Understanding the Scramble for Africa

The Scramble for Africa is, I believe, one of the most poorly understood periods in history. From what I gather most people seem to believe that the colonial powers one day sat around a map at the Berlin Conference, drawing borders around bits they wanted, and that was it. But the Scramble had already begun by the time of the conference of 1884. Plus the conference stated that any claimant must show effective occupation of a region before it was granted to them. This meant in some instances there were literal races between explorers, far more intense than destroying lines on a map. During the scramble great powers like Britain and France nearly went to war, it brought about a revolution in Portugal and I'd argue, with the exception of maybe the Zulus and Ethiopians, the Africans and their battles against colonialism are often just completely ignored. Plus the fact that some African countries like Egypt and Ethiopia actually expanded is also often glossed over. But to understand the scramble you really need to go back in time. Well, maybe you don't, but there's some fascinating empires, wars and cultural exchanges beforehand. The first European colonies in Africa were set up by the Portuguese, as bases along their route to India. These included Madeira in the Atlantic, Sofala in Mozambique, Luanda in Angola and Mombasa and Zanzibar in East Africa. These all proved to be important stopover points for international trade. And this was pretty much the standard for colonialism at that time. It was far more profitable to set up factories for trade and control sea lanes rather than taking over entire regions. As such the Portuguese would also set up colonies in the Spice Islands, Hormuz in Persia and important to this story in Oman. The Spanish and Portuguese had agreed to divide the world in two so they had little competition from Europeans in Africa. But late in the 16th century the Iberian Union united Portugal with Spain and as such The Portuguese entered into Spain's wars against the Dutch and the English. The Dutch were quick to move into the colonial game and took Mena from the Portuguese. They expanded in West Africa, established the Dutch slave coast, and built forts in Senegal. Plus, for a few decades, they even held Portuguese Luanda. While in the south in the middle of the 17th century, they entered Cape Town, an important midway point for ships sailing between the oceans. The Dutch that settled in this region became the Boers. However, the locals in South Africa that they encountered during this period were not the Zulu, they were the Kwekwe. These are often grouped together with the San hunter-gatherers, but they were a distinct group of people. The Zulu on the other hand didn't enter the picture for another few decades, as they were Bantu who migrated from the north. However, to further complicate matters, there were also the Xhosa in South Africa at that time, and they are closely related to the Bantu. There is some debate over when the Xhosa arrived. But their language shows that they may have been there a lot sooner as they adopted some of the click sounds from the local San people. Hence Xhosa is usually pronounced something like Ngoza. But I think it's time to explain a bit about the African people and their kingdoms. So this is going to be a gross oversimplification. I'm aware of that as I'm trying to explain about 200 years of African history, but here goes. Let's start with the Bantu. They originated probably from Cameroon. And they migrated south and east. This migration lasted potentially thousands of years, so don't think of it like a mass movement of people. They became the dominant group in many countries in Central and South Africa over time, but they often lived alongside the original inhabitants. So in South Africa, and especially in Namibia, you still have the San people. Plus, alongside the Bantu in Congo, you have the Pygmies. Plus it was the Bantu who established the Kingdom of Congo in Central Africa. And this kingdom in the early 1600s sent an ambassador to meet with the Pope in Rome. He was Emanuele Neyvunda, but after travelling via Brazil and Spain, he died just two days after arriving in Rome. This kingdom also built cities larger than some in Europe, and many of their rulers became Christian very early on and adopted European fashions. Congolese men also joined Christian religious orders, they had their own coats of arms, and the kingdom survived in one form or another. until the 19th century. So you had an almost European Christian kingdom in Central Africa, which had connections with the papacy and a large urban population. But their country was often torn apart by civil war, and strangely during one of these wars in the late 1600s, a prophet emerged. This prophet was Kimpa Vita, and she had visions claiming that Jesus was in fact born in the Congo, so it was sort of like an African version of Mormonism. Otherwise in Central Africa you had many kingdoms, like the kingdoms of Burundi and Rwanda, which were established there in the late 1600s. From very early on these kingdoms were based on Tutsi Dominos. over the Hutus, and this power dynamic would still be very important in the 20th century, leading to genocides in the respective countries and the outbreak of the First Congo War. In Southern Africa, it was also the Bantu, specifically the Shona people, who built Great Zimbabwe in medieval times. But by the 1600s, Great Zimbabwe had fallen, and power in the region was transferred to Mutapa in Mozambique. This kingdom of Mutapa however was eventually weakened due to infighting and Portuguese interference. So by the late 17th century they often accepted the vassalage of the Portuguese, or even their other new neighbour, the Rosvi Empire. The Rosvi grew rich on gold and were a formidable power, so they were able to fight back numerous Portuguese attempts to take over their gold mines. Going further north along the coast and the Muslims once ruled over the important trading centres of Zanzibar and Mombasa. But their Kilwa Sultanate was already on the decline when the Portuguese arrived, and it ultimately collapsed. This allowed the Portuguese to take over these trading centres, but soon a new power emerged in the region, and anyone who has played Victoria 2 will know this power, Oman. Their capital of Muscat had been held by the Portuguese, but they were driven out of there in the 1600s, and the new Yoruba dynasty capitalised on their victory and chased the Portuguese west. and took over the east coast of Africa. Zanzibar in particular would become an important trading centre for the lucrative Arab slave trade, something that played a very important role during the scramble for Africa centuries later. Plus it was from Zanzibar that many Arab slavers would form trading centres deep into the interior of Africa. Further north still you had more Muslim Sultanates in Somalia, like Adjiran who fought back a couple Portuguese invasions, while nearby the Adal Sultanate in the 1500s tried to conquer their Christian neighbours the Ethiopians, but the Portuguese came to the aid of the Ethiopians and prevented the takeover from happening. The Ottomans on the other hand would come to the aid of the Muslims, starting the Ottoman-Portuguese war, which spread from East Africa all the way over to India. Now in previous centuries, the Somalians were pretty intrepid explorers, as people like Said of Mogadishu made his way over to China in the 1300s. By now though they began to fall behind Europeans in terms of maritime technology and trade, but the port of Berbera continued to be incredibly important well into the 19th century. It was said during this time that thousands of camels would arrive at the port, bringing ivory cattle, hides and the likes ready to be shipped across Arabia and beyond. But their failures against Ethiopia meant that Ethiopia would remain an independent Christian kingdom trapped behind Muslim lands. So many Christians believed that this was the homeland of Prester John, a fictional Christian king of great wealth, who would aid the Europeans in their conquest of the Islamic empires. Plus, this idea of Prester John encouraged many Europeans to explore the region. Furthermore, as a Christian kingdom, Ethiopia, like the Congo, had connections with Europe and the papacy. For instance, they sent ambassadors to the Council of Florence in the 1430s, and they even tried to form an alliance with the King of Aragon, against the Muslims before that. Going even further back their ruler Lali Bela built huge stone churches which bear his name in the 12th century as a sort of second Jerusalem. This came shortly after the Muslims reconquered the city of Jerusalem, so they were present in the Middle East during the Crusades and Ethiopians along with their Christian neighbors to the north were sometimes present in the courts of the Byzantine Empire. Yet this whole area of East Africa as you'd expect had a completely different racial makeup. Its position on the Indian Ocean brought in a number of Arab merchants who brought Islam to the area. Then within Ethiopia they had a number of different ethnicities like the Tigrayans and the Amharans. Amharic was the language of the empire for the most part but this was a Semitic language, closer to those in the Middle East rather than anything in Africa. Plus in future centuries many of the Ethiopian rulers and elites, just like many of the Europeans, would consider the Ethiopians to be Caucasian. For instance, a journalist from Haiti named Benito Silvain met Emperor Menelik II in the 19th century, and he hoped that he would become an honorary president of their society, advancing the cause of black people. But Menelik refused, declaring that he was in fact a Caucasian man. But don't think of Caucasians just being white like in the USA today, as at that time it included everyone from India to England. Then in Ethiopia and even the Islamic Sultanates in the 1500s, they were facing a sort of migration crisis as the Oromo people from