Chapter 44 : White Expansion - Voyages of Discovery and Settlement When the White explorations of Africa, North America, Australia, New Zealand, Central and South America, India, China and Japan, are reviewed by most historians, very often the most important factor which gave rise to this era is deliberately ignored: the staggering disparity in technology between the White explorers and the native peoples is the only reason why it was the Whites who explored and colonized the rest of the world, and not the other way round. That this is so will come as no surprise to readers of this book: already the examples of the Hunnish, Mongol, and Turkish invasions of Europe have been reviewed: the only reason why these non-White races managed to overwhelm the Whites in those examples was because they were simply stronger than the Whites they encountered. This principle of "might being right", has in fact governed all great historical events, and applies equally to the period of White exploration and settlement of the rest of the world, with the only addition to this rule being that the numbers of Whites needed to accomplish this task was not quite so large, due to the massive technological superiority which Europe had built up. Technology: Superiority and Inferiority The issue of technological superiority, or on its flip side, inferiority, is therefore crucial to understanding not only the events of the era of White exploration, but also to understanding the attitudes of those undertaking the exploration and conquests: without such an understanding (deliberately ignored in most historical works) the whole era of exploration seems pointless and disjointed, both of which it was not. Africa - Massively technologically inferior - only saw THE WHEEL IN 1871 In Africa, despite the earlier contact the Blacks had had with the original White Egyptians, and then later the mixed race Arabic/Semitic nations (who had sent slave hunting expeditions far south into Africa), the vast majority of Black tribes were massively technologically inferior to the Whites at the time of the exploration of that continent. Although some Black tribes in Africa had formal settlements with huts made of mud and sticks, the basic invention upon which virtually all significant development had been made, the wheel, was unknown amongst the Blacks when the first Whites stepped ashore in central Africa in the late 1400s. In the diary of the English explorer Livingstone, for example, mention is made of an entire Black village of thousands in what is today the Congo, turning out to view his wheeled cart - as they had never seen a wheel before - this in 1871.
The absence of the wheel serves as a potent symbol of just how technologically backwards Africa was: the wheel had been in existence since the very earliest Stone Age era in Europe and the Middle East: yet it was unknown in Africa before 1500 AD, only some 500 years ago. This disparity is made more dramatic (and meaningful) if it is borne in mind that the Black Nubians had been exposed to the wheel through their contact with the White Egyptians starting around the year 3000 BC: however, even this basic technology was not transmitted through the rest of the African continent in any form whatsoever. In fact, whatever technological advances there were in Africa all came from the outside: most in existence at the time of the White exploration had come to Africa through the even earlier explorations carried out by Arabic nations. Black Africa was also totally illiterate - again despite being exposed to White Egyptian and later Arabic literacy; even the written Black languages of today were only first captured on paper by White explorers, who attempted to put White rules of grammar and pronunciation into these languages. This was a difficult enough task by itself, but then the Whites had to invent African sounding words for concepts foreign to Africans: for example there was no word for "wheel" in any of the African languages. The clothes which today are often incorrectly regarded as "ethnic" African wear - loose fitting, colorful dresses, shirts and headgear - are of course not African at all, as the original Africans possessed no such material creation skills. These clothes come exclusively from Arabic and European sources. The only original "ethnic" African wear consisted of basic loincloths made from untreated animal skins. So it was that when the Whites arrived in Africa, they were confronted with peoples who seemed (and indeed were, in real terms) massively technologically inferior. It is little wonder then that attitudes of the time were shaped by a sense of White superiority - and without understanding this mindset, the whole pattern of colonial history becomes incomprehensible and meaningless. Australian ABORIGINES - MOST UNDERDEVELOPED TRIBE ON EARTH In Australia, much the same conditions as in Africa applied: in fact, the Aborigines were the only people on earth never to have made the connection between the sexual act and childbirth. As for the non-White tribes living in the islands to the north of Australia, it is enough said that even today there are primitive headhunting and cannibalistic tribes still living in virtually exactly the same conditions as they had before the arrival of the Whites. INDIA - RELATIVELY ADVANCED In India, the situation was somewhat different: the existence of a native Indian culture and the previous establishment of the Aryan civilization had left a legacy of a fairly advanced continent - certainly far more advanced than Africa or Australia - and as a result the feelings of White superiority amongst White explorers on this continent were not as