His 67

• Legitimate commerce


  Trade in commodities between Africans and European merchants
• Commodities


  Raw materials, especially cash crops, exchanged for European goods
• This unit presents Africa's contact with the outside world, mainly contacts along the Western and Central African coasts with European powers. It also discusses Slavery and Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (Origin, Phases and Effects). Lastly, it explores the "Legitimate" trade, White Settlement in South Africa and European Explorers and Missionaries.

  
• Portugal


  • The European country that established early contacts with the coastal regions of West Africa
  • Their distant objective was to reach India
  • Their immediate goal was to bypass Muslim North Africa and gain direct access to the gold producing region of West Africa
• Henry the Navigator


  Portuguese prince who sponsored Portuguese exploration of Africa, driven by spreading Christianity and establishing Africa as a mainstay of Christianity against the Ottoman Empire, as well as creating commercial links with Africa
• The Portuguese conquest of territory in Africa meant they could use African gold to finance travel along this new trade route, and getting safe passage through Africa could also open the entire Indian Ocean to direct Portuguese trade
• Ceuta


  • The first step forward in Portuguese expansion across the Atlantic coast in 1415
  • The Portuguese stayed in this part of Morocco from 1415 to 1769, a long period of constant war, since the Portuguese presence was not accepted
• Cape Bajador


  • Reached by the Portuguese further southwest of Ceuta in Morocco, on the shores of the Atlantic Coast in 1432
• Senegambia


  • One of the earliest regions affected by European trade in West Africa
  • Provided enslaved people for European purchase for roughly a century, perhaps a third of all enslaved Africans exported during the sixteenth Century came from Senegambia
• Gold Coast


  • One of the African kingdoms encountered by the Portuguese, controlling substantial deposits of gold, salt, enslaved people
  • In 1482, the Portuguese built their first permanent trading post known as the Castle of Elmina on the western coast of present-day Ghana to protect Portuguese trade
• The intensive contact of the Gold Coast with Europeans led to the importation and spread of American crops, notably maize and cassava, which are believed to have contributed to population growth in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
• Slavery


  Traffic in slaves, with a long history in Africa, Europe and Asia
• In the fifteenth century, the primary market for enslaved Africans was Southwest Asia, where most enslaved people were used as domestic servants
• Captives from Nubia were transported down the Nile to Egypt in ancient Pharaonic times, and some were also transported across the Sahara to North Africa in Roman times, but all of these numbers seem small when compared with the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
• Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade


  • Began in West Africa due to the fragmentation of large, indigenous political states, the region's growing importance as a source of slaves, and the endemic conflict between small coastal states and their willingness to cooperate with European traders in exchanging slaves for arms

  
• The discovery of America in 1492 laid the background for the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade, as Europeans established large plantations and minefields in America and needed labourers to work on them</b>

  
• The Trans-Atlantic slave trade is also called the triangular trade, as it connected three continents: Africa, America and Europe

  
• The transatlantic slave trade impacted Africa economically by undermining African craft technology and agriculture, reallocating labour away from agriculture and industrial work, and depopulating Africa of its productive young men and women
• Politically, the slave trade threw black Africa into confusion and insecurity, discouraged political development and encouraged violence, destroying African states
• Socially, the slave trade undermined the morality and dignity of Africans, causing great human suffering and horrors, and having tragic effects on the lives of individual victims and their families
• Legitimate trade


  Trade-in commodities between Africans and European merchants, where African raw materials, especially cash crops, were exchanged for European goods
• During the first half of the 19th century, a range of West African commodities such as palm produce, rubber, cotton, skin, cocoa supplanted the export of captives
• The development of West Africa's export trade in raw materials did not provide African states with any real opportunities to develop their economic strength and independence
• The consequences of "legitimate" commerce on Africa included the intensive exploitation of African natural resources, the stimulation of the colonialism of the African continent, and the spread of Christianity leading to an unequal trading system
• Boers settlement in South Africa

  • In 1652, the Dutch trading company established a tiny permanent settlement on the southern shores of South Africa to regulate the trade with the Khoisan
  • In 1657, Van Riebeck, the company commander, released some of the soldiers from their contracts to become free burghers and establish farms
• Solomonic Dynasty


  Claimed descent from King Solomon of Israel, founded by Yekuno-Amlak in 1270
• Christian Kingdom under Solomonic Dynasty

  • Confined to territory of Southern Eretria, Tigray, Lasta and northern Shewa in 1270
  • Expanded territory under Amde-Tsion to include ancient highland provinces of Aksum and Zagwe, regions of Gondar, eastern Gojjam, Bizamo, Damot, Gurage lands, Omotic populations of Wolaita and Gamo, Ifat, Fatagar, Dawaro, Hadiya and Bali
• Motives for expansion


  Economic - to control trade routes

  Political - to seize territory
• Expansion of trade led to flow of commodities to the coast, contributing to economic and military strength
• Succession process


  Establishment of 'royal prison' at Amba-Gishen to imprison male members of royal family

  When monarch died, court dignitaries would dispatch army to royal prison to accompany designated heir to throne
• Medieval monarchs


  • No permanent capital, ruled over vast territory through mobile courts

  Initially centered around Lake Haiq, gradually shifted southward to Menz, Tegulet, Bulga in northern Shewa, then to eastern Shewa regions

  Mobile capitals adapted to obtain daily food supplies and firewood for court
• Military motives prompted Ethiopian ruling elite to change capitals from fixed to mobile settlements
• Adaptations to mobile capitals impoverished current hinterlands and made stabilisation of capitals difficult
• Christian Kingdom's use of mobile capitals from 13th to 16th centuries


  • They moved to food supply areas rather than supplies being moved to the capital
  • They impoverished their current hinterlands
  • The political integration of Ethiopia came eventually to depend on a mobile center of the polity
• The physical environment of medieval cities was not pleasant. The cities were often dirty and smelled of animal and human waste. Air pollution was also a fact of life. Even worse, pollution came from the burning of firewood. Cities were also unable to stop water pollution, especially from animal slaughtering. Such tradition of the medieval period brought about deforestation because trees were cut down for daily requirements of the camp dwellers. As a result, the camp sites and surroundings were abandoned.
• Gult system


  1. State officials were guaranteed the right to collect tribute from the local peasantry

  2. Bale-gult or gult owner had the right to collect tributes in kind and use them to maintain himself and his family

  3. Bale-gult could use the labour of peasants under him for different purposes

  4. Bale-gult could recruit a local army and command them in wars during the period of local or national crises
• Rist right


  A claim to the hereditary ownership of land, a communal birthright to land
• Gult right


  A right given to an official to share the produce of the peasantry, a medieval substitute for salary
• The Christian highland rulers continued Zagwe's tradition of foreign relations with Egypt and the Middle East. They also extended these relations to Europe, but closer ties were established with Portugal and Spain from European countries.
• The establishment of several Muslim sultanates along the long-distance trade routes followed the introduction of Islam to Ethiopia and the Horn.