southern Ethiopia began to migrate north. These Oromo people and the ruling Amharic never fully unified into a single entity. and conflicts between them continue to this day. The Ethiopians weren't even the only Christian kingdom in the region, as just to the north of them you had the Medribari, who survived for centuries. But just to the west of them you had more Islamic kingdoms and empires, like Darfur, Wadai and Borneu. Now for Borneu, they were in medieval times a far more powerful empire, but by this point they had become a bit of a rump state, laying in modern day Chad. Going further west still you had the Hausa states, formed by the largest ethnic group within Africa, the Hausa. Then to the west of them you had the declining Mali Empire. This empire, like others along the Sahara, grew rich from the Trans-Saharan trade. Gold, salt, slaves and the likes passed through these great states and, once upon a time, the ruler of Mali, Mansa Musa, was argued to be the richest man who ever lived. The salt mines here kept food preserved on long journeys And whole salt mining towns were reliant on this trade, to bring them food in the middle of the desert. And just to the south of them they had many gold mines. And I often think that the slave trade somewhat overshadows the West African gold trade. The desire for gold was not just among a few rich Europeans looking to get even richer. But at the beginning of the Age of Exploration, it was essential for the survival of the European economies. This is because from 1457 to 1464, there was a bullion famine, and the Europeans were running out of gold and silver. This was in part caused by wars like the Hundred Years War, and the huge trade deficit the Europeans had with Asia. So Europeans began exploring and discovered West Africa and their gold mines, and these practically saved Europe. The gold in this region was so well circulated in Europe, that this is where you get the name of the old Guinea Coins from, because where else but Guinea could you get such a large quantity of gold? As such, there were numerous African states that popped up along the coast here. Benin and Oyo for instance had been around since medieval times, while others like Dahomey and Ashanti came about around 16-1700. But there's almost too many to mention in this summary. In the far reaches of West Africa, around modern day Senegal, there was the powerful Jolof Empire. But by the middle of the 16th century, Cahors broke free and the empire disintegrated into various states. However, as the Europeans began to enter West Africa, stories began to emerge of previous settlers in the region. For instance, in the 1600s, the French claimed that they had evidence of the Normans raiding the West African coast back in the 1300s. This was based on documents which have now disappeared, and the alleged testimony of an 130 year old Guinea man. He, apparently, mentioned a French battery in the region. But without those original documents, it's impossible to know if this was based on any truth. Another story came from the Genoese, who had their own explorers in medieval times and the early modern period. The most well known was of course Columbus, but there was also the Vivaldi brothers, who tried to circumnavigate Africa way back in the 13th century. They however disappeared en route, but Antoniotto Uso de Mari, a later explorer writing over 150 years later, claimed to have found their descendants. Now, Usodomare was an early traveller in Africa, hoping to gain funding for future expeditions. So his reports are often filled with exaggerations and lies. For instance, he wrote of the incredibly rich lands of Prestidjon along the Gambia River. And, weirdly, a group of people speaking the Genoese dialect. So apparently, the great-great-grandchildren of the Vivaldi brothers. Now these medieval explorers may not have made it to West Africa, but ancient people did. The Phoenicians for instance explored the area, and Hanno the Navigator even tried to enslave guerrillas way way back in the 5th century BC. But even though successful trade stopped in medieval times, that's not to say that Europe was completely cut off from West Africa. Obviously the gold found its way from West Africa to Europe, but some strange items might have travelled the other way. Like in the 19th century, the British took over Ashanti, and discovered a yuwa dating back to the 1300s. It was inscribed with the English Royal Seal of the time, and had English writing along the side. So it was clearly made in Plantagenet, England. But how it arrived there remains a mystery. Did it come with slave traders later on in the 18th century, or did it embark on a great medieval journey, being traded with people from Spain, Morocco, Mali and the likes, before finding its new home in the Ashanti Kingdom? It's really hard to know. Now back in West Africa there was a powerful empire just to the east of Senegal. The Songhai Empire. They had largely drove the Mali Empire into decline, and took the city of Timbuktu from them. But the Songhai Empire had all but collapsed by the 1600s, and their defeat didn't come at the hands of the Songhai Empire. The Europeans, but Morocco. The Moroccans of Northern Africa in 1578 had fought back a Portuguese invasion, and their new sultan, Ahmad al-Mansur, launched an invasion south and crushed the Songhai. The Moroccans at this point were so powerful that they were seen as a potential ally for the Judit dynasty, and even the French, who hoped to fight against their mutual enemy of Spain. Plus, the Moroccans were so convinced that they could defeat the Spanish, That, Al-Mansur planned on how to divide up the Spanish colonies in the Americas. However, their rule over West Africa didn't last long. The logistics of maintaining such a large empire across the Sahara proved to be too hard, especially after plague swept through the region, killing Al-Mansur and weakening the kingdom. So they retreated back north just a couple decades later. And this brings me to one of the most forgotten colonizers of Africa, the Muslims of the North. After the Ottomans defeated the Mamluks in the early 1500s, they annexed Egypt and this, in turn, opened their path to taking coastal Libya, Algeria and Tunisia. These would later become the Barbary States, which, infamously, would launch pirate attacks on ships passing through the Mediterranean Sea. And if any nation wanted safe passage, they'd have to pay the respective countries tribute. Many Europeans would join the ranks of these pirates, notably Jan Janszoon, a Dutch pirate who wanted to attack their Spanish enemy. Under his command the pirates would launch raids as far north as Iceland, where they captured hundreds of people in the 1620s. These people, like many Europeans at that time, were then brought back to the Barbary States and sold as slaves. Now this slave trade at its height from around 1580 to 1680 probably saw close to 1 million Europeans enslaved, and brought to North African states. But if you were to add this number to the number of Christians enslaved by the Ottomans, to fill in the ranks of the Janissaries and the likes, the number would of course be a lot higher. Also during this period, the pirates temporarily took over the English island of Lundy near Bristol. While back in Morocco, they formed their own republic, the Republic of Sali. Among the population of this republic, there were many Christian converts to Islam like Yan Yan Sun, Plus, there were many Muslims who were forcibly evicted from Spain in the decades prior, and also a collection of Jewish pirates who also wanted some revenge against the Spanish for kicking them out of their home. The Ottomans and the Muslim pirates were therefore the most dominant force in North Africa. But the Ottomans also began looking further south for land, and expanded along the Red Sea. For instance, back in 1557, they seized Massawa in modern day Eritrea. And it was from there that they got involved in the war between Adal, the Ethiopians and the Portuguese. Plus, in North Africa, there were also a number of European colonies. The Portuguese tried numerous times to invade Morocco, and were sometimes successful in establishing bases along the coast. Most of these were reclaimed by the Moroccans, but there is one interesting tale in there. When Catherine of Braganza, a Portuguese princess, married King Charles II of England in 1662, She gave Tangier to the English as part of the dowry. This dowry also included Bombay, which set British expansion in India in motion. So the same thing could have happened in Tangier, with English expanding into North Africa. But the English protestants already suspected that Charles was a Catholic, and there was a larger number of Catholics garrisoning the town. So they later had the fortifications destroyed and left Morocco. Also, back in the 1500s, The Spanish were able to take over quite a lot of important towns along the North African coast. For instance, they took over Tripoli in 1510 and gave it to the Knights of St. John in Malta. Algiers was also temporarily occupied by them, and Tunis was made a Spanish puppet, and so too was Djerba. They lost most of these to the Ottomans later on. However, to this day, the Spanish still hold on to some of their North African possessions, Melilla and Soweta. So you had the Portuguese, Spanish and English in North Africa. Plus there was a very small French attempt as well, as they set up a fort called the Bastion of France in Annaba. There they hoped, like many, to exploit the Coral Trade in the region, but very little came from this colony. The largest Coral Traders at that time were the Italian Genoese, who held Tabarca in modern day Tunisia all the way until the 18th century. However European or at least Christian attempts to take over North Africa go back centuries. For instance, way back in the 12th century the city of Pisa attacked Annaba, while the Sicilians held onto Djerba sporadically from the 12th to the 15th centuries. In fact, when the Normans ruled Sicily, they launched the Maria