marked as they were in Africa or Australia. SOUTH AND CENTRAL AMERICA In South and Central America, the Whites encountered the Inca and Aztec peoples who had, despite being under virtually identical environmental conditions as those pertaining in Africa, produced an advanced civilization utterly superior to anything produced in Africa; this disparity being one of the most powerful counterarguments to the "environmental" theory of the development of civilizations. The Amerinds of South and Central America produced great buildings, images, statues and artifacts which are still wonders to this day and which thoroughly impressed the White explorers who first set eyes on this culture. Although this civilization was at least partly due to ancient White influence, as outlined in chapter six, it would be incorrect to assume that the Indians had created nothing of their own. Yet, underlying this culture were aspects which the White explorers could not explain and some of which they found highly disturbing: the existence of cannibalism as an accepted part of the religious rituals in these societies filled the White explorers with shock, while the absence of the wheel from these civilizations has never been satisfactorily explained (how they built cities without wheeled vehicles is a wonder all to itself). They had however advanced societal structures, including a basic literacy, but in terms of other forms of technology they were at a huge disadvantage when dealing with the White newcomers. Other South and Central American tribes were however as primitive as anything else found in Africa or Australia. North America - Cannibalism and Scalping Shocks Europeans In North America, the Amerinds were less developed than their racial cousins in South and Central America, and also suffered from distinct technological backwardness, including the absence of the wheel. In addition to this, the practice of scalping, or taking the skin off the top of their enemies' heads, often while still alive, was a practice which the White settlers in North America found particularly shocking, and helped to create a definite opinion amongst these early settlers that the North American Amerinds were culturally inferior as well. The Far East The Chinese and Japanese were another two non-White nations encountered by the White explorers who possessed an advanced civilization, and who in terms of literacy and culture, were in some cases the equivalent of White culture. Once again, although there is significant evidence to show ancient White influence in these regions, it would be incorrect to assume that the Chinese and Japanese had not created any civilization of their own. However, the technological advantage held by the Whites still placed them in a position of superiority over the Chinese and Japanese - at least for as long as it took for these people to copy and duplicate these technologies. For these reasons, the sense of superiority which Whites had developed after their contacts with other races in different parts of the globe, was almost reversed in China and Japan. From the very first White contact with the Chinese, that of the northern Italian Marco Polo, the Chinese were always held in high esteem, and it is therefore no co-incidence that the only lands which the Whites never tried to fully colonize were China and Japan: two superb examples of the might is right principle at work once again. CHARLES SAVAGE DEMONSTRATES WHITE TECHNOLOGICAL SUPERIORITY In other parts of the world, the superior White technological advantage is nowhere better illustrated than in the case of the lone White Englishman, Charles Savage, who quite literally single handed destroyed the native population's power structure on the island of Fiji. In 1808, Charles Savage sailed up a river in Fiji in a canoe to the village of Kasavu, halting less than a pistol shot's distance from the village fence. Firing away at the villagers, Savage's victims became so numerous that surviving villagers piled up the bodies to take shelter behind them, and the stream beside the village was red with blood. The hundreds of villagers were helpless against one White man and his gun: the after effects on the power balance on the island were astonishing. (Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond, Jonathan Cape, 1997). Such exploits are legion: those undertaking them could not have thought anything else than that they were superior to the peoples they were conquering; and indeed, in straight technological terms, they were. The Cause of the Disparity It is an indisputable fact that at the time of the voyages of exploration, the White race held a massive advantage in the technological field over all other races on earth. It is more of a socio-political minefield to establish the reason why the Whites had this advantage and the other races did not. Many reasons have been advanced in an attempt to explain the technological gap: all of them have relied on the "environmental" argument, to wit, that the Whites developed their technological advantages because of any number of factors in their "environment", be they the temperature, the presence of domestic animals or proximity to the sea or rivers. The environmental argument however collapses when inspected closely: quite apart from the fact that advanced White civilizations flourished independently in every conceivable environmental circumstance (which includes the entire range from the frozen lands of the far north right through to the deserts of Egypt); when all factors are equated (the absence or presence of domestic animals, proximity of rivers or the sea and so on) the harsh reality is that the Whites