25 Africa and the Middle East, 1800–1914 CHAPTER CONTENTS

CHAPTER 25 Africa and the Middle East, 1800–1914 CHAPTER CONTENTS

• State Formation and the End of the Slave Trade in Africa n the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the countries of DISCOVERY THROUGH MAPS: The Myth Africa and the Middle East underwent a radical restructuring; of the Empty Land they faced internal political struggles, the transformation of the I • European Conquest of Africa world economy, and the military, commercial, and cultural incur- DOCUMENT: That Was No Brother sions of the Europeans. The economic, technological, and military • European Technology and the African superiority of certain European states challenged the diverse, com- Response to Conquest plex civilizations of Africa, the Middle East, and Asia and made • The Ottoman Empire Refashioned them targets in the competition for empire. DOCUMENT: A Middle Eastern Vision In sub-Saharan Africa, the diversity of kingdoms and societies of the West made a unified political response to the Europeans impossible. By DOCUMENT: Halide Edib: Education, the beginning of the twentieth century, Africans found themselves Generation, and Class in the Late living within political boundaries imposed by the Europeans, without Ottoman Empire regard for the existing ethnic distribution of peoples. They began the • Persia and the Great Power Struggle painful process of altering their lifestyles to survive in the industri- alized world. In the Middle East, politicians and intellectuals discussed ways to keep their empires strong and proposed reforms to enable them to meet the challenges of moder- nity. The Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the nineteenth century was still large and powerful, but by the end of the century, it had faced bankruptcy, territorial losses, and national separatist movements. The Qajar Empire in Persia was similarly weakened by foreign loans and by the military ambitions of Britain and Russia. From North Africa to central Asia, the citizens of these traditional, polyglot, multiethnic empires found themselves caught up in the great power rivalries of the new imperialists in Europe.

1905–1906 Beginning 1834 Great Britain ends of Persian slavery in British colonies 1884 European constitutional 1784 Usman dan colonizers meet in revolution Fodio launches jihad 1821 Greek revolt 1835–1848 Boers' 1867 Diamonds Berlin to set ground against Hausa rulers against Ottoman rule Great Trek into interior discovered in rules for claiming 1907 Britain of South Africa South Africa colonies and Russia 1808–1839 Mahmud II, divide Persia reformer, janissary 1839–1876 Ottoman 1869 Opening into spheres corps destroyed Tanzimat reform period of Suez Canal of influence

1780 1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900

1801 Muhammad Ali arrives 1843 Sanusi Sufi order 1876 First Ottoman 1896 Ethiopian 1908 Second in Egypt and seizes power established in constitutional army defeats Ottoman present-day Libya revolution Italians at constitutional Aduwa revolution 1847 French finalize takeover of Algeria 1879 Britain seizes Khyber 1899–1902 Pass, dominates Afghanistan Anglo-Boer War 1848–1896 Reign of Nasir al-Din Shah in Persia 3 4 PART 5 The Century of Western Dominance