campaigns in the 11th century and took over large sections of Libya, Tunisia and Algeria. They controlled so much land that the Norman rulers took the title of the of the King of Africa, and ruled over the area until the Al-Mu'ad Caliphate kicked them out. Anyway, as Europeans began to grow more in wealth, they too looked to create their own colonial empires, and most of them arrived on the west coast. After all, this place was rich in gold, and many of them were looking to get involved in the growing slave market. In particular, the Gold Coast, or modern day Ghana, saw a great number of Europeans arrive. But these Europeans, like in other regions, were not controlled by the governments of each country, but they were rather private trading companies. So just like the Virginia Company in America, or the numerous East India companies, there was also groups like the English African Company of Merchants, or the Guinea Company. So in West Africa there were of course the English and the Dutch, who were by this point setting up colonies around the world. But there were also Danish and Swedish colonies, plus a short-lived Prussian attempt which lasted from 1682 to 1721. But possibly the most obscure colonial power was Kola. This was a small vassal state of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth located in modern day Latvia. But the population was a mix of local Baltic people, Polish and many Germans who had arrived there during the Northern Crusades. They set up a colony on the Gold Coast from 1651 to 1661, however they also had a colony over in Senegal and had a Caribbean colony on the island of Tobago. So, the language of many African countries could well have been German or even Swedish had things gone differently. But again, although this is a gross oversimplification, many of these countries would become distracted or indebted due to wars in Europe, and many of them would go on to sell their colonies to the Dutch or English. On the other hand, the Danes held onto colonies in West Africa and the Caribbean until the middle of the 19th century. But since the abolition of slavery, many of their settlements were abandoned, and and eventually sold off. Then as we move into the late 17th century, the Dutch were on the decline, and in their place, the French appeared as a power in the colonial game. For instance, they seized Gorée from the Dutch. This island by the way has a bit of a controversial history, as it is often claimed to be one of the major hubs of the transatlantic slave trade, but this has been disputed in recent years. Now this is because less than 5% of the 12 million slaves who crossed the Atlantic are said to have set off from the Senegambia region. Then even a smaller percent of them would have arrived at Gori. So compared to other regions this 5% is pretty low. The Gold Coast for instance sent over 10% of the slaves, the Bight of Benin over 20%, and by far the largest number arrived from the area around Congo and Angola, with close to 40%. This by the way makes quite a bit of sense. As this is the region in which the Portuguese largely operated, and most slaves were not sent to the Caribbean or the United States, but in fact Brazil. Close to 5 million arrived in Brazil, compared to 2 million in the British Caribbean, 1 million in the French Caribbean and Spanish Americas, and half a million in the Dutch Americas and modern day United States respectively. Plus it should also be said that over 1 million of those who left Africa never made it across the Atlantic at all. But now we're entering the slave trade. And this is another thing that seems to be completely misunderstood by many. On the one hand, it is said that Europeans were going out capturing the slaves themselves, while on the other, it is often said that the Africans were the biggest traders of slaves. But in truth, the situation was far more complicated, as you would expect. To try and simplify the situation, the slave trade was of course around long before the Europeans arrived. Muslim traders had been taking slaves across the Sahara, or the more regular route for slaves. was via ports like Zanzibar. There were in fact so many African slaves in the Muslim world that there were huge slave rebellions. For instance, there was the Zanz rebellion in 9th century Iraq, which allegedly saw hundreds of thousands of men involved. The Islamic slave trade in Africa continued until way into the 20th century, and in some cases like in modern day Libya or Mauritania, well into the 21st century. Plus this slave trade would be a major justification for the Europeans to begin taking colonies in Africa, but I'll get onto that in later videos. And as a bit of a side note, although not Islamic, the Ethiopian slave trade would be used as a justification by Mussolini to invade the country in the 1930s. But anyway, onto the European slave trade. Now some African kingdoms did engage in the trade, but not all of them. Other nations were completely torn apart by it, as their neighbours fought more aggressive campaigns against them. Solely to capture slaves to sell to the Europeans or to keep to themselves. While, on the reverse, some nations and people flourished due to the slave trade. The Oyo Empire for instance launched campaigns to capture slaves and sometimes even campaigns of conquest. They would also demand tribute from conquered people in the form of slaves, which they, in turn, sold to buy European guns and the cycle continued. Nearby, Dahomey also had a largely slave-based economy. In the 18th century, the King of Dahomey even sent a diplomatic mission to Brazil, hoping to encourage further trade. And they were also one of the first nations to rec- recognize Brazilian independence on that basis. But because it was forced to give male slaves to Oyo as tribute every year, they decided to create an all-female military unit, named the Dahomey Amazons. These Amazons would often go on slave raids themselves, and during some festivities, hold mock battles showing them capturing male slaves. These female soldiers actually continued to be a powerful force in West Africa until the 19th century, and were present in the war against the French. Further east, some Aro people moved towards the coast and set up their own confederacy in order to take advantage of the slave trade. While down south in Angola, there were the Mbangala, who would later form the Khasanji Kingdom. But they were initially marauders and mercenaries. They would attack settlements, capture slaves, and according to some accounts, fill their ranks with captured kids. Plus there are reports of them cannibalising their victims, and forcing their new recruits to eat human meat. They therefore provided a far better slave trading partner for the Portuguese, rather than the nearby Kingdom of Congo. This is because the Congolese would often try to limit the number of slaves that the Portuguese exported, sometimes try to cut off trade altogether, and they even gave refuge to runaway slaves. So some nations were keen traders while others were not. Plus like with the Islamic trade in East Africa, the Transatlantic slave trade made some people incredibly rich, and allowed some kingdoms to flourish. But it mainly created a state of lawlessness, as warfare was near constant, agriculture suffered as fields were left destroyed, and many young people of working or fighting age were taken from their homes to be sent to nearby kingdoms, or over to the middle east or the Americas. There was however one other major hub for slaves that I've not mentioned, and that's Madagascar, where over 5% of slaves in the Americas came from. But on Madagascar, The population there was completely different to the rest of Africa. Obviously they were divided by the sea, but the original settlers didn't come from Africa at all. They came from Southeast Asia and were ethnically Austronesian. This means they had more in common with the Maori of New Zealand or the Hawaiians, rather than the Kenyans and Nigerians. They first came from across the Indian Ocean around 500AD, but soon afterwards, Muslim traders also began arriving, bringing their religion with them. Then, allegedly more Austronesians crossed the Indian Ocean a couple centuries later, followed in the 9th century by the Bantus who came from mainland Africa. The English, French and Portuguese all tried to set up colonies on the island, but disease and pretty fierce locals meant they didn't survive longer than a couple of decades. But the French were able to establish bases on nearby islands like Réunion and Mauritius in the middle of the 1600s. As for the locals, they set up the Marina Kingdom. This kingdom would expand to take over most of the island, until the 19th century, when they were conquered by the French. But due to the numerous races that lived on the island, they would organise their society into a caste system of sorts. At the top were the Marina people, the Highlanders. They were known as the Andriana, and as you'd expect, they filled the positions of power, and were seen as more Austronesian in appearance. Below them were other people who spoke the local language of Malagasy. but were absorbed into the kingdom later on. These were called the Hova and were the free commoners, while below them were the Andivo, slaves which were brought into the country in large numbers to work on the plantations. They were bought from the French and Arabs primarily, who brought them from Mozambique and the East African coast. So similar to the United States, it was quite a racially based form of slavery, and according to a recent UN report, there was still a large amount of discrimination against this slave caste. Meanwhile, there were allegedly stranger colonies set up on Madagascar by pirates. Although piracy is far more famous over in the Caribbean, many pirates in the 17th century began to terrorize the Indian Ocean. Captain Kidd, for instance, turned pirate after being tasked with trying to catch pirates off the coast of Madagascar, which was a great place for looting the treasures being brought