inhabited no better "environments" than many of the other races of the world. Indeed, if a suitable environment were the only determining factor, then some of the richest land in the world, in terms of arable land, rainfall and mineral wealth, lies in south-central Africa, in the Congo River basin. Yet no significant civilization emerged there until the arrival of White, and specifically Belgian, colonists - and then collapsed once the White colonists left in the mid-20th Century. The reason for these disparities is also crucial to an understanding of racial dynamics: each civilization is a reflection of the people who make up that society, and this rule remains as true for Whites as it does for any other race. The White technological advantage was a reflection of the nature of White society; and the lack of technology in other societies is a reflection of the nature of those original societies. There simply is no other explanation, as unpopular as this conclusion may be. It is against these backgrounds of staggering disparities in terms of technology and level of civilization - almost incomprehensible to the modern mind - therefore, that the White voyages of discovery must be considered. The First White Explorer
The first great White explorer of foreign lands was the (German Lombard) Venetian Marco Polo, who accompanied his father and uncle, two merchants, on their trading missions to Peking in China, arriving there in 1275 for the first time. Although Polo senior was the original expedition leader, his son was the one to gain the fame as it was he who wrote down accounts of what he had seen and who popularized the images of a faraway rich land. The Polos impressed the Chinese Emperor of the time, one Kublai Khan, and were almost immediately given posts in the Chinese government, remaining eventually 17 years in China before returning home to Venice. Marco Polo's accounts of China were received incredulously in Europe: his description of coal being used for heating in China was soon adopted, as was the use of wheat to create pasta, a dish which became so popular in Italy that it is long forgotten that the dish originated in China. Polo helped to create the image of the Far East as a land of riches, and for centuries thereafter some of the greatest minds of Europe were put to work trying to reach shorter ways to China than the overland trek, which could last years in a round trip. Prince Henry the Navigator A Portuguese prince, Henry the Navigator, was the first member of the European nobility to realize the potential of exploration. Although he personally did not undertake any major explorations, he made it financially possible for others to do so by in 1418, setting up a naval center at Sagres. During the next 80 years, Portuguese seamen discovered the Azores, Cape Verde, and the Madeira Islands, and pushed south along the African shore. In 1444, they reached Cape Verde. Bartholomew Diaz In 1488, an explorer name Bartholomew Diaz sailed even further down the African coast than ever before: great was his and his crew's shock when they were caught in a storm and blown south for 13 days. When the storm cleared Diaz turned east again, hoping to quickly find the coast: after a few days he had found none. Suspecting that he had now sailed south past Africa, he turned due north, and within a short while sighted land: the first time that European eyes set sight on the coast of South Africa. Going ashore he erected a cross, the first White structure in Africa south of the equator. Diaz was tempted to push on further east: his crew however threatened him with mutiny, and the mission returned to Portugal, where news of their discovery of the end of Africa served to confirm the belief that it was possible to sail to the East. Because of the promise this discovery held, the tip of Africa was named by the King of Portugal as the "Cape of Good Hope." Christopher Columbus The most famous explorer of all was Christopher Columbus, a Genoan by birth but by race another direct descendant of the Germanic Lombards: his son described his father so: " . . . a well built man of more than medium stature. . . . he had an aquiline nose and his eyes were light in color; his complexion was too light, but kindling to a vivid red. In his youth his hair was blond, but when he came to his thirtieth year it all turned white." (Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus, S.E. Morrison, Little, Brown & Co, Boston, 1942, p. 62). At first Columbus tried to get the Portuguese to finance an expedition to the west, arguing that because the world was round, it would be possible to reach the east by sailing west without having to go round Africa, as the Portuguese were trying to do. The Portuguese were unconvinced, and with Diaz's success still ringing in their ears, they showed Columbus the door. The Spanish, having just finished throwing the Moors and Jews out of their country, then turned their attention to exploration. Columbus presented his proposal to Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand in 1492. Isabella in particular was taken with the idea: she agreed to fund the expedition. In August 1492, Columbus sailed with three small ships, landing on 12 October 1492, on Watling Island in the Bahamas. After then discovering Cuba and Hispaniola, he returned to Spain in 1493, where he was made an admiral and governor of the lands he had discovered. In October 1493, he left on a second expedition with 17 ships, planning to set up trading posts and colonies and carrying hundreds of colonists. This expedition discovered Puerto Rico, Jamaica, the Virgin islands and some of the Lesser Antilles.
