, p. 202)
• The "first successful human rights campaign of the 20th century" targeted what?
• What impact did WW I have?
• How did French and British approaches to controlling colonies differ?
• Why did some Africans embrace colonialism?
• How did Europeans run Africa "on the cheap"?
• What caused widespread social change? (p. 106)
• Define "ornamentalism."
• What explains, in part, the political authoritarianism of contemporary Africa?

Reading Questions for AFRICANS, Chapter 9: 

• How did Britain manipulate other European countries (p. 196) and interests (p. 197) in Africa?
• What brought about the Anglo-Boer War and what were its outcomes and costs?
• Who made up most colonial armies? (p. 199)
• What was more burdensome than taxes?
• Who were the most powerful Africans in colonial Africa? (pp. 205f)
• What did European governments handle and what did they leave to private enterprise? (p. 209)
• Which region experienced the most brutal exploitation and why?
• What effect did railroad building have?
• Why was famine such an issue during the early colonial period?

Nineteenth Century & Regional Diversity

Check out this map (it is particularly pertinent for this chapter).

Reading Questions for AFRICANS, Chapter 8:

• Northern Africa: What was the chief reason for demographic stagnation? 
• How did Muhammed Ali change Egypt? What did the British do about it? 
• What did a strong Egypt mean for the Sudan?
• What was notable about Ethiopia in this period?
• Why did the French invade Algeria? What were the initial effects of the conquest?
• How did attempts to modernize effect Tunisia and Morocco?
• The West African Savanna: This was a period of political fragmentation but huge growth in what?
• What was the most important event in nineteenth-century West Africa?
• Why was the Sokoto Caliphate able to endure?
• What made Hausaland the most prosperous region in tropical Africa?
• How did slavery there contrast with South African estate slavery?
• Southern Africa: Who created a large Zulu kingdom, and how did he do it? 
• In contrast, how did the Sotho-Tswana people overcome segmentation? How did they resist white aggression?
• How was the Lesotho kingdom created?
• Why did the Britain introduce 5000 British settlers into the Eastern Cape in 1820?
• What was the "Great Trek"? 
• What is "Cape liberalism"?
• How did the Africans view missionaries? What about the Zulu king?
• What may have aided growth in South Africa?
• How did the discovery of diamonds change the political situation?
• Eastern Africa: What role did the Oman play in East Africa and what effect did it have on Swahili culture? 
• What were the main imports and exports, and how were they transported?
• Why did Livingstone say that eastern Africa was the open sore of the world?
• What beneficial effects did long-distance trade have?
• What was most responsible for population decline?
• What was the context for the ensuing colonial rule of Africa?

Midterm Exam

Our midterm exam will be in class on Wednesday. It will be in two parts:

(1) Map test (you must pass this to pass the midterm exam)
(2) Create an outline of the history of women in pre-colonial Africa based on information found in the assigned readings (Textbooks, Sundiata, and Abina).

You may bring your completed outline to class on Wednesday, or create it during the class period (open books and notes).

Atlantic Slave Trade

Well, after some messaging of the syllabus, I think we are agreed to be behind one week for the rest of the term and vow to keep up with the readings going forward, yes?

Reading Questions for SHORT, Chapter 3:

•  What were the two battles that pioneers of African historical studies had to fight? (p. 49)
• What passed for African history before 1950 and what were its flaws? (p. 50)
• What were some early indigenous written records? (pp. 51f.)
• What role did the Bible play in increasing indigenous written records? (p. 53)
• How about colonial rule? Why? (p. 56)
• Define "oral tradition." (p. 57)
• What historical information can and cannot be gotten out of oral traditions? (pp. 58ff.)
• Name five other disciplines that historians have mined for the African past and explain their advantages and limitations. (pp. 60ff.)
• What are the three types of written records by outsiders are being reevaluated? (p. 67ff.)

For Monday's class, please read Abina and the Important Men. 
For Wednesday and Friday, please prepare answers to the following; questions.