the slaves exported from Africa, had abolished the STATE FORMATION slave trade in 1807. Other European nations followed AND THE END OF THE suit in subsequent decades. A British antislavery squadron patrolled the West and East African coasts, SLAVE TRADE IN AFRICA intercepting slave ships. Although the antislavery squadron managed to free about 160,000 slaves, it was West Africa a fraction of the overall slave trade. Between 1807 and In West Africa the political map of the interior 1888, close to 3 million more Africans were enslaved savanna dramatically changed in the eighteenth cen- and shipped overseas, largely to sugar, coffee, and cot- tury as Fulani Muslim holy men in the western Sudan ton plantations in Cuba and Brazil. launched a series of jihads. Their efforts inspired Britain and France established colonies in Sierra Fulani Muslims in the eastern Sudan—the most Leone and Gabon for freed slaves, while the American notable being Usman dan Fodio (1754–1817), son of a Colonization Society (ACS) created a settlement for Muslim teacher and himself a scholar of some repute. free African Americans who wished to return volun- He criticized Muslim Hausa leaders for ignoring tarily to Africa and for blacks captured on slave ships Sharia law and for their lax morality. When a Hausa by the American antislavery squadron. The ACS ruler lifted the exemption of Muslims from taxes, selected a strip of territory in the Cape Mesurado area Usman mobilized his students, Fulani pastoralists, and pressured local Africans into ceding them the and Hausa peasants and declared a holy war against land. However, the black settlers who landed after Hausa rulers in 1804. Usman’s movement succeeded 1821 had a difficult time adjusting. They were sus- in uniting most of the Hausa states into the central- ceptible to diseases and looked down their noses at ized Sokoto Caliphate, with a capital at Sokoto on the agriculture. When they declared themselves indepen- lower Niger, that encompassed several hundred thou- dent from the ACS and founded Liberia (from the sand square miles. Latin word, liber, for “free”) in 1847, their population Usman remained a religious leader while his numbered only a few thousand. brother Abdullahi and son Muhammad Bello The Americo-Liberians (as the settlers came to be (1781–1837) consolidated the caliphate. Although a called) patterned themselves on the United States, Hausa aristocracy was replaced by a Fulani nobility, adopting the English language and a constitution the latter allowed Hausa political and religious elites based on the American States model and naming in the emirates a measure of local autonomy as long their capital Monrovia (after President James Mon- as they paid an annual tribute and recognized the roe). Although their official motto was “Love of Lib- caliph’s political and religious authority. erty Brought Us Here,” they did not extend freedom Usman dan Fodio’s revolution brought mixed to indigenous Africans, who were regarded as unciv- results for women. He encouraged education among ilized and backward. A caste system developed in elite women and supported women who disobeyed which Americo-Liberians dominated politics and husbands who did not educate them. His wives and exploited the labor of indigenous Africans, who were daughters were educated and became noted for their not allowed to qualify for citizenship until 1904. writings. However, women were expected to remain in Although Liberia’s economy sputtered in the face of seclusion and were excluded from meaningful roles in intense competition with European traders and the elite decision making. The queen mother (magajiya) civil service was riddled with corruption, Liberia lost her power to veto decisions by male rulers and managed to survive the European scramble for Africa found her influence restricted to ritual matters. and to remain an independent republic through the The creation of the Sokoto Caliphate made little colonial period. difference to the Hausa peasantry and slaves who African societies involved in the transatlantic slave served in households and tilled the fields. Although trade adjusted to its winding down in various ways. elite women were freed up from agricultural produc- Some societies were so dependent on slave exports tion and expanded their production of indigo-dyed that they found it difficult to cope. Other societies cloth, they were replaced in the fields by female slaves shifted from exporting slaves to trading for more imported into the Caliphate. On the other hand, domestic slaves. The Asante kingdom in the Gold Hausa traders maintained their prosperous links with Coast acquired more domestic slaves to increase gold Tripoli to the north and the Atlantic coast. Their trade and kola nut production for trading with Europeans items included kola nuts, grain, salt, slaves, cattle, and and the West African interior. cloth, which made their way to countries as far away For many societies, the slave trade had been a as Egypt and Brazil. negligible part of their overall trade, and African entre- On the West African coast, African societies were preneurs and European merchants expanded their adapting to the tapering off of the Atlantic slave trade. trading links. One African export sought in Europe Britain, which was responsible for more than half of was gum arabic, extracted from acacia trees and used CHAPTER 25 Africa and the Middle East, 1800–1914 5 for dyes in European textile factories. Another was palm oil, a key ingredient in candles and soap and the main lubricant for Europe’s industrial machinery before the discovery of petroleum oil. Along the coast east of the Niger delta, where palm oil was a major export, palm oil production was organized on gender lines: men cut down the nuts from trees, and women extracted the oil. Although the male heads of households were the main beneficiaries of palm oil production, they gave women the proceeds from palm kernels. The demand for palm kernel oil escalated in the 1880s when William Lever began sell- ing Sunlight, a sweet-smelling soap made from palm kernel oil and coconut oil, to a mass market in England. However, the most important beneficiaries of the trade were not the producers but the rulers and merchants. In the Niger River delta, states vying for control of the trade fought a series of wars.

