DEFINITIONS COMPANION

SUMMARY HISTORY OF SUB-SAHARA AFRICA

Topography - concerns the natural and man-made surface features of land. The topography of a country includes such features as deserts and mountains.

Savanna - Much of sub-Saharan Africa is grass lands containing scattered trees. Savannas have hot and dry climates with sparse vegetation that can survive in desert like conditions.

Profound – all encompassing, complete; a profound change in climate, for example, suggests a complete change with serious long-term implications.

Fossil Record - Historians’ attempting to piece together the history of a community rely on written records. Anthropologists’ studying civilizations without the benefit of a written record rely in part on the fossil record. Fossils are calcified remains of plants, animals and bone tools among other things that evidence the environment in which humans lived and how they lived.

Hominids - This is the scientific term to describe various classes of early humans.

Forage - is the process of finding food. Early humans were foragers of food, including scavenging, i.e. finding the edible remains of dead animals.

Homo Sapiens Sapiens - is the scientific term for modern humans.

Human Biological Growth - Although Africa is a cradle of life in which a countless variety of plants and animals coexist, the potential for biological growth of humans has been more limited because of climatic and environmental hazards like disease.

Egyptian state – The Kingdom of Egypt was the center of one of the oldest civilizations and one of the early ones engaged in international trade. The Kingdom of Egypt situated as it was in North Africa interacted with peoples from the Mediterranean region. Egypt also traded southward with the Kingdom of Nubia, one of the most significant African Kingdoms in the interior. Egyptian influence, however, did not penetrate the Sub-sahara.

Indigenous - native; an indigenous development is one that has not been imported from outside a region, but has occurred naturally in the specific environment. European historians studying Africa in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries often viewed many African technological and political developments as being imported from other civilizations by way of the Red Sea trading routes. According to Reader, this view comfortably fit in with the notion that Africans produced an inferior civilization that benefited from European contact. This eurocentric view of Africa has been refuted by recent scholarship that has shown that Africa was developing social, economic and political institutions uniquely adapted to Africa’s particular environmental conditions.

Plateau - is an area with flat terrain that rises above the other adjacent regions. The Ethiopian plateau rises above the lands around it and has had a much cooler and healthier climate that has been more conducive to settled agriculture.

Ascribed - to refer to the source of something.

Denuded - stripped of vegetation; pottery making and iron smelting required the burning of charcoal that comes from trees. The felling of large numbers of trees often led to a denuded landscape which, in turn, led to erosion, the breakdown of fertile soils and, ultimately, infertility of soils.

Over-cropping - along with destroying large numbers of trees and other vegetation, human communities often over-cropped their land, leading to important nutrients being leached out of the soil. Addressing the danger of over-cropping was the technique of rotating fields, which allowed fields that had been used previously to lie fallow (the tilling of land without sowing it for the season) to recover their fertility.

Erosion - Erosion is the process by which fertile topsoil is washed or worn away. Erosion is encouraged by rain and by the flooding of rivers.

Centralized - refers to a society in which political power is concentrated in the hands of a few persons. The most centralized states include monarchies. Centralized states often have hierarchies of persons with steadily decreasing levels of control over the land’s resources. Reader’s analysis suggests that centralization was not the only way in which African communities were organized and that many African communities were decentralized. Centralization was encouraged by European contact.

Specialization - Specialization describes a process whereby different groups of persons dedicate themselves to specific tasks such as hunting, gathering, farming, and raising cattle. Reader argues that many communities in Africa were decentralized in terms of political power, and highly specialized economically.

Hierarchies - Hierarchies refer to different classes of persons within a community whose privileges are connected to increasing levels of wealth and political power.

Emigrant - Those human communities that left Africa are emigrant communities. Population studies have indicated that emigrant communities rapidly reproduced once they were no longer confronted by Africa’s difficult environmental conditions.

Retarding - slowing down.

Interdependence - suggests a dependent relationship between and among communities of persons such that each community benefits from the other community’s economic and/or military strengths, with the result being that each community is better off than if it were attempting to survive strictly on its own.

Stratified - A stratified community is one in which there are high barriers to entry for persons attempting to shift from one class to another. An example of a stratified community is one with an hereditary elite.