On his third voyage in 1498, Columbus finally sighted the South American mainland and also discovered Trinidad. His fourth and last voyage, in 1502, came upon the Central American coast at Honduras, he followed it to present day Panama before returning. Discontent with the conditions he imposed upon the colonists led to a near revolt and he was relieved of his governorship: he died in 1506, in poverty and virtually forgotten in his time. Thus although Columbus is widely credited with having discovered "America", he in fact never came near what later became North America. He himself also refused to believe that he had discovered anything but the Far East for which he had originally been looking. Pedro Cabral CLAIMS BRAZIL FOR PORTUGAL The Portuguese explorer, Pedro Cabral, sailed to South America in 1500, where he claimed the coast of Brazil for his country, establishing the basis for what was to become, geographically speaking, the largest country in South America. Vasco Da Gama - FIRST WHITE MAN TO SAIL ROUND AFRICA With the realization that Columbus had not found the Far East after all, but unsure whether the Spanish would find a way via the Americas, the Portuguese renewed their expeditions south. In 1497, the Portuguese explorer, Vasco da Gama, set sail, swinging far out into the South Atlantic before cutting back towards Africa, rounding that continent and finally landing in Calicut, India in 1498.
In India he was received incredulously: trading for spices and precious stones, he returned home, the profits from that single journey helping to establish Portugal as a major power of the age of exploration. Within the next two decades, Portuguese expeditions reached the Moluccas and the Canton River in China. ITALIAN JOHN CABOT EXPLORES AMERICAS FOR THE ENGLISH The Italian explorer, Giovanni Caboto, using his Anglicized name of John Cabot, was entrusted by the English King, Henry VII, to explore the Americas on behalf of the English crown. Sailing due west instead of following the major transatlantic current, Caboto was the first White to set foot on the North American continent since the Vikings, landing in the lands now known as Nova Scotia and New England in 1497. When he landed, he set up both the English and Venetian flags. AMERICA NAMED AFTER ITALIAN EXPLORER AMERIGO VESPUCCI Amerigo Vespucci was yet another northern Italian who found ready employment in the Spanish court. Suspecting that Columbus' discovery was in fact not Asia, but a new world by itself, he explored the coast of South America in two voyages, from 1499 to 1500, and from 1501 to 1502, announcing his findings at the time. In his honor, a 1507 European mapmaker named the new lands "America." Few people have had nations named after them, and only Amerigo Vespucci gave his name to a continent. SPANISH EXPLORER Vasco de Balbao - FIRST EUROPEAN TO SEE PACIFIC Another Spanish expedition in 1513, led by Vasco de Balbao, saw a group of 190 men land in modern day Panama, and after a short march, climbed a hill on 25 September 1513 to see the Pacific Ocean: the first time confirmation was sent back to Europe that there was yet another sea to be explored. Ferdinand Magellan ROUNDS SOUTH AMERICA The Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan was then employed by the Spanish to further explore the Americas. In 1519, Magellan sailed up the mouth of the Rio de la Plata; by November of the following year he had rounded the southernmost part of South America passing through the straits that still carry his name.