East and Central Africa East and central Africa were also increasingly drawn into the world economy through long-distance trade. Gold and ivory had long been exported to China and India, but now it was in demand by European middle classes for luxury items such as billiard balls, piano keys, and cutlery handles. Elephant herds paid an enormous price; 33 elephants were slaughtered for every ton of ivory exported. The scourge of slavery also ravaged the region. During the nineteenth century, several million people were enslaved. Half of them were sent to southern Arabia, Sudan, and Ethiopia, while the rest ended up on French sugar plantations Born of Arab and Nyamwezi parents, Tippu Tip was a warlord on the Indian Ocean islands of Mauritius and Réu- who established a state west of Lake Tanganyika to exploit the nion; on Brazilian sugar plantations, whose owners slave trade. found West African slaves too highly priced; and on Arab-run clove plantations on Zanzibar and nearby islands. Zanzibar had become so important to Omani Arabs on the southeastern coast of the Arabian penin- sula that Sultan Sayyid Said (1791–1856) transferred the Twa, who were hunter-gatherers; the Hutu, Bantu- most of his court and government there in 1840. speaking farmers; and the Tutsi, a pastoral Nilotic peo- The long-distance trade opened up opportunities ple who were the latest to immigrate into the area. for middlemen trading groups. The Yao, Nyamwezi, Over the centuries Tutsi clans had established a Afro-Portuguese, Kamba, and Swahili Arabs con- patron-client relationship with Twa and Hutu clans, trolled routes in different parts of the region and but the lines between the groups were not clearly recruited thousands of porters for their caravans. The drawn. Hutu and Tutsi intermarried and shared a Swahili language increasingly became the lingua common language, religious beliefs, and cultural insti- franca along trading routes. With imported firearms tutions, and the distinctions between Tutsi patrons and slave armies, some of the leading warlords estab- and Hutu clients were often blurred. lished conquest states based on their control over the However, in the late nineteenth century the Nyi- slave trade. Mirambo (1840–1884), a Nyamwezi chief, ginya, a Tutsi clan led by King Rwabugiri, conquered and Tippu Tip (c. 1830–1905), who was of Arab and other Tutsi and Hutu clans. Rwabugiri’s state was Nyamwezi parentage, carved out domains east and highly centralized and favored the Tutsi minority, who west of Lake Tanganyika, respectively. served as administrators, tax collectors, and army Many African kingdoms such as Rwanda were not commanders and controlled grazing land. Hutu chiefs dependent on the long-distance trade for their sur- were in charge of agricultural lands but tended Tutsi vival. Rwanda was composed of three main groups: cattle and paid tribute to their Tutsi overlords. 6 PART 5 The Century of Western Dominance

Southern Africa In the first decades of the nineteenth century, African societies in southeastern Africa were swept up in a period of political transformation known as the Mfe- cane (“the scattering”). Its origins can be traced to increased competition by chiefdoms for grazing land following a series of severe droughts and for control of first the ivory and then the cattle trade with the Por- tuguese at Delagoa Bay. However, it was the Zulu clan, a minor actor when the Mfecane began, that became the region’s most formidable military power. The Zulu owed their rise in prominence to their king, Shaka (c. 1786–1828). When he was born about 1786, his father was chief of the Zulu clan, which was later part of the Mthethwa confederacy ruled by Dingiswayo (c. 1770s–1816). When Shaka’s father rejected his mother, Shaka was forced to spend his childhood among his mother’s people. As a young man, he enrolled in one of Dingiswayo’s fighting regiments. Young men of about 16 to 18 traditionally went to circumcision schools for a number of months to prepare themselves for manhood. Because Dingis- wayo needed soldiers who could be called into battle on short notice, he abolished the circumcision schools and enrolled his young men directly into regiments.

African Societies and European Imperialism

1816 Shaka becomes king of Zulu

1824 Basotho king Moshoeshoe moves to mountain fortress Thaba Bosiu Print of Shaka, King of the Zulus. Shaka established a major king- 1840 Omani Sultan Said establishes rule in dom based on innovations in battle tactics and weaponry. Zanzibar

1876 King Leopold II of Belgium founds Interna- Shaka soon distinguished himself as a warrior, tional African Association and he rose rapidly in Dingiswayo’s army. On his 1879 Zulu army defeats British force at battle of father’s death in 1815, Shaka assumed the chieftaincy Isandhlwana of the Zulu. Several years later, when Dingiswayo’s enemies lured him into a trap and killed him, Shaka 1881 Muhammad Ahmad proclaims himself Mahdi asserted his leadership of the confederacy. He in Sudan regrouped his followers and won over others; eventu- 1886 Opening of Witwatersrand gold fields ally, he vanquished his opponents. He then began constructing, primarily by cattle-raiding, a major 1888 Cecil Rhodes and Barney Barnato found kingdom between the Phongolo and Tugela Rivers that De Beers Diamond Company dominated southeastern Africa. 1895 Cecil Rhodes launches Jameson raid to over- Shaka was best known for adopting new weapons throw Transvaal government and battle strategies that revolutionized warfare. He armed the Zulu army with a stabbing spear that was 1898 Confrontation of British and French forces at not thrown but used in close fighting. He introduced Fashoda in southern Sudan the buffalo horn formation, which allowed his soldiers to engage an opponent while the horns or flanks sur- CHAPTER 25 Africa and the Middle East, 1800–1914 7