back from India. One of the pirates who made a name for himself was Henry Every. He captained a ship belonging to the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, which was a very important part of the British Empire. And this led to possibly the world's first ever manhunt. Pirates like Adam Baldrige set up bases around Madagascar, like on the island of St. Mary's. Plus there was a somewhat mythical colony called Libertatia, where pirates would go to war against oppressors and defend people's rights. However, many historians question whether or not it really existed. As we enter the 18th century, there wasn't really a great deal of change in terms of colonization. For instance, during the Seven Years War, The British took French posts in Senegal. but they were given back to the French shortly afterwards. Most colonial efforts at this time were still focused on the Americas, which was far easier to settle in, or over in India, home to great riches and cities. But Spain did enter Africa as they agreed to hand the Portuguese land in South America in return for Spanish Guinea, modern day Equatorial Guinea, but Spanish influence in Africa below the Sahara will largely just keep to this area. In the south, the Dutch settlers began to form their own unique culture, and these Boers, or Afrikaners, began to launch treks into the interior of South Africa. Over in London, the African Association was set up in the last years of the century, aimed at exploring the continent further. They sent Mungo Park to Timbuktu, but by then, it was a shadow of its former self. Ever since the Moroccan invasions, the city had been left weakened, and it had been invaded by Tuareg tribes a couple of times. Plus, the increase in transatlantic slave trade meant that it had lost its strategic importance as a trading centre, as money began to move further towards the coast. This was a pretty recurring theme across the continent, as the 18th century saw the demise of many once powerful nations. The Kingdom of Congo for instance was stuck in a near endless fight for the throne, while over in Ethiopia, there was the Age of Princes, when the country was divided between various lords, and the Emperor had no real power. This, in turn, led to various ethnic clashes, and, ultimately, the weakening of the empire. To the north of them, the old Christian Nubian states of Makuria had been defeated, but the new Muslim states of Darfur, Wadai, and Fung fought a number of wars against each other during the 18th century. Plus, they also faced droughts which lasted for years, the power of the monarchs began to erode, and Ethiopian raids plundered a great deal of wealth. So, by the beginning of the 19th century, The Palace of Sanaa in the Funch Sultanate was essentially in ruin. Yet there was one peculiar state stuck among the Christians and Muslims in this area, the Chaluk Kingdom. Here their religion was based around their kings, and their capital was for Shoda, a place that would gain a great deal of fame during the scramble for Africa. In the southeast, the Kingdom of Mutapa faced numerous civil wars and competing factions constantly called on the Portuguese for aid. The Portuguese were obviously willing to participate, and the kingdom just disintegrated in that century. But on the Portuguese, they were able to expand their holdings in Africa at the expense of kingdoms like Congo. However, Portugal itself was weakening, so they had very little direct rule over much of the land they took over. Otherwise, the Portuguese also aided in the rise of the Zulu Kingdom in nearby South Africa. This is because they brought maize over from the Americas, and it had spread inland by the middle of the 18th century. This led to a huge increase in population in the region and spurred on the desire to seize arable land, which had dramatically increased in importance due to the crop. So the Zulu, along with other Bantu people, began to set up their own kingdoms in the decades following this. Over in the west of Africa, a number of palace coups weakened the Oyo Empire, and there was also the fall of the great Falu Empire to an altogether new threat, jihadists. These jihads began in the 1720s, and were largely launched by the Fula people, who today can be found in nearly every West African country. They were inspired to launch jihads by the Tarodpi, a group of clerics whose origins are not altogether that clear. They had in fact began to launch jihads at the end of the 17th century, but they really became significant in the 18th, starting with Karamoko Alpha's conquest of Futa Jalan. They destroyed many sacred animist objects belonging to the locals, including a ceremonial drum. and made a great deal of money from selling the slaves onto the Europeans. But, just like the Christians in Europe, they refused to sell Muslim slaves, and even banned the French from using the rivers in their kingdoms for transporting Muslim slaves. Their success in turn led to further Jihadist states being formed across West Africa, like Futotoro, which was founded in 1776 at the expense of the great Fulu empire. Then in the early 19th century, they took over Timbuktu. and formed the Messina Empire. But their greatest state was probably the Sokoto Caliphate. This caliphate conquered the Hausa kingdoms and drove back the Bonu Empire, which was also largely Islamic. And this Sokoto Caliphate ruled over the region until the very early 20th century. Plus, in the north, the 18th century was also a bit of a disaster for the Moroccans. Meanwhile, up in the north, the Moroccans, the people that once tried to create a huge West African empire, were also on the decline. Under Ismail ibn Sharif, the country's various tribes and ethnicities were brought under central control in the late 17th century, and he even managed to retake many Spanish towns in the region like Madia and Asila. Then to further weaken the Europeans he sponsored pirate attacks against them. But the various divisions were never fully bridged. This is evidenced by the creation of the Black Guard, a personal guard made up entirely of sub-Saharan African slaves. They were seen as more loyal than any of the various people in Morocco and were tasked with collecting taxes, crushing rebellions and the likes. But when Ishmael died in 1727 The country began to unravel and descend into anarchy for the following decades. Their neighbours to the east, the Ottomans, were also on the decline in the 18th century. Although their decline in Europe is more well known, they had been losing control of North Africa ever since the beginning of the 1700s. For instance, in Tripolitania, a Janissary named Ahmet Karamanlı murdered the Ottoman ruler of the region in 1711, and he took power for himself. Towards the end of the century, a Turkish officer named Ali Pasha tried to restore Ottoman control through a coup of his own. But the Civil War of the 1790s saw the Karamanli dynasty re-establish their authority. The same thing happened in Tunis with Al Hussein Ibn Ali who took power in 1705, and in Algiers where Baba Ali Chok ousted the Ottoman officials. Plus, on Algiers, they started demanding higher tributes from the European powers, and when this was refused, they actually started wars against them. So, long before the Barbary Wars of the 19th century, Babbagh declared war on the Dutch in 1715, and then in 1769, the Danes declared war on Algiers. The Algerians responded by enslaving the crew on a number of Danish ships, and refused to surrender despite the threat of the city being bombarded. And fortunately for them at least, many Danish soldiers died of typhoid during the conflict, meaning the Algerians defeated the Danes. The Spanish would then declare war in the 1770s to stop further Algerian raids. But despite having their cities heavily bombarded, the Algerians still refused to surrender and a poorly planned Spanish assault on Algiers was driven back. So once again, the Algerians were successful. But their luck would eventually run out in a couple of decades, when the Americans under Thomas Jefferson, and also the British, would defeat them. And just at the end of the century further east still, Napoleon invaded Egypt. Although he was defeated and left the region, this set off a huge chain reaction which completely changed the course of African history. This is because Egypt, although under Ottoman control, had been governed by the Mamluks for centuries. This was a military caste made up of slaves brought from the Caucasus, the Balkans and the likes. So the ruling elite of Egypt was a different ethnicity to the larger Arab population. But now they had been defeated by Napoleon, which resulted in a power vacuum. Eventually a man who may well have been Albanian took over. He was Muhammad Ali and his dynasty would rule Egypt virtually independently of the Ottomans. But his dynasty would change the world. They created their own empire, built the Suez Canal and fell into debt, which brought the British into the country and this led to the Martyrs Wars. So I'll look at the very beginnings of the scramble in the next episode and leave it here for now. At the end of the 18th century, where we have a power vacuum in Egypt, declining powers in all parts of the continent, Jihadist states in the west, slave trading kingdoms like Ashanti Dahomey in Madagascar, Arab rule in the east, and a collection of very small European colonies around the coast. But then, although often ignored, the Napoleonic Wars and its aftermath brought about a number of changes in Africa. Notably, the British ended South Africa, the Americans defeated the Barbary states, and The British fought the Ashanti and the government took direct control of the West African colonies. Then the restored French monarchy invaded Algeria and probably most importantly, for many African kingdoms, slavery was abolished. This meant the kingdoms that emerged in the 17th and 18th century, those that built their economy on the slave trade, were left economically crippled and this weakened the continent's major powers even further.