Reading Questions, Part I (AFRICANS, Chapter 7):

• Slavery had existed in Africa as a response to what shortage? (p. 133)
• What kind of societies in Africa refused to participate in the slave trade and resisted slavery the most? (p. 133)
• Why did the Portuguese start trading in slaves? (p. 133)
• Why did the King of Kongo try to back out of the trade and what was the response? (p. 134)
• Why in 1519 did the Portuguese begin shipping slaves directly to the Americas? (p. 134)
• What sources are used to determine the numbers of slaves exported from Africa? (p. 135)
• Why did slave trading boom in the mid 17th century? (p. 135)
• What percentage of exported slaves went to the Caribbean? Brazil? North America? (p. 135)
• How could someone become a slave? (p. 136f.)
• What were slaves traded for? (pp. 138f.)
• What percentage of enslaved people died before they even started to work as slaves? (p. 139)
• How does one estimate the demographic impact of the slave trade on Africa? (pp. 141f.)
• What were the political consequences of the trade in Africa? (pp. 143ff.)
• Did the trade effect Western Africa's economic development? Why or why not? (p. 150)
• How did the trade influence religion and medicine? What is the Lemba society? (pp. 151f)
• What European nation abolished the trade, and what did they do to enforce the ban? (pp. 152f.)
• Was the transition to legitimate (non-slave) trade entirely beneficial? (pp. 154-158)
• Why did the Kongo Kingdom embrace Christianity? (pp. 158f)

Reading Questions, Part II (SHORT, Chapter 4):

• "How does the history of Africa fit into that of the rest of the world?"
• Describe two examples of how Islam and Christianity were integrated into local African cultures.
• What do the Atlantic slave trade and the Islamic slave trade have in common, and how do they differ?
• Would you agree that the Atlantic slave trade has been given too much prominence? (p. 81)
• What are two things make Baquaqua' narrative unusual/unique?
• Why should the idea of diaspora include Africa itself? (p. 85)
• What is notable about the Sokoto caliphate? (p. 88)
• What changed the balance of power in many regions? (p. 89)
• How do the four themes of this chapter illustrate the trick of "getting the balance right" between the agency of Africans and the impact of global forces (done/done to)?

Sundiata (and Colonizing Eastern & Southern Africa)

For Monday's class, please read Sundiata and be able to answer the following questions:

• What is the role and status of a griot?
• What if any significant role do women play in the story of Sundiata?
• Where and when do the events of the story take place?
• What roles do religion and magic play in the story?
• How connected or aware of a larger world is the storyteller?
• What is the family structure of the king of Mali?
• How does one kingdom interact with another? 
• What are external and internal threats to peace?
• Overview of social structure can be found in note 37.
• Can you outline the basic story?

For Wednesday's class, we will tackle the first part of Africans, Chapter 6 (pp. 100-126).

Reading Questions:

• What four central themes does the history of southern and eastern Africa share with western Africa?
• How does their history differ and why? (record, values, environment, interactions)
• What role does pastoralism play in the east and south? How does it affect settlement, society, and culture?
• fissiparation? (p. 103)
• What complex changes took place in what is now Zimbabwe? (p. 103f)
• Describe Great Zimbabwe. (pp. 104f. and 121f.)
• How did the kingdom of Munhumutapa interact with the Portuguese? (p. 105)
• Why were cattle less important in Central Africa?
• Describe Luba and the two major political systems it shaped.
• What could people do to keep their rulers in line?
• In the East African savanna, what were the Bantu up to, and where did the Maasai come from?
• What evidence is there for the region being stateless? (p. 109)
• How did cattle give their owners a demographic advantage? (pp. 109 and 118)
• In the Great Lakes region of East Africa states like Bunyoro and Buganda developed later. How did those states operate, and how did they reduce succession problems?
• How does the author say the distinction between Tutsi and Hutu may have evolved? (p. 111)
• What new crops were adopted in eastern and southern Africa, and where did they come from?
• "Human mobility was the essence of this empty world" -- list reasons people might move. (p. 114)
• What precautions were taken against the risk of famine, and what increased mortality in famine years? Who rarely suffered famine? (p. 116)
• What does the Zulu proverb, "the feud is in the testicle," mean? (p. 118)
• Did southern African women have a lower or higher status than western African women? Why? What about the women of Central Africa? (p. 119)
• Why did patriarchal, cattle-owning societies have severe generational tension, and how did they handle it? (p. 120)
• Was slavery more or less common in eastern and southern Africa than in West Africa? (p. 120)
• Why was trade more limited in southern and eastern African than in West Africa? (p. 122)
• How did San and Khoikhoi religion differ from Bantu religion? (pp. 124f.)

