1. CHAPTER 17
The Age of Imperialism
Section 3: European Claims in
Sub-Saharan Africa
Objectives:
List the features of West Africa that made the region particularly
appealing to French and British imperialists.
Describe European claims made in Central and East Africa.
Explain why South Africa was so valuable.
Explain how European imperialism affected Africa.

2. SECTION 3
European Claims in Sub-
Saharan Africa
West Africa
• Formerly dealt
primarily in slaves
• Late 19th century
turned to trading palm
oil, feathers, ivory,
and rubber.

3. SECTION 3
European Claims in Sub-
Saharan Africa
France would
fight the rebel Samory
Toure for 18 years for
control of West Africa.
Britain would fight
the Ashanti kingdom
for the territory they
would name the
Gold Coast (Ghana).
Liberia would be
the only state to remain
independent.

4. SECTION 3
European Claims in Sub-
Saharan Africa
Stanley & Livingston
1869 reporter Henry Stanley
began his search for
missing missionary
Dr. David Livingston.
He found him in 1871.
Livingston had been in
Africa for years looking for
the source of the Nile
River. “Dr. Livingston, I presume?”

5. SECTION 3
European Claims in Sub-
Saharan Africa
King Leopold II of Belgium
would carve a personal colony
of over 900,000 square miles.

6. SECTION 3
European Claims in Sub-
Saharan Africa
East Africa
…also divided into colonies.
…
Famine and rinderpest (a very
infectious cattle/buffalo disease)
weakened any African resistance
to colonization.

7. SECTION 3
European Claims in Sub-
Saharan Africa
South Africa
European settlement began in 1652
with Dutch settlement of Cape Town…
which would grow into Cape Colony.
…which the British will take over in
the early 1800s.

8. SECTION 3
European Claims in Sub-
Saharan Africa
The Great Trek

9. SECTION 3
European Claims in Sub-
Saharan Africa
The Boers (Dutch for
“farmer”) carved out three
colonies:
• Natal
• Orange Free State
•Transvaal

10. SECTION 3
European Claims in Sub-
Saharan Africa
Shaka ~ the most influential leader
of the Zulu Kingdom.
The British would defeat the Zulu
in 1879.

11. SECTION 3
European Claims in Sub-
Saharan Africa
The story of diamonds in
South Africa begins between
December 1866 and
February 1867, when 15-
year-old Erasmus Jacobs
found a transparent stone on
his father's farm, on the south
bank of the Orange River.
Over the next 15 years, Cecil Rhodes
South Africa yielded more would arrive in
diamonds than India had in South Africa
over 2,000 years. in 1870.

12. SECTION 3
European Claims in Sub-
Saharan Africa
Cecil Rhodes
Within twenty years, Rhodes completely
controlled South African diamond
production through his company, De
Beers. De Beers held a near-total
monopoly (90%!) on worldwide diamond
production until the year 2000.
He would later organize a colony to the
north in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

13. Political Cartoon
European Claims in Sub-
Saharan Africa
"I contend that we
"To think of these
are the first race in
stars that you see
the world, and that
overhead at night,
the more of the
these vast worlds
world we inhabit
which we can
the better it is for
never reach. I
the human race...If
would annexe the
there be a God, I
planets if I could;
think that what he
I often think of
would like me to
that. It makes me
do is paint as much
sad to see them so
of the map of
clear and yet so
Africa British Red
far."
as possible..."

14. SECTION 3
European Claims in Sub-
Saharan Africa
The Boer War
• 1895 ~ Rhodes tried to overthrow the
Transvaal gov’t because the Boers had
kept the British from opening mines.
• 1899 ~ The Boer War broke out.
• After three horrible years, the British
defeated the Boers.
• 1910 ~ united Cape Colony and the
three Boer colonies into the Union of
South Africa.
– The new constitution made it almost
impossible for non-whites to vote.
– The beginning of apartheid.

15. SECTION 3
European Claims in Sub-
Saharan Africa
Effects of Imperialism on Africa
• Paternalism – limiting a group’s liberty “for
their own good.”
• New crops & ways of farming
• Western medicine
• Roads and railroads were built.
• Improved communications

16. SECTION 3
European Claims in Sub-
Saharan Africa
Emperor Menelik II
Some African leaders attempted to work
with the Europeans.
1899 negotiated a treaty with Italy. Italy
claimed this made Ethiopia a protectorate,
while Ethiopia claimed otherwise.
Italy would later try to invade Ethiopia,
but would not be successful, as Menelik
had spent his reign modernizing his army.
Ethiopia would be the only African nation
to remain independent.

17. SECTION 3
European Claims in Sub-
Saharan Africa
Assimilation: when
people give up their
own culture
completely and adopt
another culture.
The Africans did not accept European culture and would continue
to live much as they had for centuries.