Plus the fact that some African countries like Egypt and Ethiopia actually expanded is also often glossed over. But to understand the scramble you really need to go back in time. Well, maybe you don't, but there's some fascinating empires, wars and cultural exchanges beforehand. The first European colonies in Africa were set up by the Portuguese, as bases along their route to India. These included Madeira in the Atlantic, Sofala in Mozambique, Luanda in Angola and Mombasa and Zanzibar in East Africa.

These all proved to be important stopover points for international trade. And this was pretty much the standard for colonialism at that time. It was far more profitable to set up factories for trade and control sea lanes rather than taking over entire regions.

As such the Portuguese would also set up colonies in the Spice Islands, Hormuz in Persia and important to this story in Oman. The Spanish and Portuguese had agreed to divide the world in two so they had little competition from Europeans in Africa. But late in the 16th century the Iberian Union united Portugal with Spain and as such The Portuguese entered into Spain's wars against the Dutch and the English.

The Dutch were quick to move into the colonial game and took Mena from the Portuguese. They expanded in West Africa, established the Dutch slave coast, and built forts in Senegal. Plus, for a few decades, they even held Portuguese Luanda.

While in the south in the middle of the 17th century, they entered Cape Town, an important midway point for ships sailing between the oceans. The Dutch that settled in this region became the Boers. However, the locals in South Africa that they encountered during this period were not the Zulu, they were the Kwekwe.

These are often grouped together with the San hunter-gatherers, but they were a distinct group of people. The Zulu on the other hand didn't enter the picture for another few decades, as they were Bantu who migrated from the north. However, to further complicate matters, there were also the Xhosa in South Africa at that time, and they are closely related to the Bantu.

There is some debate over when the Xhosa arrived. But their language shows that they may have been there a lot sooner as they adopted some of the click sounds from the local San people. Hence Xhosa is usually pronounced something like Ngoza. But I think it's time to explain a bit about the African people and their kingdoms.

So this is going to be a gross oversimplification. I'm aware of that as I'm trying to explain about 200 years of African history, but here goes. Let's start with the Bantu.

They originated probably from Cameroon. And they migrated south and east. This migration lasted potentially thousands of years, so don't think of it like a mass movement of people. They became the dominant group in many countries in Central and South Africa over time, but they often lived alongside the original inhabitants. So in South Africa, and especially in Namibia, you still have the San people.

Plus, alongside the Bantu in Congo, you have the Pygmies. Plus it was the Bantu who established the Kingdom of Congo in Central Africa. And this kingdom in the early 1600s sent an ambassador to meet with the Pope in Rome.

He was Emanuele Neyvunda, but after travelling via Brazil and Spain, he died just two days after arriving in Rome. This kingdom also built cities larger than some in Europe, and many of their rulers became Christian very early on and adopted European fashions. Congolese men also joined Christian religious orders, they had their own coats of arms, and the kingdom survived in one form or another. until the 19th century.

So you had an almost European Christian kingdom in Central Africa, which had connections with the papacy and a large urban population. But their country was often torn apart by civil war, and strangely during one of these wars in the late 1600s, a prophet emerged. This prophet was Kimpa Vita, and she had visions claiming that Jesus was in fact born in the Congo, so it was sort of like an African version of Mormonism. Otherwise in Central Africa you had many kingdoms, like the kingdoms of Burundi and Rwanda, which were established there in the late 1600s.

From very early on these kingdoms were based on Tutsi Dominos. over the Hutus, and this power dynamic would still be very important in the 20th century, leading to genocides in the respective countries and the outbreak of the First Congo War. In Southern Africa, it was also the Bantu, specifically the Shona people, who built Great Zimbabwe in medieval times. But by the 1600s, Great Zimbabwe had fallen, and power in the region was transferred to Mutapa in Mozambique.

This kingdom of Mutapa however was eventually weakened due to infighting and Portuguese interference. So by the late 17th century they often accepted the vassalage of the Portuguese, or even their other new neighbour, the Rosvi Empire. The Rosvi grew rich on gold and were a formidable power, so they were able to fight back numerous Portuguese attempts to take over their gold mines.

Going further north along the coast and the Muslims once ruled over the important trading centres of Zanzibar and Mombasa. But their Kilwa Sultanate was already on the decline when the Portuguese arrived, and it ultimately collapsed. This allowed the Portuguese to take over these trading centres, but soon a new power emerged in the region, and anyone who has played Victoria 2 will know this power, Oman.

Their capital of Muscat had been held by the Portuguese, but they were driven out of there in the 1600s, and the new Yoruba dynasty capitalised on their victory and chased the Portuguese west. and took over the east coast of Africa. Zanzibar in particular would become an important trading centre for the lucrative Arab slave trade, something that played a very important role during the scramble for Africa centuries later. Plus it was from Zanzibar that many Arab slavers would form trading centres deep into the interior of Africa.

Further north still you had more Muslim Sultanates in Somalia, like Adjiran who fought back a couple Portuguese invasions, while nearby the Adal Sultanate in the 1500s tried to conquer their Christian neighbours the Ethiopians, but the Portuguese came to the aid of the Ethiopians and prevented the takeover from happening. The Ottomans on the other hand would come to the aid of the Muslims, starting the Ottoman-Portuguese war, which spread from East Africa all the way over to India. Now in previous centuries, the Somalians were pretty intrepid explorers, as people like Said of Mogadishu made his way over to China in the 1300s. By now though they began to fall behind Europeans in terms of maritime technology and trade, but the port of Berbera continued to be incredibly important well into the 19th century. It was said during this time that thousands of camels would arrive at the port, bringing ivory cattle, hides and the likes ready to be shipped across Arabia and beyond.

But their failures against Ethiopia meant that Ethiopia would remain an independent Christian kingdom trapped behind Muslim lands. So many Christians believed that this was the homeland of Prester John, a fictional Christian king of great wealth, who would aid the Europeans in their conquest of the Islamic empires. Plus, this idea of Prester John encouraged many Europeans to explore the region. Furthermore, as a Christian kingdom, Ethiopia, like the Congo, had connections with Europe and the papacy.

For instance, they sent ambassadors to the Council of Florence in the 1430s, and they even tried to form an alliance with the King of Aragon, against the Muslims before that. Going even further back their ruler Lali Bela built huge stone churches which bear his name in the 12th century as a sort of second Jerusalem. This came shortly after the Muslims reconquered the city of Jerusalem, so they were present in the Middle East during the Crusades and Ethiopians along with their Christian neighbors to the north were sometimes present in the courts of the Byzantine Empire. Yet this whole area of East Africa as you'd expect had a completely different racial makeup. Its position on the Indian Ocean brought in a number of Arab merchants who brought Islam to the area.

Then within Ethiopia they had a number of different ethnicities like the Tigrayans and the Amharans. Amharic was the language of the empire for the most part but this was a Semitic language, closer to those in the Middle East rather than anything in Africa. Plus in future centuries many of the Ethiopian rulers and elites, just like many of the Europeans, would consider the Ethiopians to be Caucasian. For instance, a journalist from Haiti named Benito Silvain met Emperor Menelik II in the 19th century, and he hoped that he would become an honorary president of their society, advancing the cause of black people. But Menelik refused, declaring that he was in fact a Caucasian man.

But don't think of Caucasians just being white like in the USA today, as at that time it included everyone from India to England. Then in Ethiopia and even the Islamic Sultanates in the 1500s, they were facing a sort of migration crisis as the Oromo people from southern Ethiopia began to migrate north. These Oromo people and the ruling Amharic never fully unified into a single entity.

and conflicts between them continue to this day. The Ethiopians weren't even the only Christian kingdom in the region, as just to the north of them you had the Medribari, who survived for centuries. But just to the west of them you had more Islamic kingdoms and empires, like Darfur, Wadai and Borneu. Now for Borneu, they were in medieval times a far more powerful empire, but by this point they had become a bit of a rump state, laying in modern day Chad. Going further west still you had the Hausa states, formed by the largest ethnic group within Africa, the Hausa.