rounded them. He drilled his soldiers so that they could with battle-axes and formed a cavalry using ponies march long distances on short notice. He also trans- bred for the rugged mountain terrain. formed his clan into a major kingdom of about 25,000 Moshoeshoe is best remembered for his diplo- people by assimilating large numbers of war captives. matic skills. He was prepared to fight if necessary, but He created a new hierarchy in which power was cen- he preferred to negotiate whenever possible. On many tered in his kingship and status was based not on occasions he managed to salvage difficult situations descent but on achievement in the military regiments. by engaging in diplomacy and exploiting divisions Shaka’s repeated raids for cattle and captives among opponents, especially the rivalry between the throughout the area proved to be his downfall, as his Boers and the British. In 1868, toward the end of his regiments tired of constant campaigns. Several of his life, as Boers were on the verge of destroying his king- half-brothers and one of his generals conspired dom, Moshoeshoe successfully appealed to the British against him and assassinated him in 1828. government for protection. During the Mfecane, refugee groups escaped Shaka’s domination by migrating to other parts of the region. Some headed much farther north, adopting The Great Trek and British- Shaka’s fighting methods and establishing kingdoms on the Shakan model in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Afrikaner Relations Malawi, and Tanzania. Still other peoples survived by As African kingdoms in southern Africa were under- creating new kingdoms that knit together clans and going a period of transformation, groups of Boers refugees. One kingdom forged in this way was were preparing to escape British control by migrating Moshoeshoe’s Basotho kingdom. into the interior of southern Africa. Prompted by the The son of a minor chief, Moshoeshoe (c. Napoleonic wars, Britain had resumed control over 1786–1870) gained a reputation as a cattle raider as a the Cape Colony in 1806 to protect the sea lanes young man. Moshoeshoe succeeded his father as around the Cape of Good Hope. The British were refugee groups began streaming into his area. intent on expanding commercial opportuni- To escape their raids, in 1824 Moshoeshoe ties through wine and wool production; moved his small following to an the Boers resented any interference impregnable, flat-topped mountain with their pastoral way of life. called Thaba Bosiu. Over the next Relations between the two several decades, he creatively groups deteriorated in the next built a kingdom that became decades. At first the British one of the most powerful in won Boer approval for a law that tied Khoikhoi servants to white farmers, but after a humanitarian outcry Moshoeshoe photographed in 1860, during the visit of Prince from missionaries over Alfred to South Africa. Although abuses of servants, the he liked to wear European British instituted an dress on formal occasions with ordinance giving Khoi- whites, he preferred traditional khoi farm laborers dress among his own subjects. Renowned for his diplomatic equal rights. Britain skills, he was able to maintain also abolished the slave his kingdom’s independence for trade in 1807, driving up many decades from Afrikaner the price of slaves, and and British colonizers. in 1834 it emancipated the slaves. However, this action did not improve the region. Moshoeshoe the conditions of former accumulated vast cattle slaves as most of them, herds through raiding, and he unskilled and uneducated, won the loyalty of many desti- ended up as free but servile tute men by lending them cattle labor on white farms. The last to reestablish their homesteads. straw for the Boers came in 1836 Moshoeshoe married many times to when the British handed back land build up political alliances with neigh- to Xhosa groups whose land had been boring chiefs. He also armed his warriors conquered in a recently completed war. 8 PART 5 The Century of Western Dominance

PORTUGAL SPAIN

Oran Ceuta Tunis Tangier ALGERIA TUNIS Fez M E Mazagan D I T E R R A MOROCCO N E A N S Canary Is. Tripoli E A Alexandria Suez