In 1521, Magellan reached the Philippines, where the first major violent clash occurred: as they were landing, the Whites were attacked by natives: Magellan was killed. In 1522 the only remaining ship of Magellan's original fleet of five sailed back to Spain, the first ship in the world to circumnavigate the globe. Francis Drake - FIRST ENGLISHMAN TO CIRCUMNAVIGATE THE EARTH The English Admiral Francis Drake then copied Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe in a three year long expedition from 1577 to 1580, stopping off on the way to attack and capture a fortune in booty from Spanish settlements along the South American Pacific coasts. ENGLISHMAN Henry Hudson EXPLORES NORTH AMERICA, DIES IN MUTINY In 1609, the English explorer, in the employ of the Dutch, explored the Hudson River. He then sailed into what became known as Hudson Bay in Canada in a further expedition in 1610, this time financed by the British. This second expedition ended in personal disaster: after a bitter winter he was set adrift in 1611 by a mutinous crew and left to die. FRENCHMAN Jacques Cartier EXPLORES CANADA In 1534, the French explorer Jacques Cartier discovered the St. Lawrence River and in 1535, he explored that river as far as Mont Royal, which he named. His reports sent back to France were that North America was inhospitable: many potential settlers were discouraged by his pessimistic interpretations. Cartier's discoveries were followed up by further explorations by fellow Frenchmen, Samuel de Champlain, who founded Quebec and explored the Great Lakes region; and Rene Le Salle, who explored the Mississippi river right down to the Gulf of Mexico by 1681. Willem Jansz AND OTHER DUTCH EXPLORERS IN ASIA The Dutch were quick to follow up on the Portuguese discovery of the sea route to India round the Cape, and by 1600, several Dutch trading posts had been set up in Asia, mainly in Indonesia. Working from these trading centers, the Dutch were the first Whites to discover Australia. In 1606 the Hollander Willem Jansz sailed into Torres Strait, between the Australian mainland and New Guinea. (The strait was later named for a Spanish explorer, Luis Vaez de Torres, who sailed into the same area in the same year and determined that New Guinea was an island.) HOLLANDER Dirk Hartog - FIRST WHITE IN AUSTRALIA In 1616, the Dutch sailor Dirk Hartog followed a new southern route across the Indian Ocean to Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia). Winds blew his ship, the Eendracht, too far to the east and Hartog landed on an offshore island of Western Australia, becoming the first known White to set foot on Australian soil. Before sailing north to Batavia, he left a pewter plate on the island inscribed with a record of his visit. Abel Tasman DISCOVERS TASMANIA Encouraged by Jansz's voyages, Dutch governors-general at Batavia commissioned expeditions into the southern oceans. The most successful was that of Abel Tasman, who in 1642, moved into the waters of Southern Australia, discovering the island now known as Tasmania. Tasman then sailed farther east and north to explore New Zealand in 1642. James Cook EXPLORES AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND, BUT IS KILLED BY NATIVES In 1768, the Englishman Captain James Cook set off on a three year voyage to the Pacific that also took him to Australia. Cook landed at Botany Bay on the eastern coast, explored and mapped the region and named it New South Wales. Two additional voyages in the 1770s, added information on the Australian landmass and in 1769, Cook visited New Zealand and claimed possession of them for Britain. Before he could return to Europe, Cook was killed in a surprise attack by non-White tribesmen on a beach in the Hawaiian islands. Matthew Flinders CIRCUMNAVIGATES AUSTRALIA IN 1803 The English explorer, Matthew Flinders, was the first to circumnavigate the Australian continent, a task which was only achieved in 1803. As a result Flinders was the first to produce a map showing Australia's complete coastline: by this time the first British settlements were up and running on the continent, and the landmass was firmly in the British sphere of influence. Overland EXPLORERS in Africa During the late 18th century, more and more territories in the African interior were explored by Whites: • the British explorer James Bruce reached the source of the Blue Nile in 1770; • the Scottish explorer Mungo Park explored (1795 and 1805) the course of the Niger River; • the German explorer Heinrich Barth traveled widely in the Muslim western Sudan; • the Scottish missionary David Livingstone explored the Zambezi River and in 1855, named the Victoria Falls in present day Zimbabwe; • the British explorers John Hanning Speke and James Augustus Grant, traveling downstream, and Sir Samuel White Baker, working upstream, solved the mystery of the source of the Nile in 1863. EXPLORATION ENDS AND SETTLEMENT BEINGS Almost as quickly as it had started, the White exploration of the earth came to a halt - because there were no more new lands to discover. It is not difficult