Then to the west of them you had the declining Mali Empire. This empire, like others along the Sahara, grew rich from the Trans-Saharan trade. Gold, salt, slaves and the likes passed through these great states and, once upon a time, the ruler of Mali, Mansa Musa, was argued to be the richest man who ever lived. The salt mines here kept food preserved on long journeys And whole salt mining towns were reliant on this trade, to bring them food in the middle of the desert.

And just to the south of them they had many gold mines. And I often think that the slave trade somewhat overshadows the West African gold trade. The desire for gold was not just among a few rich Europeans looking to get even richer.

But at the beginning of the Age of Exploration, it was essential for the survival of the European economies. This is because from 1457 to 1464, there was a bullion famine, and the Europeans were running out of gold and silver. This was in part caused by wars like the Hundred Years War, and the huge trade deficit the Europeans had with Asia. So Europeans began exploring and discovered West Africa and their gold mines, and these practically saved Europe.

The gold in this region was so well circulated in Europe, that this is where you get the name of the old Guinea Coins from, because where else but Guinea could you get such a large quantity of gold? As such, there were numerous African states that popped up along the coast here. Benin and Oyo for instance had been around since medieval times, while others like Dahomey and Ashanti came about around 16-1700.

But there's almost too many to mention in this summary. In the far reaches of West Africa, around modern day Senegal, there was the powerful Jolof Empire. But by the middle of the 16th century, Cahors broke free and the empire disintegrated into various states.

However, as the Europeans began to enter West Africa, stories began to emerge of previous settlers in the region. For instance, in the 1600s, the French claimed that they had evidence of the Normans raiding the West African coast back in the 1300s. This was based on documents which have now disappeared, and the alleged testimony of an 130 year old Guinea man.

He, apparently, mentioned a French battery in the region. But without those original documents, it's impossible to know if this was based on any truth. Another story came from the Genoese, who had their own explorers in medieval times and the early modern period. The most well known was of course Columbus, but there was also the Vivaldi brothers, who tried to circumnavigate Africa way back in the 13th century.

They however disappeared en route, but Antoniotto Uso de Mari, a later explorer writing over 150 years later, claimed to have found their descendants. Now, Usodomare was an early traveller in Africa, hoping to gain funding for future expeditions. So his reports are often filled with exaggerations and lies.

For instance, he wrote of the incredibly rich lands of Prestidjon along the Gambia River. And, weirdly, a group of people speaking the Genoese dialect. So apparently, the great-great-grandchildren of the Vivaldi brothers. Now these medieval explorers may not have made it to West Africa, but ancient people did. The Phoenicians for instance explored the area, and Hanno the Navigator even tried to enslave guerrillas way way back in the 5th century BC.

But even though successful trade stopped in medieval times, that's not to say that Europe was completely cut off from West Africa. Obviously the gold found its way from West Africa to Europe, but some strange items might have travelled the other way. Like in the 19th century, the British took over Ashanti, and discovered a yuwa dating back to the 1300s. It was inscribed with the English Royal Seal of the time, and had English writing along the side. So it was clearly made in Plantagenet, England.

But how it arrived there remains a mystery. Did it come with slave traders later on in the 18th century, or did it embark on a great medieval journey, being traded with people from Spain, Morocco, Mali and the likes, before finding its new home in the Ashanti Kingdom? It's really hard to know.

Now back in West Africa there was a powerful empire just to the east of Senegal. The Songhai Empire. They had largely drove the Mali Empire into decline, and took the city of Timbuktu from them. But the Songhai Empire had all but collapsed by the 1600s, and their defeat didn't come at the hands of the Songhai Empire. The Europeans, but Morocco.

The Moroccans of Northern Africa in 1578 had fought back a Portuguese invasion, and their new sultan, Ahmad al-Mansur, launched an invasion south and crushed the Songhai. The Moroccans at this point were so powerful that they were seen as a potential ally for the Judit dynasty, and even the French, who hoped to fight against their mutual enemy of Spain. Plus, the Moroccans were so convinced that they could defeat the Spanish, That, Al-Mansur planned on how to divide up the Spanish colonies in the Americas.

However, their rule over West Africa didn't last long. The logistics of maintaining such a large empire across the Sahara proved to be too hard, especially after plague swept through the region, killing Al-Mansur and weakening the kingdom. So they retreated back north just a couple decades later.

And this brings me to one of the most forgotten colonizers of Africa, the Muslims of the North. After the Ottomans defeated the Mamluks in the early 1500s, they annexed Egypt and this, in turn, opened their path to taking coastal Libya, Algeria and Tunisia. These would later become the Barbary States, which, infamously, would launch pirate attacks on ships passing through the Mediterranean Sea.

And if any nation wanted safe passage, they'd have to pay the respective countries tribute. Many Europeans would join the ranks of these pirates, notably Jan Janszoon, a Dutch pirate who wanted to attack their Spanish enemy. Under his command the pirates would launch raids as far north as Iceland, where they captured hundreds of people in the 1620s. These people, like many Europeans at that time, were then brought back to the Barbary States and sold as slaves. Now this slave trade at its height from around 1580 to 1680 probably saw close to 1 million Europeans enslaved, and brought to North African states.

But if you were to add this number to the number of Christians enslaved by the Ottomans, to fill in the ranks of the Janissaries and the likes, the number would of course be a lot higher. Also during this period, the pirates temporarily took over the English island of Lundy near Bristol. While back in Morocco, they formed their own republic, the Republic of Sali. Among the population of this republic, there were many Christian converts to Islam like Yan Yan Sun, Plus, there were many Muslims who were forcibly evicted from Spain in the decades prior, and also a collection of Jewish pirates who also wanted some revenge against the Spanish for kicking them out of their home. The Ottomans and the Muslim pirates were therefore the most dominant force in North Africa.

But the Ottomans also began looking further south for land, and expanded along the Red Sea. For instance, back in 1557, they seized Massawa in modern day Eritrea. And it was from there that they got involved in the war between Adal, the Ethiopians and the Portuguese.

Plus, in North Africa, there were also a number of European colonies. The Portuguese tried numerous times to invade Morocco, and were sometimes successful in establishing bases along the coast. Most of these were reclaimed by the Moroccans, but there is one interesting tale in there.

When Catherine of Braganza, a Portuguese princess, married King Charles II of England in 1662, She gave Tangier to the English as part of the dowry. This dowry also included Bombay, which set British expansion in India in motion. So the same thing could have happened in Tangier, with English expanding into North Africa. But the English protestants already suspected that Charles was a Catholic, and there was a larger number of Catholics garrisoning the town.

So they later had the fortifications destroyed and left Morocco. Also, back in the 1500s, The Spanish were able to take over quite a lot of important towns along the North African coast. For instance, they took over Tripoli in 1510 and gave it to the Knights of St. John in Malta. Algiers was also temporarily occupied by them, and Tunis was made a Spanish puppet, and so too was Djerba.

They lost most of these to the Ottomans later on. However, to this day, the Spanish still hold on to some of their North African possessions, Melilla and Soweta. So you had the Portuguese, Spanish and English in North Africa. Plus there was a very small French attempt as well, as they set up a fort called the Bastion of France in Annaba.

There they hoped, like many, to exploit the Coral Trade in the region, but very little came from this colony. The largest Coral Traders at that time were the Italian Genoese, who held Tabarca in modern day Tunisia all the way until the 18th century. However European or at least Christian attempts to take over North Africa go back centuries. For instance, way back in the 12th century the city of Pisa attacked Annaba, while the Sicilians held onto Djerba sporadically from the 12th to the 15th centuries. In fact, when the Normans ruled Sicily, they launched the Maria campaigns in the 11th century and took over large sections of Libya, Tunisia and Algeria.