N Canal

i Cairo l e

R . ARABIA

Aswan EGYPT R Arguin E Sahara Desert DSEA Suakin Pador SUDAN FUTA TORO St. Louis Timbuktu Khartoum N Massawa ig BORNU e r R Lake KORDOFAN FUTA JALLON . DARFUR Bissau Chad PORTUGUESE Gondar GUINEA SOKOTO NUER Freetown SIERRA ETHIOPIA LEONE LIBERIA ILORIN Monrovia ASHANTI DAHOMEY Whyda Accra BENIN GOLD COAST Niger

Delta O Con R go YO GALLA R UN . B DA Lake GAN Victoria RWANDA BU KONGO Congo Basin MASAI BURUNDI Lake Malindi ATLANTIC Tanganyika OMANI Mombasa OCEAN Tabora SUPREMACY INDIAN OCEAN Loanda Lake Kilwa CHOKWE Kazembe Nyasa

OVIMBUNDU AFRICA, c. 1830 ANGOLA Benguela French possessions . OVIMBUNDU zi R be African states m a Mozambique Z Tete British possessions R PORTUGUESE A Ottoman and Egyptian possessions LOZI C EAST AFRICA S A Portuguese possessions G Kalahari A A Spanish possessions N D Desert A A East African slave trade routes, M TSW BASOTHO c. 1830—76 A B Sofala

ZULU

CAPE COLONY XHOSA 0 500 1000 Cape Town

MILES

Before the European conquest of Africa in the late nineteenth century, Africans in all parts of the continent were establishing new kingdoms or expanding old ones.

Seeing their way of life threatened, many Boers On the high plateau, or veld, the Boers established decided to escape further British interference by head- two republics: the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. ing for the interior. In the mid–1830s bands of For the rest of the century they solidified their control migrants, known as voortrekkers (numbering about by engaging in wars of land conquest against African 15,000 in all) undertook an epic journey in their kingdoms. In the meantime, the British prevented the ox-drawn wagons to a new country where they could Boers from having direct access to the Indian Ocean by restore their way of life. This Great Trek was compa- extending their own settlement along the eastern coast rable to the covered-wagon epic of the American West. north of the Cape and founding the colony of Natal. CHAPTER 25 Africa and the Middle East, 1800–1914 9

BECHUANALAND THE GREAT TREK AND . o R op PORTUGUESE SOUTH AFRICA IN THE mp Li NINETEENTH CENTURY EAST Boer Great Trek Tswana TRANSVAAL AFRICA Pretoria Johannesburg SOUTH–WEST Mafeking SWAZILAND AFRICA

Zulu ORANGE FREE Kimberley Ladysmith Orange R. STATE NATAL Bloemfontein BASUTO- LAND Durban

CAPE COLONY Xhosa ATLANTIC Graaff Reinet INDIAN OCEAN OCEAN East London Cape Town Port Elizabeth 0 250

MILES

In the 1830s bands of Afrikaners migrated from the Cape into the interior of South Africa. Through the conquest of African lands, they established two republics, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State.

to the Zulu kingdom by carving it into 13 small pieces and exiling Cetshwayo. This victory did not improve British relations with Transvaal Afrikaners. In 1881 they rebelled against British rule and scored a series of military successes. Light and strong, voortrekker wagons were ideally suited to the The British agreed to pull out of the Transvaal, rough terrain they were forced to cross. Despite their maneuver- although they still claimed to have a voice in its for- ability, they could carry a surprising amount of household and eign affairs. other goods. This picture shows a wagon crossing a particularly difficult river. The Mineral Revolution and the Anglo-Boer War The Great Trek did little to resolve the Boers’ dif- The discovery of diamonds in 1867 on the borders of ficulties. In 1877 Britain created a confederation of the Cape Colony and the Orange Free State and of the white-ruled states in the region and took over the gold in 1886 in the Transvaal were to transform the Transvaal with little resistance from the Afrikaners whole of southern Africa economically and politically. (the name taken by the Boers about this time). The When the diamond fields were opened up, thou- British attempted to win Afrikaner acceptance by sands of black and white fortune seekers flocked to the launching offensives against their main African rivals, area. The mining town of Kimberley sprang up almost the Pedi and Zulu kingdoms. Although the Zulus had overnight. In the first years of the digs, there were no coexisted peacefully with British and Afrikaners for restrictions on who could stake claims. But in 1873, many decades, the British now perceived them as an European diggers, resentful of competition from obstacle to white control and manufactured a war blacks, successfully lobbied British officials for a law against the Zulu kingdom. The war started disas- prohibiting Africans from owning claims. This law set trously for the British when, in January 1879, the the tone for future laws governing who controlled army of King Cetshwayo (c. 1832–1884) caught a mineral rights and ownership of the land. British column by surprise at Isandhlwana and over- Although Africans were excluded from owning whelmed them. A handful of British soldiers survived claims, there were few restrictions on their move- the battle. Cetshwayo hoped the British would end ments and where they lived around the mines. their aggression following the disaster, but they Africans typically came to mine for three to six renewed their efforts and, six months later, put an end months and left at a time of their own choosing. This Discovery Through Maps The Myth of the Empty Land