Destabilizing – describes a process whereby a community is exposed to certain outside pressures to the extent that it begins to break down politically and economically. Slavery was a destabilizing factor because it undermined the ability of Africa’s leaders to protect their communities and to enforce the rule of law. For example, the European slave traders, often backed up by the military force of their respective states, were able to overcome political and economic resistance of African leaders who had few resources to defend themselves. Not only did this process destroy the confidence of African communities in their political leadership, but necessarily demoralized communities that could not defend their traditions from being undermined and their people from being enslaved.

Hierarchical-describes a community that is organized on the basis of hierarchies.

Primogeniture - is the practice of having the oldest male child inherit the family’s wealth and political authority. Primogeniture was prevalent in Europe as the basis for the succession of kings. In contrast, African kings were often chosen by councils of elders.

Europeanization - is the process by which African communities adopted the trappings and institutions of European monarchies and other aspects of European culture and fashion in order better to be able to interrelate with the European powers. It is Reader’s thesis that europeanization reflected the goal of African communities to meet the expectations of Europeans who were unfamiliar with African culture, social and political institutions.

Trappings-outward decoration or dress; outward signs.

Mercenaries - are military personnel for hire. Many contemporary African conflicts involve mercenaries who are being paid for their military service. In the early colonial period, African Kingdoms would often employ European military officers to wage wars against their neighbors. The use of mercenaries, however, made African leaders more vulnerable to losing their political power to the European state to whom the mercenaries ultimately owed their allegiance.

Redounded - As in redounded to the benefit of, to have an effect for good or bad.

Lucrative - profitable.

Cowry Shell - was a durable shell used as a medium of exchange for slaves and other African goods. Africans used cowry shells to purchase goods from Europe that were in surplus or otherwise would have generated only a minimal return in the European market. Such goods included European clothing and other fashions, alcohol, guns and gunpowder.

Plantation Economy - Slavery was the backbone of the plantation economy that existed in Brazil and the pre-civil war American South. Plantations were organized to house and feed slaves with the objective of restricting their movement and minimizing the costs of labor. The plantation economy was highly coercive.

Afrikaans – is the Africanized Dutch language spoken by the Boers, a Dutch population that settled in southern Africa in the 17^th century. In contemporary times, the Dutch Boer population are called Afrikaners, after their language.

Impetus – motivation to do something.

Guile – trick, stratagem

International Law – International law derives from several sources (1) treaties and agreements, (2) general principals of law that are widely applied by tribunals, (3) rules of law observed in the treatises and commentaries of well-recognized authors and authorities, and (4) international custom. International law in Leopold’s time only recognized states as world actors. This meant that only states could make laws, and own and control territories and their resources. Because Leopold’s International Association of the Congo was not a recognized international actor its claims to territory in Central Africa would have been subject to dispute and vulnerable to take-over. This is the reason why Leopold lobbied for sovereign recognition.

Divest - give up.

Neutralizing - rendered unharmful. By entering into a settlement with France, it was no longer a threat to Leopold’s claims in Central Africa.

Notorious - famous but in a negative sense.

Overexploitation - in the context of agriculture, the failure to allow land to build up the fertility of its soil. In the Congo Free State, wild rubber was so exploited that after a time it became difficult to find. This, in turn, created tremendous pressure on local communities who contracted with the Belgian rubber companies to provide certain amounts of rubber for export. Communities that breached their contractual obligations to the company were subject to high degrees of coercion by sentries who were sent out by the company to enforce rubber quotas.

Advent – coming into being or use.

Concessions - Concessions to use territory were contractually agreed upon rights granted to the colonial power by an African community to exploit certain resources, e.g. rubber. The territory would technically remain the property of the African community, but the exclusive rights to exploit resources would be given to the colonial power. Concessions were granted pursuant to treaties in which the colonial power would often promise payment in goods, resources and/or money for the concession. In practice, however, the colonial power, which was usually a state-charted corporation, never fulfilled its obligations. The African community, on the other hand, saw its control over its own territory weakened as the right to exploit concessions gradually gave way to actual territorial control.

