Chapter 20 Study Guide Vocabulary: 1. Factories - Portuguese trading fortresses and compounds with resident merchants; utilized throughout Portuguese trading empire to assure secure landing places and commerce 2. El Mina - most important of early Portuguese trading factories in the forest zone of Africa. 3. Royal African Company - chartered in 1660s to establish a monopoly over the slave trade among British merchants; supplied African slaves to colonies Barbados, Jamaica, and Virginia 4. triangular trade - commerce linking Africa, the new world colonies, and Europe; slaves carried to America for sugar, and tobacco transported to Europe 5.
In Sparks’s writing, the Robin Johns’ story allows us "to translate those statistics (of the slave trade) into people" (5). The Robin Johns’ enslavement and liberation resulted from their active roles as slave traders at the West African region of Old Calabar. Ephraim Robin John and Ancona Robin John were members of the elite Efik slave traders of Old Calabar and participated in the Ekpe secret society that governed the commercial relations with Atlantic traders. As Old Calabar grew from a small town in the late seventeenth century to one of the most important slave trading regions of the eighteenth century, Efik traders such as the Robin Johns came to
The ways in which sub-Saharan Africans were establishing new contacts with Europe paralleled their much older pattern of relations with the Islamic world. There were striking similarities and differences in Africans’ political, commercial, and cultural interactions with these two external influences between 1500 and 1800. Through Africa’s close proximity to the Middle East and Africa’s triangle trade with the Europeans and European influenced Americas, the customs, traditions and beliefs of many indigenous Africans changed and were replaced. Although both regions justified slavery, the Islamic and European concepts of slave work and obligation differed considerably. While Africa placed an essential role in the Atlantic and Islamic trading
Dr. Ivan Van Sertima speaks of Christopher Columbus’ diary, which spoke of his many voyages and discoveries. After his second voyage, the Portuguese informed Columbus of Africans in large boats with merchandise sailing west of the Cape Verde islands. The Portuguese were aware of African navigation because they had been in Africa since 1415. Not only did the Portuguese tell Columbus of Africans but Natives in the Olmec civilization spoke of Africans as well. The Olmec civilization, was the first civilization established in the Americas.
In both areas, slaves were basically property, bought, sold, and traded to do specific and often labor intensive tasks. The idea of European dominance directly influenced this practice in both regions. As with the discrimination of native peoples and the continued practice slave trading in both regions was an occurrence with its roots found in racial ideologies. The colonists of the new world, those who traveled from Europe to the Americas, or those born in the Americas of European descent implemented the total colonization
The Two Princes of Calabar Randy Spark's The Two Princes of Calabar is an engaging read demonstrating literal and scholastic efficiency. Sparks argues broadly that “Atlantic Creoles” are the result of eighteen-century globalization, and narrowly focuses on two African brothers, Ephraim Robin John and Ancona Robin-Robin John from Calabar. The Robin Johns were unique because at first they were slaves and then they were slave traders, functioning in American and European cultures. The Robin Johns were the princes of the Efik tribe. The Efiks developed a complex culture resembling the beginnings of English consumerism.
Finally, from analyzing these interactions between the Europeans and the natives, it can be seen that the Europeans, to some extent, thought of themselves as superior to the natives they encountered. Through most of the explorations that occurred, trade was the outcome of the economic relationship that was developed between the natives and the explorers. For most of the 15th century, when Africa was being explored, slaves were a commodity. In The Atlantic Crucible, Armesto made this evident, “The economy was geared to slaving, raiding the African coast…” (Armesto, p. 183). Armesto also said, “It was necessary to continue the search further south, and to exploit the chief resource of the region: slaves” (Armesto, p. 193).
INTRODUCTION Neocolonialism can be defined as the continuation of the economic model of colonialism after a colonized territory has achieved formal political independence. This concept was applied most commonly to Africa in the latter half of the twentieth century. European countries had colonized most of the continent in the late nineteenth century, instituting a system of economic exploitation in which African raw materials, particularly cash crops and minerals, were expropriated and exported to the sole benefit of the colonizing power. The idea of neocolonialism, however, suggests that when European powers granted nominal political independence to colonies in the decades after World War II, they continued to control the economies of the new African countries.”[1] I shall, in this paper, address the theoretical challenge of the diverse meanings and uses of neocolonialism and assess its epistemological significance in the context of the African experience. THE CONCEPT OF NEOCOLONIALISM Neocolonialism is a concept derived from colonialism; and there is some theoretical consensus concerning its development.
Afro Caribbean Music If African music is said to have roots in almost all music, then undoubtedly a branch extends directly into the heart of the Caribbean Islands. All the islands have a spice of African influence, but due to length constraints, we’ve chosen to confine our discussion to Afro-Caribbean music in Jamaica and Cuba. History and Musical Cultural Context: Jamaica: From the early 1400’s to the middle 1600’s Jamaica was island under Spanish control. That was until 1655 when the British took control. After a brief period of experimenting with indentured European labor, the British turned to large scale importation of Africans to be used as slaves on the sugar plantations.
By the early twentieth century, however, much of Africa, except Ethiopia and Liberia, had been colonized by European powers. (Hanna. 1969). The European imperialist push into Africa was motivated by three main factors, economic, political, and social. It developed in the