For Friday's class, we will look at the Dutch in Southern Africa

Reading Questions for Africans, pp. 126-130:

• When did the first Dutch colonists land in what is now South Africa?
• Who was living at the Cape of Good Hope when the Dutch arrived?
• How did indigenous peoples make their livings and how did they interact?
• What were the Dutch East India Company's plans for the Cape initially?
• Why did the Dutch import slaves and from where?
• What were conditions for slaves in the Dutch colony?
• What was "the Dutch regime's lasting legacy to South Africa"?
• Who were the Trekboers? Why did they think of themselves as Afrikaners?
• When did the British take control of the Cape from the Dutch?

We will move the reading assignment on historical sources in Short, Chapter 3 to next week.

Colonizing Western Africa

Sundiata moved to next week.

Reading Questions for AFRICANS, Chapter 5, pp. 63-82:

• What populations drifted/migrated southward into western Africa, and what led them to do it?
• What pattern did population clusters take?
• What were obstacles to population growth? (pp. 67-69)
• What strategies were used to overcome these obstacles?
• Define kafu and describe the constraints on political consolidation. (pp. 71ff)
• How were slaves and horses important to the Hausa? (pp. 75-78)
• "Microstates" seem to have been the rule in the western forest, except in the northwest--why? (p. 81)
• What was unusual about the Kongo kingdom in the equatorial forest? (p. 82)

Reading Questions for AFRICANS, Chapter 5, pp. 83-99:

• How did trade move through western Africa?
• What was the most important product transported by long-distance trade and who traded it?
• What did Hausa traders use as currency? What were its advantages and limitations?
• What craft specialization was most advanced? Who introduced it? Why couldn't it compete in the Atlantic economy (after 1450)?
• How and why was a distinction made between the cultivated and the wild in western African culture and religion?
• What are the main features of indigenous religions in western Africa?
• How did Islam and indigenous religions interact?
• What distinctive family structures existed in western Africa? Why?
• How was generational conflict created and what were the consequences of it?
• What is "mankala" and were you familiar with it before reading this chapter?

Identity plus Christianity & Islam

Reading Questions for Monday, September 11th:

Diversity, Unity, and most importantly, Identity (SHORT, chapter 2)

• What is it that makes a "makes a nonsense of pseudo-scientific theories of racial difference"? (Are you familiar with some of the theories?) 
• In what ways are African people diverse? (pull from 4 paragraphs that follow the above quoted text)
• The variations are a consequence of what historical processes? (last paragraph p. 28)
• Define "Maghrib." What might being North African mean? (p. 29ff)
• What is meant by "A historian's definition of 'Africa' is necessarily broad and unracialized"?
• With all this diversity, where can we find unity or "interconnectedness"?
• Who wrote the first serious continent-wide history of Africa?
• What is Afrocentrism and what are the book's arguments against it?
• How did Zulu and Yoruba identities develop?
• What are problems with the concept/term "tribe"?
• Who are the Tutsi and Hutu?
• How did the Mukogodo become Maasai?

Christianity & Islam (AFRICANS, chapter 4)

• How did Christianity come to Egypt and how popular was it (% of population)? 
• Define "Coptic" (language and religion).
• What is Aksum (or Axum)? Ga'ez?
• Why did Nubian Christianity not last the way Ethiopian Christianity has? (See image below for clue.)
• What helped the Muslims conquer Egypt?
• How may Egyptians were still Christians by the 14th century? Why?
• What role did Berbers play in the spread and practice of Islam (p. 43f) and in trans-Saharan trade (p. 52)?
• Why did trans-Saharan trade grow so fast in the early Islamic period?
• Describe Old Jenne (Jenne-jeno).
• What is the relationship between religion and trade in West and East Africa?
• What "created the basic pattern of the modern northern Sudan"?
• What effects did partial isolation have on Ethiopian religion?

You might want to get started with Sundiata this week!