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AFRICA RISING Hope and Healing

Africa Start with Her History

A thoughtful look at Africa requires a sense of the continent's history. With nearly a fifth of the world's population, over 3000 languages, and 53 countries, this is not an easy task. Systems such as colonization, slavery, and apartheid will continue to have complex impacts on the future of these nations. Africa's natural resources will forever attract international interests. By tracing the history of such issues, we can see the weight of our decisions and actions in the future. Please consider the justice implications as you read over these events. 
For excellent in-depth coverage of Africa's history, please visit:   
www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/index.shtml (BBC World Service) 

• 5-3 million BC First hominids, known as Australopithecines, walk East and Southern Africa.
• 9000-3000 BC Beginnings of agriculture and domestication of animals.
• 332 BC Alexander the Great occupies Egypt and one of his governors, Ptolemy, founds a dynasty that ends with the famous Queen, Cleopatra.
• 2755-2255 BC The Old Kingdom in the Nile Valley and the building of the first pyramids.
• 100s AD Christianity comes to North Africa. Although today the majority of Africans are Christian or Muslim, traditional religions still play a large role in daily life. Through Africa's history, religion has been a major force for political change.
• 200-500 Movement of Bantu peoples from West Africa to East and Southern Africa. Many historians argue that the Bantu established the system of statehood that we still use today.
• 300 Farmers begin to settle south of the Limpopo River in Southern Africa, joining Khoikhoi and San who have lived there for thousands of years.
• 200 Beginning of the Iron Age. In Central Africa after.1000 AD, during the "late iron age," a number of states emerge with sophisticated metal working techniques.
• 400s In West Africa, long-distance trade and sophisticated work with stone, clay, and metals feed a number of kingdoms from the 5th through the 16th
• 630s Islam comes to North Africa, spreading west from Alexandria. Due to trade with the Middle East, Islam takes root along the East Coast in the 8th
• 900 Late Iron Age, cattle-keeping community established at Leopard's Kopje, near modern Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.
• 1200 Beginning of Great Zimbabwe state.
• 1444 First slaves brought to Portugal from northern Mauritania. Over the next 400 years, roughly 15 million Africans are forcibly taken abroad as slaves.
• 1487 Portuguese sailor Bartholomew Diaz sails round Cape of Good Hope.
• 1518 First direct shipment of slaves from Africa to the Americas. The Slave trade was at its peak in the 1780s. 
• 1816-28 Shaka creates Zulu kingdom; Africans battle throughout much of Southeastern Africa. British settlers land in the Cape Colony.
• 1867 First diamonds found in South Africa - Hopetown, Cape Colony. Gold and diamonds would draw European prospectors to exploit Africa's people and natural resources.
• 1899-1902 The Boer War - Britain conquers the Afrikaner republics and establishes the Union of South Africa.
• 1904 Taxation in the colonies is a way to force Africans into labor and this could lead to massive violence. After the Hereros breach a treaty on taxation (in what is now Namibia), an extermination proclamation from Germany brings the deaths of 50,000 Herero.
• 1909 The first Pan African Conference is held. In 1919, the first of five Pan African Congresses (PAC) is held in Paris, organized by African American, W.E.B. Dubois. 
• 1948 In South Africa, The Afrikaner National Party (the British minority) establishes the apartheid structure of government.
• 1950s Mau Mau uprising against the British in Kenya. Libya, Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia, Ghana, and Guinea become independent.
• 1960s and 1970s Most of Africa attains independence from European colonial rule. 
• 1964 Nelson Mandela and other African National Congress (ANC) and PAC leaders sentenced to life imprisonment.
• 1990 President DeKlerk of South Africa releases Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners.
• 1994 Mandela is elected president of South Africa.

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