Britannica Student Encyclopedia - 2010

spread into Africa in the AD 600s. Great

trading states, including the Ghana,

Mali, and Songhai empires, flourished in

western Africa. In eastern and central

Africa, powerful city-states such as

Mogadishu and Mombasa traded with

Arabia.

The first Europeans to arrive in Africa

were the Portuguese, in the late 1400s.

Soon the British, the Dutch, and the

French had also set up towns and trading

centers. They traded slaves from

Africa to the Americas from the 1500s

to the early 1800s. The Europeans did

not actually take control of the African

territories they entered during this

period, however.

Starting in the late 1800s Britain,

France, Belgium, Portugal, and Germany

ruled most of Africa as colonies.

The Europeans took raw materials such

as minerals and timber from their colonies

and shipped them back to Europe.

The African people had no say in how

they were ruled. They were also often

forced off the best land so that the Europeans

could take it. Many African

people resisted European control

throughout the colonial period.

In the 1900s the colonies were finally

granted independence. Many African

countries faced great unrest after gaining

independence. Ethnic violence led to

many deaths, and in many cases civil

war broke out as individuals and groups

struggled to establish control. The poor

economies of the countries added to the

problems. In 2002 African countries

formed an organization called the African

Union to try to solve these problems.

International agencies such as the

United Nations helped, too.

#More to explore

African Union • Aksum • Colony

• Continent • Egypt, Ancient • Ghana

Empire • Human Origins • Kush • Mali

Empire • Nile River • Nubia • Rain

Forest • Sahara • Slavery • Songhai

Empire

Ruins of a casbah, or fort, stand in Morocco

in North Africa.

42 Africa BRITANNICA STUDENT ENCYCLOPEDIA

 

African

Americans

African Americans are people in the

United States who have ancestors from

Africa. Many African Americans have

non-African ancestors as well. African

Americans are also known as black

Americans.

Slavery

Most African Americans have ancestors

who were slaves. Slaves were people

taken from their African homelands and

shipped to the Americas. There, white

people forced them to work without pay

and in harsh conditions. English settlers

brought the first African slaves to the

colony of Virginia in the early 1600s. By

1790 black people made up nearly one

fifth of the population of the United

States. Most slaves lived and worked on

plantations, or large farms, in the South.

Many people called abolitionists worked

to end slavery. These included black

people as well as white people. Harriet

Tubman, a black abolitionist, organized

the Underground Railroad, which was a

way for slaves to escape to the North.

The American CivilWar

The American CivilWar broke out in

1861. This was a war between the

Northern and Southern states, partly

over the issue of slavery. In 1863 President

Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation

Proclamation. This document

freed the slaves in the Southern states.

The North won the CivilWar in 1865.

That year the 13th Amendment to the

U.S. Constitution ended slavery

throughout the United States. In 1868

the 14th Amendment gave African

Americans U.S. citizenship. In 1870 the

15th Amendment guaranteed them the

right to vote.

Reconstruction

The period following the war was

known as Reconstruction. African

Americans were finally free, but most of

them lived in terrible poverty. In the

South many worked as sharecroppers.

This meant that they farmed a piece of

land owned by someone else. Their pay

was a share of the crops they produced.

In addition, African Americans continued

to suffer from discrimination (unfair

treatment) and violence. Schools and

other public places were often segregated.

This meant that blacks and whites

could not mix in those places. Violent

groups like the Ku Klux Klan kept most

blacks from voting in the South. These

groups also hurt or killed many blacks.

First Civil Rights Efforts

In the late 1800s a former slave named

Booker T.Washington became a powerful

voice for African Americans. He

believed in training African Americans

to do certain jobs so that they could find

work.

Other African American leaders disagreed

withWashington. W.E.B. Du

Bois thought that the government

should guarantee to blacks the same

rights that whites had. These

February is

Black History

Month in the

United States.

In that month

schools and

other organizations

help

everyone learn

about the African

American

experience.

BRITANNICA STUDENT ENCYCLOPEDIA African Americans 43

 

rights—such as the right to vote or the

right to go to a public school—are called

civil rights. Du Bois and others formed

the National Association for the

Advancement of Colored People

(NAACP) to help African Americans to

gain full civil rights.

Great Migration

DuringWorldWar I (1914–18) large

numbers of African Americans began to

leave the South. They moved to cities in

the North andWest. There they hoped

to find jobs and to escape discrimination.

However, many were forced to live

in poor, segregated areas.

This movement from the South, called