They controlled so much land that the Norman rulers took the title of the of the King of Africa, and ruled over the area until the Al-Mu'ad Caliphate kicked them out. Anyway, as Europeans began to grow more in wealth, they too looked to create their own colonial empires, and most of them arrived on the west coast. After all, this place was rich in gold, and many of them were looking to get involved in the growing slave market.

In particular, the Gold Coast, or modern day Ghana, saw a great number of Europeans arrive. But these Europeans, like in other regions, were not controlled by the governments of each country, but they were rather private trading companies. So just like the Virginia Company in America, or the numerous East India companies, there was also groups like the English African Company of Merchants, or the Guinea Company. So in West Africa there were of course the English and the Dutch, who were by this point setting up colonies around the world. But there were also Danish and Swedish colonies, plus a short-lived Prussian attempt which lasted from 1682 to 1721. But possibly the most obscure colonial power was Kola.

This was a small vassal state of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth located in modern day Latvia. But the population was a mix of local Baltic people, Polish and many Germans who had arrived there during the Northern Crusades. They set up a colony on the Gold Coast from 1651 to 1661, however they also had a colony over in Senegal and had a Caribbean colony on the island of Tobago.

So, the language of many African countries could well have been German or even Swedish had things gone differently. But again, although this is a gross oversimplification, many of these countries would become distracted or indebted due to wars in Europe, and many of them would go on to sell their colonies to the Dutch or English. On the other hand, the Danes held onto colonies in West Africa and the Caribbean until the middle of the 19th century. But since the abolition of slavery, many of their settlements were abandoned, and and eventually sold off. Then as we move into the late 17th century, the Dutch were on the decline, and in their place, the French appeared as a power in the colonial game.

For instance, they seized Gorée from the Dutch. This island by the way has a bit of a controversial history, as it is often claimed to be one of the major hubs of the transatlantic slave trade, but this has been disputed in recent years. Now this is because less than 5% of the 12 million slaves who crossed the Atlantic are said to have set off from the Senegambia region.

Then even a smaller percent of them would have arrived at Gori. So compared to other regions this 5% is pretty low. The Gold Coast for instance sent over 10% of the slaves, the Bight of Benin over 20%, and by far the largest number arrived from the area around Congo and Angola, with close to 40%. This by the way makes quite a bit of sense. As this is the region in which the Portuguese largely operated, and most slaves were not sent to the Caribbean or the United States, but in fact Brazil.

Close to 5 million arrived in Brazil, compared to 2 million in the British Caribbean, 1 million in the French Caribbean and Spanish Americas, and half a million in the Dutch Americas and modern day United States respectively. Plus it should also be said that over 1 million of those who left Africa never made it across the Atlantic at all. But now we're entering the slave trade.

And this is another thing that seems to be completely misunderstood by many. On the one hand, it is said that Europeans were going out capturing the slaves themselves, while on the other, it is often said that the Africans were the biggest traders of slaves. But in truth, the situation was far more complicated, as you would expect.

To try and simplify the situation, the slave trade was of course around long before the Europeans arrived. Muslim traders had been taking slaves across the Sahara, or the more regular route for slaves. was via ports like Zanzibar. There were in fact so many African slaves in the Muslim world that there were huge slave rebellions.

For instance, there was the Zanz rebellion in 9th century Iraq, which allegedly saw hundreds of thousands of men involved. The Islamic slave trade in Africa continued until way into the 20th century, and in some cases like in modern day Libya or Mauritania, well into the 21st century. Plus this slave trade would be a major justification for the Europeans to begin taking colonies in Africa, but I'll get onto that in later videos.

And as a bit of a side note, although not Islamic, the Ethiopian slave trade would be used as a justification by Mussolini to invade the country in the 1930s. But anyway, onto the European slave trade. Now some African kingdoms did engage in the trade, but not all of them.

Other nations were completely torn apart by it, as their neighbours fought more aggressive campaigns against them. Solely to capture slaves to sell to the Europeans or to keep to themselves. While, on the reverse, some nations and people flourished due to the slave trade. The Oyo Empire for instance launched campaigns to capture slaves and sometimes even campaigns of conquest. They would also demand tribute from conquered people in the form of slaves, which they, in turn, sold to buy European guns and the cycle continued.

Nearby, Dahomey also had a largely slave-based economy. In the 18th century, the King of Dahomey even sent a diplomatic mission to Brazil, hoping to encourage further trade. And they were also one of the first nations to rec- recognize Brazilian independence on that basis. But because it was forced to give male slaves to Oyo as tribute every year, they decided to create an all-female military unit, named the Dahomey Amazons. These Amazons would often go on slave raids themselves, and during some festivities, hold mock battles showing them capturing male slaves.

These female soldiers actually continued to be a powerful force in West Africa until the 19th century, and were present in the war against the French. Further east, some Aro people moved towards the coast and set up their own confederacy in order to take advantage of the slave trade. While down south in Angola, there were the Mbangala, who would later form the Khasanji Kingdom.

But they were initially marauders and mercenaries. They would attack settlements, capture slaves, and according to some accounts, fill their ranks with captured kids. Plus there are reports of them cannibalising their victims, and forcing their new recruits to eat human meat. They therefore provided a far better slave trading partner for the Portuguese, rather than the nearby Kingdom of Congo. This is because the Congolese would often try to limit the number of slaves that the Portuguese exported, sometimes try to cut off trade altogether, and they even gave refuge to runaway slaves.

So some nations were keen traders while others were not. Plus like with the Islamic trade in East Africa, the Transatlantic slave trade made some people incredibly rich, and allowed some kingdoms to flourish. But it mainly created a state of lawlessness, as warfare was near constant, agriculture suffered as fields were left destroyed, and many young people of working or fighting age were taken from their homes to be sent to nearby kingdoms, or over to the middle east or the Americas. There was however one other major hub for slaves that I've not mentioned, and that's Madagascar, where over 5% of slaves in the Americas came from. But on Madagascar, The population there was completely different to the rest of Africa.

Obviously they were divided by the sea, but the original settlers didn't come from Africa at all. They came from Southeast Asia and were ethnically Austronesian. This means they had more in common with the Maori of New Zealand or the Hawaiians, rather than the Kenyans and Nigerians. They first came from across the Indian Ocean around 500AD, but soon afterwards, Muslim traders also began arriving, bringing their religion with them. Then, allegedly more Austronesians crossed the Indian Ocean a couple centuries later, followed in the 9th century by the Bantus who came from mainland Africa.

The English, French and Portuguese all tried to set up colonies on the island, but disease and pretty fierce locals meant they didn't survive longer than a couple of decades. But the French were able to establish bases on nearby islands like Réunion and Mauritius in the middle of the 1600s. As for the locals, they set up the Marina Kingdom. This kingdom would expand to take over most of the island, until the 19th century, when they were conquered by the French. But due to the numerous races that lived on the island, they would organise their society into a caste system of sorts.

At the top were the Marina people, the Highlanders. They were known as the Andriana, and as you'd expect, they filled the positions of power, and were seen as more Austronesian in appearance. Below them were other people who spoke the local language of Malagasy. but were absorbed into the kingdom later on. These were called the Hova and were the free commoners, while below them were the Andivo, slaves which were brought into the country in large numbers to work on the plantations.

They were bought from the French and Arabs primarily, who brought them from Mozambique and the East African coast. So similar to the United States, it was quite a racially based form of slavery, and according to a recent UN report, there was still a large amount of discrimination against this slave caste. Meanwhile, there were allegedly stranger colonies set up on Madagascar by pirates.

Although piracy is far more famous over in the Caribbean, many pirates in the 17th century began to terrorize the Indian Ocean. Captain Kidd, for instance, turned pirate after being tasked with trying to catch pirates off the coast of Madagascar, which was a great place for looting the treasures being brought back from India. One of the pirates who made a name for himself was Henry Every.

He captained a ship belonging to the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, which was a very important part of the British Empire. And this led to possibly the world's first ever manhunt. Pirates like Adam Baldrige set up bases around Madagascar, like on the island of St. Mary's. Plus there was a somewhat mythical colony called Libertatia, where pirates would go to war against oppressors and defend people's rights. However, many historians question whether or not it really existed.

