African Empires

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Remember that time when the barista at Starbuck got your order wrong or when your friends forgot your birthday? Well that is nothing compared to what the kids in Somalia have to face. On average, they have trudge six kilometers just to get fresh water. Africa has many problems today due to past experiences. For example, some kids have to stay home and take care of their sick dying parent due to HIV/AIDS. Also, some children are dying to go to school, but don’t have the money. The kids in Africa beg for the things that we sometimes take for granted. The terrible history of Africa has created many problems such as a limited amount of clean drinking water. Thankfully, there are organizations such as UNICEF that are helping to reduce this problem. …show more content…
They also had civilizations, and new ways to travel. One major accomplishment that the early humans in Africa possessed was farming. Early farming in Africa were separated into several categories. They were separated into animals, grains, and tropical plants. All of the successful achievements that Africa had then lead on to the great African empires. Some of the civilizations that Africa had were Aksum, Benin, Mali, Songhai, and Kilwa. There were many incredible features of these African civilizations. For example, Aksum converted into christianity and made their own coins. They even rode elephants into battle. In Benin, they had intricate carved masks and thumb pianos as art. Benin also had trading that sometimes took weeks and even months. In Mali, they had a strong military and extravagant architecture like the famous Mosque of Djenne. In Songhai, they had salt mines and their language was influenced by past languages. Lastly in Kilwa, they also made coins, just like in Aksum. Kilwa was also on the east coast so it was easy to trade from Madagascar. Later in time, the Europeans had guns that the Africans wanted, and the Europeans needed slaves. That is why people in Africa traded with the Europeans; slaves for guns. Slaves were …show more content…
Due to the slave trade, African kingdoms lost many leaders, men and warriors. Because they lost so many people, many African groups went into survival mode. They had to leave behind expanding technology and they had to come together with strong leaders to avoid being captured. After the slave trade ended, the Europeans still wanted to get natural resources from Africa. Therefore, they set up colonies in Africa so they can have direct access to the raw materials. When the Europeans took control of Africa, they were very unreasonable and with harsh rules. The forced African into labor on their own land Europeans even sometimes killed an African if they worked too slowly or if they did not getting enough crops. One of the harshest European country was Belgium they used to line up the Africans and see how many people the bullet could go through. Then there was a time when Africans said enough was enough. Some African countries rebeled peacefully by protesting and boycotting. But the other African countries showed no mercy and started war. Some of the other events happening in the world influenced the Africans to rebel. Some of the events were WWI, The Civil Rights Movement, and WWII. All of these events helped the Africans
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