Cultural Studies IThe Age of Encounter

Chapter 23December 2010

Pre-colonial African kingdoms

Asanta Kingdom on the Gold Coast (now Ghana) – powerful Empire in West Africa that defeated the British

-7 million people today speak Asante

1914

For centuries, Europeans had been relegated to the coastlines of Africa’s tropical regions because:-disease environment particularly hostile to people with no resistance to either malaria or yellow fever.-Europeans and Africans were technologically equal so Europeans were unlikely to defeat African armies-European attempts to penetrate beyond the coasts before the 1870s were met with defeat (e.g. when the British army was defeated when trying to attack the Asante kingdom in the Gold Coast, now Ghana)

1945

So why did this balance of power shift?

1945

So why did this balance of power shift?1. The European discovery of quinine, a drug that allowed Europeans to treat and cure malaria. Quinine

had been used by societies in the Andes in South America.2. The development of breech-loading cartridgefiring rifles – more reliable in wet environments than

previous flintlocks, allowing soldiers to fire more rapidly and with greater range and accuracy. European soldiers were now more deadly than any in the world at the time.

3. The development of steam power and metalhulled boats allowed rapid transport of European troops anywhere in the world, including up previously unnavigable rivers

• In 1800, the transatlantic slave trade was reaching its peak, with nearly 100,000 enslaved Africans from western and central Africa transported to the Americas each year. Most were destined for Brazil and the Caribbean, with 5% taken to North America.– Africans were enslaved for what

purpose?– How were so many people able

to be enslaved? What was going on in Africa to allow this to happen?

By the 1880s, there was, for the first time, a possibility that tropical Africa could be conquered by Europeans.

Growing competition among European states (esp. Great Britain, France, and Germany) for African territory lead to tension and the threat of war in Europe.

To prevent conflict, the ‘Conference of Berlin’ was held 1884-85, resulting in the division of Africa between Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Portugal and Spain.

African reaction to European occupation?

The anti-slavery movement

• Changing economies and the rise of the abolitionist movement in Europe and North America turned the tide against the slave trade in the early 1800s

• In 1807, Great Britain and the United States outlawed the transatlantic slave trade – treated any slave ship as a pirate ship

What is the artist trying to communicate in this picture?

"Going now to take my leave of Surinam, after all the horrors and cruelties with which I must have hurt both the eye and the heart of the reader, I will close with an emblematical picture of Europe supported by Africa and America, accompanied by an ardent wish that the friendly manner as they are represented, they may henceforth and to all eternity be the props of each other... We only differ in colour, but are certainly all created by the same hand."[Capt. John Gabriel Stedman]

Many sympathetic artists conveyed their anti-slavery views through paintings or etching.

What are some of the problems associated with decolonization?

Outcomes of colonial occupation in Africa• Constant war• Forced labor, a sort of temporary slavery (to build

roads, railways, , harbors etc to facilitate African colonial exports to Europe and the import of European products to Africa)

• Forced to grow certain crops in demand in Europe – all colonizers sought to support industry in Europe with cheap materials from Africa and control over the African market

• Greatest abuse of colonial power: Congo, a central African region the size of Western Europe (!) was made the personal property of King Leopold of Belgium!

• Spread of both Christianity and Islam – why Islam?• Nationalist movements – beginning in the 1940s,

nationalists built on Europe’s weakened state to demand an end to colonialism – liberation movements sprung up across Asia, the Middle East and Africa and paralleled the civil rights movement and women’s rights movements in the United States.

Congo produced latex (natural rubber) – following colonial rule, males were ordered to produce a weekly quota of latex. If a town or village failed to meet its collective quota, women and children might be taken hostage and homes burned down. Hostages may be shot, hands cut off – bullet casing returned – no waste! The demand for latex in Europe and North America sky-rocketed in the 1890s and early 1900s (demand for bicycle tires). Between 1 and 10 million died of overwork, starvation, rebellion, murder.

Amputated Congolese youth

KING LEOPOLD II OF BELGIUM'S SPEECH TO BELGIAN MISSIONARIES ON THEIR "CIVILIZATION" MISSION IN THE CONGO... Copy of a speech delivered by King Leopold II of Belgium in 1883 to Belgian missionaries who were about to embark upon their "civilizing" missionary journey to the Congo (DRC).

"Revered Fathers and Dear Compatriots, the task asked of you to accomplish is very delicate and demands much tact and diplomacy. Fathers, you are going to preach the Gospel, but your preaching must be inspired by first, the interest of the Belgium government state.

The main goal of your mission in the Congo is not to teach the African (Negro) the knowledge of God, because they already know him.... Your role essentially will be to easily facilitate the task of the administrative and the industrial personnel. That is to say, you will interpret the Gospel in the way to protect and serve the interest of Belgium, in that part of the world. To do so, you will see that our savages be not interested in the riches that their soil possesses in order that they not want them. Thus they will not be involved in the murderous competition with us and dream to live a luxurious life. You will take them away from anything or act that procures them with the courage to confront us... Your actions will be essentially on the younger people that they might not rebel. We must force them into submission and obedience Avoid, by all means, the Blacks becoming rich. Cause them to sing each and every day that it's "impossible for a rich man to enter into Heaven." Make them pay tithes each Sunday for church. Utilize this money that is intended for the poor, for our own business investments. Teach the Africans to forget about their heroes in order to worship and give praise to ours.

My Dear compatriots, if you apply to the letter all this, the interest of Belgium in the Congo will be protected for many centuries. I thank you."

• Mbube (1939), by Solomon Linda, a Zulu musician – became wimoweh by Pete Seeger, then used in the Lion King

Original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrrQT4WkbNE

Disney: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY2HPvoqSTE&feature=fvw

• Uncle Remus: fictional character and narrator of a collection of African American folktales (1881). Slaves were not allowed to learn to read for fear of enabling emancipatory ambitions. Oral tales became common ways for African Americans to preserve history, morals, and inspire and education one another. Rap music can be seen as a continuation of African oral traditions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX44YHK5Bik http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcxYwwIL5zQ

African influences on American culture

• Call and response (Carolina Chocolate Drops): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xOxHyTP91c&feature=related

• Trash talk, rhyming, word play, the spoken word integrated into entertainment (e.g. rap, seen as a continuation of oral culture)

• ‘Soul food’ – stemmed from the creative use of cheap ingredients as slaves were not allowed to eat good cuts of meat

Jazz music emerged from a confluence of African and European music traditions - invented by African Americans who could play European instruments. West African pedigree: blue notes, improvisation, polyrhythms, syncopation, swung note, call and response pattern… (in contrast to European music in which the performer’s primary goal is to play a composition as it was written)