Africa's Fate If Not For Slavery & Colonialism

Although the horrors of the Atlantic slave trade and European colonialism in Africa are generally well documented, scholars seem sharply divided as to the net effect of these twin phenomena on Africa’s trajectory–politically and socioeconomically–from roughly 1650 forward. Many political economists suggest that these phenomena stalled the coalescing forces that were slowly moving many nation-states toward proto-capitalist and possibly pluralistic societies. Indeed, some scholars–citing enormous demographic dislocations, long-term economic plundering, the establishment of arbitrary and often divisive borders, the lack of diversified economies, etc–go so far as to suggest that much of Africa might have resembled Europe today if not for this intervention.

Obviously, this is complex and speculative. That said, I’m interested in your thoughts on (a) the broad effects of the slave trade and colonialism on Africa today and (b) what Africa might have been like had the intervention not occurred; and © what the “developed world” can do to most effectively straighten out the mess. related to ©, let’s say you have $500 billion and your job is to get the biggest bang for the buck out of it–however you define it. How would you spend/invest the money in Africa?

I’d advise those scholars to learn some history. The occupation of Africa occurred in the mid-19th century. You’d have to postulate Africa was on the verge of one hell of an economic and political revolution in order to think it would be equal to Europe a century later.

As for slavery, its main influence in Africa was to make a number of African states richer and more powerful. What many people forget is that the African slave trade was run by a substantial number of Africans. Africans were the ones taking people from their villages, enslaving them, and bringing them to the coast to be sold to European, American, and Islamic slave traders.

Considering Africans blame many of their current problems on the last attempt Europeans made to “straighten out” the continent, I think it’s understandable that neither side has any real interest in starting anew.

I dunno. There were several regions of Africa that had societies as well developed as much of the Pacific Rim during the fifteenth century that might have succeeded in blossoming had the European interference followed the same path in both regions. (I do not believe that Africa was on the cusp of a technological breakthrough that would have let them achieve parity with Europe on their own by this date. However, the form of interference that the Europeans brought to Africa tended to destabilize the social order, meaning that even if they simply adopted European technology, they had no way to emulate Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, or Thailand.)

While slavery existed in Africa, the market for slaves that was created in the Americas changed the whole nature of slavery, making it much more socially destructive. (Much as a North American desire for drugs has interfered with late 20th Century development in South America.)

I’m poking through Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel right now (thanks for the recommendation, TMs), and he makes a pretty convincing case for the fact that sub-Saharan Africa is pretty much a loser when it comes to single-handedly being able to assemble the things needed to create a technological society.

For example, while it is rich in natural resources, sub-Saharan Africa was extremely poor in native domesticable animals, and rich in native diseases which hinder the introduction of domesticable animals and vegetables. It is only fairly recently that those obstacles have been reasonably well overcome.

However, I haven’t finished the book, so perhaps someone else can help fill in the rest.

Some scholars convincingly argue that the Francophone countries benefitted more from colonial rule than their counterparts in the formerly Britain, Portugal and especially Germany and Belgium countries.

I’ll also concede that not all nation-states can or should adopt the western model of development. Chinua Achebe and other African writers cover this well.

Ideas on the $500 billion???

Africa was never in a position to EVER evolve along the lines of Europe, for ths simple reason that most of the continent was full of primative, tribal-based societies. It took CENTURIES for the modern nation-state to evolve in Europe, and Africa never the the opportunity to do so. Some other factors:
-the continent has few rivers that traverse large areas of habitation, so communications and trade are difficult
-most of the interior was in a stone-age level of development, into the 19th century
-tropical diseases and short life apans meant that education was never a priority.
I do not mean to suggest that certain African countries did not attain a high level of culture-Algeria and Morocco certainly had flourishing civilizations in the days of the caliphate. However, sub-saharan Africa NEVER would have developed, for the reasons given.If you look at europe, and reaize how long it was from the fall of Rome (ca 500AD)to the rise of modern France (around 1400 AD), one can see that the evolution of societies takes aLONG time!

Buddy, Ghana was a very well developed society at the time Europe was in the Dark Ages.

buddy1: Hmmm…I think I’m going to have to disagree. Most of Europe started out with primitive, tribal-based societies, after all :smiley: .