Transcontinental – across the continent. Before rubber became a critical export for the Congo Free State, Leopold saw an opportunity to develop a transcontinental railroad that would be able to transport goods from the interior of the continent to the coasts. The railroad, trade route eventually became an important source of revenue for the colony.

Endemic – characteristic or prevalent; a problem endemic to a nation or a region is characteristic of that nation or region.

Internment- to confine or impound persons from enemy communities during war.

Formative – of or relating to formation, early development.

Pernicious - poisonous, destructive.

Erroneous-wrong, incorrect.

Soviet Union- Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was founded in 1917 pursuant to the Bolshevik Revolution. The USSR challenged U.S. power and leadership during the Cold War era, advocating world revolution against the capitalist powers and promoting the establishment of Marxist-Leninist regimes. Under internal pressure, the USSR dissolved in 1989. The seat that the USSR had on the UN Security Council was assumed by the Russian Republic. The Central and Southern USSR became several independent Central Asian Republics. Belarus and the Ukraine also became independent states.

Communist Ideology – refers to the political/economic ideology of the former Soviet Union and the Peoples Republic of China. Communist ideology advocates the abolition of private property, substantial government control over the economy, and rule by an elite group of citizens associated with the communist party. Communist ideology derives from the theories advanced by Karl Marx and later by V.I. Lenin and Mao Zedong who adapted Marxist theory to the particular conditions prevailing in their respective states, Russia and China.

Military Industrial Complex - refers to the interrelationship between the military and private enterprise in developing the weapons of war. In the Second World War, the African colonies provided the allied powers important raw materials that were subsequently made into military goods.

Self-Determination- is considered a collective "people’s right" in modern international law. The right of a People to preserve its language and heritage and to become politically autonomous under conditions where its rights would otherwise be restricted is addressed in the United Nation’s Charter. The modern conception of self-determination originated with President Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points that he submitted to the international community as the basis for the armistice that ended the First World War.

Marxist – related to Marxism; after Karl Marx, a 19^th Century political philosopher, who advocated workers revolution. Marxism influenced the founders of the Soviet Union in the early 20^th Century. Marxism is a critique of capitalism and advocates a large public sector and the abolition of the accumulation of private property which Marx believed ultimately led to the oppression of the working class. The first generation of African leaders was profoundly influenced by V.I. Lenin, who attributed imperialism to the efforts of the capitalist powers to exploit new markets.

Anti-Imperialist – V.I. Lenin, the father of the Soviet State, linked capitalism to the effort by the colonial powers to expand their markets into the more underdeveloped regions of the world for the purpose of obtaining resources and labor at low cost. Lenin advanced an argument that was adopted by many leaders of African independence movements as a moral justification for self-determination.

Decolonization – describes the movement following the Second World War among colonial powers to divest themselves of their colonial possessions through democratic elections. Decolonization was not a smooth process, often giving rise to major civil conflicts costing millions of lives.

Triade - three centers of administrative power. In the Belgian Congo, the church, educational institutions and the colonial government worked closely together to insulate the African population from the emerging independence movements arising in other parts of Africa. This effort was ultimately unsuccessful.

Katanga Province - a province of the Congo, with a strong secessionist tradition.

United Nations – is an international organization founded pursuant to the UN Treaty adopted by the overwhelming majority of nations in 1945. The UN has acquired international personality including the standing to participate in international negotiations and to be a party in litigation. The U.N. has emerged an important diplomatic actor and a forum for public opinion.

Dag Hammarskold- was the UN’s Second Secretary General (1952-1961). He is well known for promoting and developing the UN’s approach to peace keeping. He died in an airplane crash while attempting to negotiate a settlement in the Congo crisis.

Eastern Bloc - Refers to those countries that were closely allied with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, which included almost all Eastern European countries. The early leaders of African independence movement were profoundly influenced by Soviet and Chinese communist ideology. In the latter stages of the Congo Crisis, Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba invited assistance from the Soviet Union, antagonizing the United States and the other colonial powers.

Coup – is short for coup de’etat, the overthrow of a government usually by a military faction.

Coup de ‘Etat – is the violent overthrow or alteration of an existing government by a small group.

Inaugural – beginning; as in first meeting.

National Reconciliation – process of reconciling communities of persons that have been hostile to one another in the context of a unified state.