Research Project on Africa

This week's readings discussed the physical and geographical makeup of Africa, as well as the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and its affects on Africa and its Diaspora. Africa and the Genesis of Humankind discussed how physical environments play a huge role in determining the way that human life would develop, as well as the geographical diversity of Africa that influences the diverse societies within the continent. Most importantly, it talks about the development of food production, or farming, and how that allowed human society to advance to complex stages. The next section focuses primarily on the internal "slavery" in Africa and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, and their effects on Africa and the Diaspora.

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The physical environment of Africa consists of 12 million square miles, 5 major climatic regions and contains a wide variety of climates and vegetation. Thus, the development of society largely depends on how the inhabitants adapt to or change their physical environment. For example, the rainfall in Africa in general is excessive in the central regions, and is excessive and concentrated in certain seasons of the year. As a result, farming is hard to do when the soil was depleted of its resources. So, the people created a way of adapting to the physical conditions by slash and burn cultivation where there would be long processes of replenishing the soil over a period of years by burning vegetation, which helped provide nutrients to the soil. It is also important to know that Africa was a mineral storehouse. These minerals, especially iron, served as crucial elements in the development of urbanization and state formation. The pace of human cultural development speeds up with the beginning of food production, which begins in the Nile Valley about 7000 years ago. This allowed humans to have control over the environment as well as increase in population. Prior to farming, many people survived off of hunting and gathering which sustained certain levels of population and social organization.

The initial African-European contact was a result of the European desire to control the African gold trade, and it soon grew to incorporate other factors. "It is unfortunate that the contact between Africans and Europeans ended with the forced transportation of Africans as slaves to the New World." Although, Africa had its own internal slavery, it was not in the least as detrimental as the Atlantic trade. The internal slavery was primarily used for domesticating and working the mines of the Gold Coast. Paul Lovejoy notes that "the ideas that slave in African societies were absolute property or chattel of their owners, or that they were denied their sexual rights, was the norm within the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade". The trade has been estimated as forcing 10-50 million persons from the African continent to work on the fertile plantations of the New World that Christopher Columbus had stumbled over in 1492. During this trade there were many lives lost in the voyage across the Atlantic Ocean over to the Americas. As a result of the trade, Africa was deployed of most of its young women and men and its population of 100 million stayed that way for three centuries, while its counterparts, Asia and Europe, tripled its population over that time period. It also devastated the economic system, as well as the families of those enslaved.

"The humiliation suffered under slavery and the cultural deprivation have left legacies of scars that have yet to be removed both in Africa and the vast Diaspora." With the European exploitation of Africa, it is hard to imagine how African people have survived. I think since the beginning of time Africans have always found ways to adapt to their situations, whether it was creating food production or surviving the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade, we are a people that have overcome many obstacles.

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