First of all, let’s keep in mind that ALL cultures are subject to a certain amount of cultural diffusion. The Sumerians influenced the Egyptians, who influenced the Assyrians, etc ad nauseum.

In that light it is not surprising that a number of thriving West African states rose up as trading partners both with their neighbors ( to some extent ) and more importantly with those North African cultures you mentioned. Ghana, Mali ( with the famed capital at Timbuktu ), and Songhai all arose as centers of Trans-Saharan trade ( gold and Salt, most particularly ). They certainly were as sophisticated in many senses as any of their medieval contemporaries. It helped that they developed above the sleeping sickness belt, so large, armored calvary armies were possible.

The diffusion of Islam was a great organizer - the Funj state in what is today Sudan, the large empire of Kanem-Bornu in the vicinity of Chad, Adal, Darfur. The later Fulani dominated states of Futa Tora, Futa Jallon, Masina, the Sultanate of Sokoto. Samori’s mobile Dyula state. Then there was the slightly anomolous coastal/island state of Zanzibar, Arab dominated, Swahili populated, which thrived on Indian Ocean trade. And of course there were the very long-standing Christian states in the East - Ethiopia and ( for a while ), the kingdoms in Nubia.

Other more-or-less centralized states coalesced in such naturally prosperous areas as Zimbabwe ( the Shona state, with some impressive stone ruins ), the Great Lakes region ( Buganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Karagwe, et all ), Katanga ( Lunda, Luba ), etc.

A number of states formed ( or at least thrived ) as suppliers for the Europeans in terms of slaves ( Asante ) and Ivory ( Chokwe ).

The question of whether any of these myriad ( and there are many more than I listed ) states would have become similar to European/Asian nations seems clear to me. Of course they would have, given time. Just like “primitive, tribal” Ireland would have eventually become more centralized in the Middle Ages, given time. The example of the Trans-Saharan Empires certainly seems to lend credence to that. Unfortunately Diamond probably has a point ( and so do you :wink: ), in that they were likely always going to lag due to some accidents of geography. And of course that lagging proved their immense misfortune.

As to whether Europeans had an impact on this process - Well, clearly they did. Both “positive” ( i.e. a new market that helped build states such as Asante ) and far more profoundly in the negative, both in early contact ( the depopulation of the Kingdom of Kongo for the Portuguese slave trade, which snuffed that entire state ), and later ( I’d say conquering virtually the whole continent sort of arrested development everywhere :wink: ). It is likely if the “Scramble for Africa” had not been precipitated ( and I don’t think it was entirely inevitable, at least in terms of completeness and speed ), I think we would have seen certain states persisting into the modern era like Ethiopia - Asante and Zanzibar for two. And perhaps they would have done a better job of ushering their regions into the twentieth ands twenty-first centuries.Which would happen, because cultural diffusion has always been an unstoppable reality, but now it is a vastly more accelerated process.

  • Tamerlane

Isn’t part of the current problem that the borders of Africa are very artificial - defined by how far an English or German explorer made it through the jungle? So, in places like Tanzania, with 180 tribes, some sort of coherency in government just doesn’t work?

Tanzania is a good example of how throwing money at a problem in Africa just doesn’t necessarily help. Tanzania is dirt poor, receives enormous amounts of money from the World Bank, the US, and Scandanavia. No one seems to know where this money goes…

One point about the artificiality of Africa’s borders. In many ways Europe’s borders are just as artificial, except they were imposed by a few centuries earlier. For instance, France. France exists because the Parisian monarchs conquered the others. And the linguistic diversity of France has been largely smothered by Parisian dialect. The only reason we call Norwegian, Danish and Swedish different languages is because they are independent countries. But France and Italy also have mutually almost incomprehenible dialects.

Perhaps in a century or two Africa countries will have more unity, or perhaps not. But ethnic unity is often caused by political unity rather than the other way around.

I thought I would second the observation on the artificiality of all borders. Note, for example, that the French central government pursued an aggressive policy of stomping out the regional dialects and any non-Frenchness as defined in Paris. Nation building. You’ll find the same history in Germany, etc.