to imagine the sense of victory or the feeling of supremacy which must have pervaded White Europe at this time: not only had they smashed the isolation of the continents, something that had eluded even the great Romans, but they had sailed right round it in ships made of wood. Once an expedition left the safety of its European port, it was on its own. It had to use its own on-board skills to repair, maintain, supply and fend for itself, in lands and seas completely unknown: in many ways a more dangerous venture than even space travel in the 20th Century. More importantly, the White explorers had established beyond any question that they were technologically vastly superior to any other race on earth. The obvious next step was to start settling the new lands: almost immediately White settlements and colonies sprang up like toadstools in the farthest corners of the globe. North America - SPAIN ESTABLISHES FIRST COLONY Spain was the first White country to establish a colony in modern day America: a town called Saint Augustine (today in the state of Florida) was built by the Spanish in 1565. At this time, Spain and England were engaged in one of the seemingly endless European wars, which would, in 1588, culminate in the defeat of the Spanish Armada. This destruction of the Spanish fleet left Spain unable to compete effectively with the British in the colonization of North America. The English Arrive But Are Wiped Out In 1585, the first English settlement in North America was established on an island off the coast of the present day state of North Carolina. This expedition failed due to a lack of agricultural expertise, and a second attempt was launched in 1587. This second expedition, led by one John White, was more successful and landed in a territory they called Virginia, honoring the English Queen Elizabeth 1 (who was alleged to have been a virgin). John White sailed back to England for further supplies: the war with Spain prevented him from returning until 1590. Upon his return the entire settlement had vanished, never to be heard of or seen again. The only possible explanation for the vanished colony could have been an attack and massacre by American Indians (called Amerinds): if disease or some natural cause had killed them, some bodies would have been found. The First Successful Colony: Virginia Undaunted, the English launched a third attempt: in 1607, the colony of Jamestown in Virginia was established as a private project run by a British company, the Virginia Company of London. This company recruited not only settlers to go out to the colony of Virginia to establish farms, but also engaged in the forceful abduction of Whites to be used as laborers in the new colony: not only criminals but also vagrants and very often children were grabbed off the streets of London and sent off as forced laborers to the new colony. The Virginia Company was not a success: disease and starvation saw thousands of the first immigrants die, and in 1622, a furious war, the first race war in North America, broke out between the Whites and the Amerinds. This war ended indecisively with the Indians retreating deeper inland, but the events caused the British government to revoke the Virginia Company's license to trade in the colony and took over the running of Virginia itself: the first formal British colony had been created. The first change the British government implemented was the lifting of controls on the production of tobacco, an addictive herb which the Amerinds had introduced to the White settlers. The economy in Virginia took off, based on tobacco production which was exported in large quantities back to England, and the White population grew by leaps and bounds. A large section of this population was forced White labor: when the supply of White slaves proved too costly to maintain, the unscrupulous tobacco plantation owners turned to importing Black African slaves. FRENCH ESTABLISH THEIR COLONY AT Quebec While the British had been settling Jamestown, the French and Dutch had also sent expeditions to North America. In 1608, the French established a major colony at Quebec. French explorers across the continent then laid claim to huge tracts of land, including the Mississippi River valley, which remained under French rule in the 75 years following the founding of Quebec. The French did not import huge numbers of their own population or African slaves, instead leaving the Amerinds in their regions and only establishing trading stations. This laid the basis for an Amerind/French friendship which was to cost the British dearly. The Dutch West India Company In 1621, the Dutch government granted a charter to the a privately established company, the Dutch West India Company, which quickly established colonies in the West Indies, Brazil, and North America. CITY OF New Amsterdam ESTABLISHED ON MANHATTAN ISLAND The Dutch settled the area which Henry Hudson had discovered and mapped for them on the North American coast. Calling the land New Netherlands, the first trading posts were established on what became Manhattan Island by 1614.