uropean settlement in various parts of the world was not the Bantu’s originally any more than it was the white Eusually accompanied by the conquest of land from man’s, because the Bantus were also immigrants…most of indigenous peoples. Because the settlers did not have a his- their ancestors migrated to South Africa in comparatively toric claim to the land, they often constructed their own ver- recent times.” sions of the past to justify their right to be there. In South Theal’s “myth of the empty land” became an article of Africa, one myth that white settlers created was that Dutch faith for many white South Africans until late in the twen- settlers arrived in southern Africa about the same time as tieth century. His interpretation was a standard feature in Bantu-speaking peoples, the ancestors of most present-day South African history textbooks used in both white and Africans—in the mid-seventeenth century. Hence, white set- black schools, and South African government propaganda tlers could claim that, as they migrated from the western relied on it to justify the apartheid system to the interna- Cape into the interior of South Africa, they were moving into tional community. an unpopulated land that was up for grabs. Europeans could lay claim to the land, and they had just as much right to it as Questions to Consider Africans did. A variation of the “myth of the empty land” was based The ownership of disputed land has been a thorny issue in on a late nineteenth century map drawn by George McCall many countries. Theal, a Canadian who settled in the Cape in 1861. Theal’s 1. Are there myths that settler groups have devised in other map shows the South African interior virtually depopulated parts of the world to justify their conquests and domi- because many Africans had been displaced by the wars of the nation of indigenous peoples and the land? Zulu king Shaka in the 1820s and 1830s. Thus, the Boers 2. How accurate is the claim of Theal’s map that “Zulu who trekked into the interior in the 1830s were settling on Wars” had depopulated the interior of South Africa land no longer occupied by Africans. In a speech delivered before Afrikaners set out on the Great Trek? to a Cape Town audience in 1909, Theal clearly revealed his motives for the way he drew his map. “We must…prove,” he From Christopher Saunders, The Making of the South African declared, “to these people [Africans] that we were no more Past: Major Historians on Race and Class (Cape Town, David intruders than they were, and that they enjoyed as much as Philip, 1988), p. 39; Marianne Cornevin, Apartheid Power and they were entitled to.” He added, “In reality this country was Historical Falsification (Paris: UNESCO, 1980), p. 79. CHAPTER 25 Africa and the Middle East, 1800–1914 11