My sense of what presents the most serious problem for African borders is lack of digesting the borders insofar as they are consciously seen as having been imposed from “outside.” Insofar as the conquest and border making came from an “outside” third power now more or less absent (the colonial power) the communities, sometimes transnational, have a hard time swallowing living with sometimes traditional enemies. Neither side feel defeated, constant struggle. On the other hand, national identities have sprung up too, so you’ve no clear anchor. A vast generalization for the continent.

One added note, I’m not sure that I would say Tanzania recieves enormous amounts of money from the US or the World Bank. Of course corruption is a horrible problem, but more on such things later.

Now in general, an interesting question. Even speculation is difficult.

First, let?s pack away the idiocies. Despite the ignorant intervention, as Tamerlane ably noted Africa indeed knew state societies of great complexity and duration. I advise the poster to go and consult the stodgy but emminently reliable Cambridge History of Africa to relieve himself of modicum of his ignorance.

So what do we have?

Okay, our hypothetical presents a scenario with no European slave trade and no European colonialism. Let?s limit ourselves to this.

There remains then the trans-Saharan slave trade, to North Africa and to the classic Middle East, with points of origin in West Africa and in East Africa, as well as Central Africa (Sudan area). I believe figures are harder to come by than for the Atlantic trade, but I think estimates have suggested they were substantial. This is still going to present an issue, although perhaps not as bad given the long term decline of the Islamic world and thus its buying power.

Returning to the basics, I have to agree that in terms of ability to support in the long run dense populations, sub-Saharan Africa is not well placed. Diamond I think correctly identifies a one-two punch of small number of domesticates combined with a fearsome disease regime, both for animals and for people.

Let?s add that much of the continent to my understanding is underlain by very poor soils which exhaust quickly. Exceptions, as I recall dimly from a geography class a long time ago are in the Niger river basin and South Africa. I think Ethiopia too come to think of it, but let me not get bogged down, and just say poor, fragile soils are widespread, limiting potential for long term, dense populations. Precisely the requirements for what? Technological advances.

It strikes me that we see a platforming effect, for example in West African history where the medieval states never congealed after a certain point, I hypothesize due to climactic/soil/disease constraints on population densities. Given wealth was available through trade with the Islamic world, and to a certain extent access to medieval sciences --although I read once that this was somewhat limited due to some theological developments I frankly didn?t follow? their platforming strikes me as likely to be related to natural constraints since both the states and possibly even metal technology had been independently developed so we have no reason to presume the societies were not capable of at least some innovation.

Next choice is the wetter zones. They seem to present a later development. Probably like Northern Europe, penetrating the forest and creating dense societies was hard before metal working became common. My guess there. Still I read in the past that especially the lower end of the Niger river, in lower modern Nigeria, a bunch of fairly stable and advanced states sprang up. The would be the folks who later get whacked by slaving.

Without an Atlantic slave trade I suppose we can imagine a somewhat different trading relationship growing up between the African coastal kingdoms and the Europeans. Certainly without large scale black slavery spring up, European African relations would probably not have taken the nasty turn towards really nasty racism that they did in the 18th century. Maybe states such as Angola, with its Portoguese speaking aristocracy, and others like it, would have developed more stable relationships. Still, there is the problem of labor and soil. Without beasts of burden ? imported ones of course die from trypso and acclimatized ones are stunted ? you have to depend on people for everything. Significantly limits your work output in the long run. Add in fragile soils and disease making high pop densities hard to sustain in the long run …

It?s hard to see how colonialism can be written out of the picture, however. On the other hand, removing large scale black slavery from the Atlantic world relations might have ended up with a form of colonialism more like that which penetrated Asia and which ended up, in my estimation, being marginally more respectful of local culture (i.e. less of the attitude shown by a certain ignorant poster here) and thus less damaging. (I should add that I regard the estimation that French colonialism to have been better than English to be utterly unfounded. I recall someone saying to me once, when I made a similar comment, ?then why did all the refugee movements go the other way,? alluding to the fact population movements tended to be towards British territories. As I was told, while the French had some lovely language, some attractive laws on the books, reality was they taxed more, were extremely brutal in putting down revolts, showed less respect for local institutions and generally were more disruptive than the British, whose model of indirect rule ended up being lighter, although this is all a question of marginal differnces.)