As we enter the 18th century, there wasn't really a great deal of change in terms of colonization. For instance, during the Seven Years War, The British took French posts in Senegal. but they were given back to the French shortly afterwards. Most colonial efforts at this time were still focused on the Americas, which was far easier to settle in, or over in India, home to great riches and cities.

But Spain did enter Africa as they agreed to hand the Portuguese land in South America in return for Spanish Guinea, modern day Equatorial Guinea, but Spanish influence in Africa below the Sahara will largely just keep to this area. In the south, the Dutch settlers began to form their own unique culture, and these Boers, or Afrikaners, began to launch treks into the interior of South Africa. Over in London, the African Association was set up in the last years of the century, aimed at exploring the continent further.

They sent Mungo Park to Timbuktu, but by then, it was a shadow of its former self. Ever since the Moroccan invasions, the city had been left weakened, and it had been invaded by Tuareg tribes a couple of times. Plus, the increase in transatlantic slave trade meant that it had lost its strategic importance as a trading centre, as money began to move further towards the coast. This was a pretty recurring theme across the continent, as the 18th century saw the demise of many once powerful nations. The Kingdom of Congo for instance was stuck in a near endless fight for the throne, while over in Ethiopia, there was the Age of Princes, when the country was divided between various lords, and the Emperor had no real power.

This, in turn, led to various ethnic clashes, and, ultimately, the weakening of the empire. To the north of them, the old Christian Nubian states of Makuria had been defeated, but the new Muslim states of Darfur, Wadai, and Fung fought a number of wars against each other during the 18th century. Plus, they also faced droughts which lasted for years, the power of the monarchs began to erode, and Ethiopian raids plundered a great deal of wealth.

So, by the beginning of the 19th century, The Palace of Sanaa in the Funch Sultanate was essentially in ruin. Yet there was one peculiar state stuck among the Christians and Muslims in this area, the Chaluk Kingdom. Here their religion was based around their kings, and their capital was for Shoda, a place that would gain a great deal of fame during the scramble for Africa.

In the southeast, the Kingdom of Mutapa faced numerous civil wars and competing factions constantly called on the Portuguese for aid. The Portuguese were obviously willing to participate, and the kingdom just disintegrated in that century. But on the Portuguese, they were able to expand their holdings in Africa at the expense of kingdoms like Congo. However, Portugal itself was weakening, so they had very little direct rule over much of the land they took over. Otherwise, the Portuguese also aided in the rise of the Zulu Kingdom in nearby South Africa.

This is because they brought maize over from the Americas, and it had spread inland by the middle of the 18th century. This led to a huge increase in population in the region and spurred on the desire to seize arable land, which had dramatically increased in importance due to the crop. So the Zulu, along with other Bantu people, began to set up their own kingdoms in the decades following this. Over in the west of Africa, a number of palace coups weakened the Oyo Empire, and there was also the fall of the great Falu Empire to an altogether new threat, jihadists. These jihads began in the 1720s, and were largely launched by the Fula people, who today can be found in nearly every West African country.

They were inspired to launch jihads by the Tarodpi, a group of clerics whose origins are not altogether that clear. They had in fact began to launch jihads at the end of the 17th century, but they really became significant in the 18th, starting with Karamoko Alpha's conquest of Futa Jalan. They destroyed many sacred animist objects belonging to the locals, including a ceremonial drum. and made a great deal of money from selling the slaves onto the Europeans.

But, just like the Christians in Europe, they refused to sell Muslim slaves, and even banned the French from using the rivers in their kingdoms for transporting Muslim slaves. Their success in turn led to further Jihadist states being formed across West Africa, like Futotoro, which was founded in 1776 at the expense of the great Fulu empire. Then in the early 19th century, they took over Timbuktu.

and formed the Messina Empire. But their greatest state was probably the Sokoto Caliphate. This caliphate conquered the Hausa kingdoms and drove back the Bonu Empire, which was also largely Islamic. And this Sokoto Caliphate ruled over the region until the very early 20th century.

Plus, in the north, the 18th century was also a bit of a disaster for the Moroccans. Meanwhile, up in the north, the Moroccans, the people that once tried to create a huge West African empire, were also on the decline. Under Ismail ibn Sharif, the country's various tribes and ethnicities were brought under central control in the late 17th century, and he even managed to retake many Spanish towns in the region like Madia and Asila. Then to further weaken the Europeans he sponsored pirate attacks against them. But the various divisions were never fully bridged.

This is evidenced by the creation of the Black Guard, a personal guard made up entirely of sub-Saharan African slaves. They were seen as more loyal than any of the various people in Morocco and were tasked with collecting taxes, crushing rebellions and the likes. But when Ishmael died in 1727 The country began to unravel and descend into anarchy for the following decades.

Their neighbours to the east, the Ottomans, were also on the decline in the 18th century. Although their decline in Europe is more well known, they had been losing control of North Africa ever since the beginning of the 1700s. For instance, in Tripolitania, a Janissary named Ahmet Karamanlı murdered the Ottoman ruler of the region in 1711, and he took power for himself.

Towards the end of the century, a Turkish officer named Ali Pasha tried to restore Ottoman control through a coup of his own. But the Civil War of the 1790s saw the Karamanli dynasty re-establish their authority. The same thing happened in Tunis with Al Hussein Ibn Ali who took power in 1705, and in Algiers where Baba Ali Chok ousted the Ottoman officials. Plus, on Algiers, they started demanding higher tributes from the European powers, and when this was refused, they actually started wars against them.

So, long before the Barbary Wars of the 19th century, Babbagh declared war on the Dutch in 1715, and then in 1769, the Danes declared war on Algiers. The Algerians responded by enslaving the crew on a number of Danish ships, and refused to surrender despite the threat of the city being bombarded. And fortunately for them at least, many Danish soldiers died of typhoid during the conflict, meaning the Algerians defeated the Danes. The Spanish would then declare war in the 1770s to stop further Algerian raids. But despite having their cities heavily bombarded, the Algerians still refused to surrender and a poorly planned Spanish assault on Algiers was driven back.

So once again, the Algerians were successful. But their luck would eventually run out in a couple of decades, when the Americans under Thomas Jefferson, and also the British, would defeat them. And just at the end of the century further east still, Napoleon invaded Egypt. Although he was defeated and left the region, this set off a huge chain reaction which completely changed the course of African history.

This is because Egypt, although under Ottoman control, had been governed by the Mamluks for centuries. This was a military caste made up of slaves brought from the Caucasus, the Balkans and the likes. So the ruling elite of Egypt was a different ethnicity to the larger Arab population.

But now they had been defeated by Napoleon, which resulted in a power vacuum. Eventually a man who may well have been Albanian took over. He was Muhammad Ali and his dynasty would rule Egypt virtually independently of the Ottomans. But his dynasty would change the world.

They created their own empire, built the Suez Canal and fell into debt, which brought the British into the country and this led to the Martyrs Wars. So I'll look at the very beginnings of the scramble in the next episode and leave it here for now. At the end of the 18th century, where we have a power vacuum in Egypt, declining powers in all parts of the continent, Jihadist states in the west, slave trading kingdoms like Ashanti Dahomey in Madagascar, Arab rule in the east, and a collection of very small European colonies around the coast.

But then, although often ignored, the Napoleonic Wars and its aftermath brought about a number of changes in Africa. Notably, the British ended South Africa, the Americans defeated the Barbary states, and The British fought the Ashanti and the government took direct control of the West African colonies. Then the restored French monarchy invaded Algeria and probably most importantly, for many African kingdoms, slavery was abolished.

This meant the kingdoms that emerged in the 17th and 18th century, those that built their economy on the slave trade, were left economically crippled and this weakened the continent's major powers even further.

Transcript for:Understanding the Scramble for Africa

Transcript for:
Understanding the Scramble for Africa