The first proper Dutch settlement in North America was established in 1624, when Hollanders founded the city of New Amsterdam, now called New York. The Amerind population vehemently resisted the Dutch settlements from the first: a lingering race war between the White Dutch and Indians became an unrelenting feature of life in New Netherlands. RELIGIOUS REFUGEES FROM ENGLAND ARRIVE: THE "Pilgrim Fathers" In the meanwhile, a new group of English settlers had arrived in North America: religious refugees, they went on to be called the pilgrim fathers, or Founding Fathers of America. It is from the time of the arrival of that group of settlers in 1620, that White American history is formally taken to have started. South America - SPANISH INVASIONS The first White settlements in Central and South America were Spanish, being created during the lifetime of Christopher Columbus. These centers included what is now the Dominican Republic and Cuba. From the latter island, the Spanish launched several forays into Central and South America, the most famous being that of Hernando Cortes into Central America and Francisco Pizarro into South America (both these amazing stories are recounted in detail in a later chapter). German Colony IN VENEZUELA In 1529, a German colony was established in modern day Venezuela. This colony did not last long and was disbanded shortly afterwards, although not all of the colonists returned to Europe, soon becoming submerged into the local population. Africa The Kongo and the Portuguese Slave Trade When the Portuguese arrived on the Congo-Angola coast in the 1480s, they found suitable allies in the Kongo tribe - who were amongst the first Blacks to convert to Christianity. This did not, however, prevent them from co-operating with the Portuguese in capturing neighboring tribesmen and selling them as slaves to the Portuguese, and it was from the Congo/Angolan interior that the majority of all Black slaves to be exported to America and Portugal itself originated. In 1515, the Portuguese founded the port of Luanda to facilitate this slave trade. Ethiopia - FIRST AFRICAN STATE 1896 In Ethiopia, the Portuguese allied themselves with local tribesmen and fought off a slave trading conquest by Arabs in 1542 - but in 1632, the Portuguese themselves were expelled from Ethiopia by locals as well. The Ethiopians, under Emperor Menelik II, defeated an Italian force in 1896 and became the first independent African state in that year - only to virtually collapse precisely 90 years later when a combination of overpopulation and backward farming methods (which caused massive soil erosion) caused the worst man-made famine ever yet seen on earth. In that year - 1986 - Whites in Europe and America felt compelled to come to Ethiopia's aid, most notably through the creation of "Live Aid" fund raising pop concerts in Europe. French Possessions - ALGERIA AND SENEGAL The French began the conquest of Algeria and Senegal in the 1830s. They put down a revolt by the mixed race Arabic population of Algeria in 1870, and from 1881 to 1897, quelled all resistance to White rule by force of arms in the western Sudan. Dahomey was occupied by French forces in 1892, and the Wadai region was the last area to fall to the French, in 1900. Belgium Claims the Congo In 1876, King Leopold II of the Belgians established the International Association of the Congo, a private company, for the exploration and colonization of the region. His principal agent for this task was the Englishman, Henry Stanley. German Colonies in South West and East Africa Although a late starter in the race for colonies, the Germans still managed to seize some important areas: German South West Africa, now called Namibia, in 1884; and the country now known as Tanzania fell under German control in 1891. The Germans faced (1904-1908) the Herero insurrection in South-West Africa and Maji Maji revolt (1905-1907) in Tanganyika, both of which were put down with several bloody massacres of the local population: in Namibia it is estimated that as much as 30 per cent of the Herero population was killed in conflict with the Germans. The Dutch Land in South Africa 1652 By 1652, the Dutch government granted permission to a private company called the Dutch East India Company, to exploit the growing colonies and trading posts in the Far East. Deciding they needed a halfway way point as a supply station, they sent one of their junior officials, Jan van Riebeeck, to the Cape of Good Hope at the southernmost point of Africa in that year, with instructions to build a fort and supply station. In both of these aims, Van Riebeeck succeeded, laying the basis for what was to become the most long lasting White settlement in all of Africa. The Dutch in the Far East Although the Portuguese had been the first to land in the Far East by sea, their own internal problems prevented them from exploiting the route they had opened up: within a few decades they had been displaced by other European powers who had not imported tens of thousands of Black slaves to their countries. By 1602, the Dutch East India Company, had established itself first in the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, and later on West Java, where Batavia (modern Jakarta) became the center of the company's enterprises. These enterprises were devoted mostly to trade and to the establishment of trading posts, and they did not initially concern themselves with trying to govern the region. However, the necessity of maintaining peace among the native tribes, who fought each other furiously and severely disrupted the trade, forced the Dutch to begin governing the land (now called Indonesia). In the same way, the Dutch ended up controlling Java and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) by 1800. All material (c) copyright Ostara Publications, 1999. Re-use for commercial purposes strictly forbidden. | ||||||||||||