I have to say the analysis depends on how one hypothesizes Africa?s or better a particular region?s relations with the outside world would go. On its own, I think environmental constraints would deprive any given society of the critical mass and long-term relative stability (above all ecological) to achieve an industrial revolution like Europe, just to take that as a bench mark. Without a certain critical mass, I think the socio-economic transformation which occured in Western Europe through the 18th and 19th century, helping replace rentier governments with more productive societies, is impossible to achieve.

On the other hand, it strikes me that up to a certain point it is clear things would have been better or at least more positive opportunities would present themselves. It would be a mistake to regard history as too mechanistic. In my view there is always a degree of luck, both at a individual actor level and at a society level.

I believe the best we can do without engaging (and I have nothing against this) more specific what-if scenarios is that the menu of choices would have been better and thus the parameters of development somewhat to quite a bit better. Of course, nothing would be guaranteed.

Who can deny that the Europeans “raped” the African?

Nobody knows for sure, but if Africa had kept its OWN culture, maybe Africa would be making loans to the United States.

Who can deny that the Europeans “raped” the African?

Nobody knows for sure, but if Africa had kept its OWN culture, maybe Africa would be making loans to the United States.

Who can deny that the Europeans “raped” the African?

Nobody knows for sure, but if Africa had kept its OWN culture, maybe Africa would be making loans to the United States.

sjgouldrocks, I suspect you should take the time to read several of the preceding posts. As the quoted Jared Diamond has pointed out (and with additional points raised by different posters), pre-European sub-Saharan Africa suffered from a lack of arable soil and domesticated animals. In addition, the jungles of the Congo basin and deserts of the Sahara and Kalahari constrain transportation (even today).

Different scenarios might include:

  • Europe never experiences the technological revolutions of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and the Ghana/Nigeria and Ethiopian regions develop along feudal European lines (until overwhelmed by some Asian visitors);

  • Europe treats Africa more in the manner that it treated Asia (in ways to which Col and I each alluded) so that European technology (and, to a certain extent, organization) are imposed on various African regions which then rebound from the colonial period with a jump start on achieving parity;

  • China does not retrench in the fifteenth century and Ethiopia, Madagascar, and what is now South Africa respond to Chinese intervention in ways that lead to the development of a unique Sino-African culture;

  • others?

In none of these cases does Africa with the technology and physical resources available to it in the fifteenth century establish itself as a rival for world dominance with either Europe/North America or with China by the late 20th century. It is not a matter of whether the African people could accomplish anything, it is a matter of how much anyone could accomplish from the level they were at with the resources available.

Yeah, and JAPAN has lots of arable land.

:rolleyes:

The reasons for genocide in Rwanda, starvation in Ethiopia, Apartheid in South Africa, or civil war in the Congo is because slavery and colonialism shredded the very fabric which held African societies together.

Cecil had a pretty good column relating to this subject (although it deals more directly with European development).

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a970620.html

Myself, I’d like to go back in time and give M16’s to the Native Americans and Huey attack choppers to poor African villagers. Then we’d see some shit!

Gee. Let’s see if you can actually develop that thought.

No one has disputed that the current disasters in Africa are related to the European intrusions. The point of the discussion was what might Africa have done had European powers (and their American descendant societies) not torn up Africa.

Your contribution has, so far, been a simple(minded) claim that they “might” have been a world power. Are you capable of describing how that might have happened?

You are aware, of course, that by the fifteenth century, Japan (with years of contact with China) had established a solid agricultural base, strongly supported by fishing, along with metalworking, a feudal government (with several ventures into a central administration), a written language, and a number of other factors (e.g., domesticated animals) that made their nineteenth century leap into the “modern” world much easier? Which African societies matched Japan at that level of technological and societal development at that time?

No one has claimed that Africa was not oppressed. No one has claimed that Africa has some inherent reason for not developing at the same rate as other places. The historical accident, however, is that when the Europeans arrived, only a very few African nation-states could meet them as near-equals, and none as equals.
Instead of throwing out hostile one-liners, why don’t you try participating (i,e., actually studying the issues under discussion and bringing genuine infornmation to the board)? Your little snippets of opinion voiced against strawmen really are not worth much, I’m afraid.

For example, how, in your opinion, would a large continent with a very low population density (the vast majority of which was neolithic), very few nation states, a dearth of domesticable animals, and a host of other issues have simply jumped into the “modern world” and established dominance? What would have been the impetus? What would have been the method? If you have no answers to these sort of questions, your appropriate place in this discussion is on the sidelines.

sjgouldrocks: Well actually, Japan did ( and does ) have a few areas of very arable land - the Kanto Plain, most noticeably. It’s no surprise that political power concentrated in those areas, with the Kanto eventually becoming the most important region ( Edo/Tokyo is at the northern end of that plain ).

More importantly Japan had the agricultural techniques necessary to make full use of those areas and the food plant, rice, that provided an extremely nutritional/productive bang for the buck crop.

Where did they get these things? China, their “next-door neighbor”, which was the most advanced nation in the world right up until the late 18th century. In fact Japan, like most of East Asia was enormously influenced by China in almost every respect. As a result it was a very advanced culture in a number of respects even after its self-enforced isolation ( which was never total ) in the Toukugawa era.
Also Japan had the good fortune to be an island, so it was seldom threatened seriously by outside invasion ( although they were paranoid about it and were challenged a couple of times ), but at the same time was close enough to mainland Asia to benefit from developments there. Also it had a strongly ingrained military culture owing first to a slow, steady expansion northwards in the island chain, then to the moutainous terrain that made division and feudalism so easy to take root ( but at the same time they had the Chinese model of a centralized state that they were inspired to emulate, so that no new “statelets” budded off - rather all factions strove for central control ).

Africa did not have the advantage of proximity to China. It didn’t have proximity to anything. The most advanced areas were states along the Niger that traded with North Africa across the Sahara, or the Arab-dominated eastern coast that was part of the Indian Ocean trading network, or the Christian states that ranged south of Egypt along the Nile and were also close to the trading region of southwest Arabia.

When I said earlier that Africa would have eventually, given time, matured to resemble Europe/Asia, I was serious. But I was talking about after the advent of increased trade and contact with Europe/Asia in the context of little or no slave trade. tomndeb mentioned a few very interesting speculative possibilities earlier. The other possibility I alluded to, is that everything happened as it did historically, except the late-19th century ‘Scramble for Africa’ never takes off in quite the manner it did, allowing substantial parts of the continent to retain a native polity ( as with Ethiopia ), albeit probably mostly under the thumb of paternalistic colonial powers ( i.e. like Thailand under the British ). What difference this might have made, I don’t know. But it might have made some.

To repeat myself, ALL cultures ( even China, witness Buddhism ) are subject to, and advance synergistically with, contact with outside cultures. Africa’s misfortune was to the most geographically isolated of the continents because of the enormous desert, jungle, and disease belts. Plus they had other disadvantages, already cited, that served to stymie, or at least slow, purely internal development in the manner of Europe/Asia. It is NOT an accident that China ended up where they were ( it is probably is an accident they ended up where they are ). The odds that Africa might have developed along China’s lines ( or Japan’s ), pre- modern penetration of the continent, are so close to nil as to essentially make no difference.

  • Tamerlane

To state the obvious, Africa is huge. We’re so focused on the history of that little peninsula Europe that we tend to forget that on the larger continents, the populations were not quite so homogeneous.

The stereotype of African societies only fits some of those societies. The Congo, for instance, had a complex society, with a sophisticated legal and government structure.

There were not technologically advanced, but then that’s only one way to measure a society’s evolution. But their complex society began to collapse shortly after contact with the Portuguese. The slave trade and weapons trade decimated Congolese society. By the time of the Belgian takeover centuries later, there was nothing left of the former kingdom.

If history had played itself out differently, the Congo culture could’ve died out anyway. But to suggest that it could never have evolved into a society like ours is, to my mind, simply wrong.