freedom changed as European mine owners sought to Kruger’s main adversary was Cecil Rhodes, who prevent diamond thefts and to control black workers in 1890 had become prime minister of the Cape by preventing desertion and holding down their Colony. An avowed imperialist, Rhodes now set his wages. In 1885 the mine owners began erecting com- sights on bringing down Kruger’s republic. He plotted pounds to house black workers. Throughout their stay with uitlanders in Johannesburg to stage an insurrec- at a mine, black workers stayed in the compounds and tion. In late 1895 Rhodes’s private army, led by Lean- were allowed out only to work in the mine. The com- der Starr Jameson, invaded the Transvaal from pound system was so effective at controlling black neighboring Bechuanaland, but they were quickly labor that it became a fixture in other mining opera- captured by Afrikaner commandos. The Jameson raid tions throughout southern Africa. had dire consequences. Rhodes was forced to resign In the early years of the diamond diggings, several as prime minister, Afrikaners in the Cape were alien- thousand people held claims, but by the 1880s, own- ated from the British, the Orange Free State formed ership of the mines was falling into the hands of fewer an alliance with the Transvaal, and the Transvaal and fewer people. In 1888 the two leading magnates, began modernizing its army by importing weapons Cecil Rhodes (1853–1902) and Barney Barnato from Europe. (1852–1897), pooled their resources to found De Transvaal leaders were deeply suspicious that the Beers, a company that controlled 90 percent of dia- British had been behind Rhodes’s reckless actions. mond production. Over a century later De Beers con- Their fears were heightened when in 1897 the British tinues to dominate the diamond industry not only in selected Alfred Milner (1854–1925) as the high South Africa but also around the world. commissioner for South Africa. He shared Rhodes’s In 1886, gold discoveries on the Witwatersrand (“ridge of the white waters”) sparked off another rush. The Witwatersrand gold veins were distinctive because they sloped at sharp angles beneath the earth and required shafts to be sunk at depths of up to two miles. The exorbitant costs of deep-level mining as well as of importing skilled labor, mining engineers, and the latest technology required enormous infusions of foreign capital. Profits were hard to sustain, and the main mining houses targeted black wages for cutting costs. They restricted competition for black workers by imposing ceilings on their wages and creating recruiting organizations that eventually developed networks as far north as Zambia and Malawi. The result was a migrant labor system in which tens of thousands of black men came to the mines for six to nine months, while black women stayed home to raise families and look after crops. Another consequence of the mineral discoveries was the extension of railways into the interior of southern Africa. From 1886 to the end of the century, South Africa’s share of world gold production increased from less than 1 percent to over 25 percent. The cen- ter of power in the region shifted from Cape Town to Johannesburg, renewing British interest in controlling the Transvaal. Afrikaner leaders were resolute about protecting their independence, but they feared they would be outnumbered when tens of thousands of uitlanders (foreigners), mainly English immigrants, flocked to the gold mines. The Transvaal’s president, Paul Kruger (1825–1904), was determined that the uitlanders would not gain control. As a boy he had joined in the Great Trek. As a young man, he led Boer commandos conquering African lands. As head of the Transvaal, he was passionately devoted to preserving its independence and the Afrikaners’ A bitterender, an Afrikaner guerrilla who vowed to fight to the “bit- agrarian way of life. ter end” against the British during the Anglo-Boer War. 12 PART 5 The Century of Western Dominance

Document That Was No Brother

Europeans and Africans usually had very different perceptions of the same event. These documents recount two versions of a battle on the Congo River in the 1870s. The first comes from an African chief, Mojimba— recorded by a Catholic priest, Father Joseph Fraessle, several decades after the battle—and the second is by the famed explorer Henry Morton Stanley written for European and American audiences.

hen we heard that the man with the white flesh to safety? No—for others fell down also, in the canoes. W was journeying down the Lualaba (Lualaba- Some screamed dreadfully, others were silent—they Congo) we were open-mouthed with astonishment. We were dead, and blood flowed from little holes in their stood still. All night long the drums announced the bodies. “War! that is war!” I yelled. “Go back!” The strange news—a man with white flesh! . . . He must canoes sped back to our village with all the strength have got that from the river-kingdom. He will be one of our spirits could impart to our arms. That was no our brothers who were drowned in that river. All life brother! That was the worst enemy our country had comes from the water, and in the water he has found ever seen. life. Now he is coming back to us, he is coming home…. And still those bangs went on; the long staves spat We will prepare a feast, I ordered, we will go to fire, pieces of iron whistled around us, fell into the meet our brother and escort him into the village with water with a hissing sound, and our brothers contin- rejoicing!… We assembled the great canoes. We lis- ued to fall. We fell into our village—they came after us. tened for the gong which would announce our We fled into the forest and flung ourselves on the brother’s presence on the Lualaba. Presently the cry ground. When we returned that evening our eyes was heard: He is approaching the Lualaba. Now he beheld fearful things: our brothers, dead, bleeding, our enters the river!… We swept forward, my canoe lead- village plundered and burned, and the water full of ing, the others following, with songs of joy and with dead bodies…. dancing, to meet the first white man our eyes had Now tell me: has the white man dealt fairly by us? beheld, and to do him honor. Oh, do not speak to me of him! You call us wicked But as we drew near his canoes there were loud men, but you white men are much more wicked! You reports, bang! bang! and fire-staves spat bits of iron at think because you have guns you can take away our us. We were paralyzed with fright; our mouths hung land and our possessions. You have sickness in your wide open and we could not shut them. Things such heads, for that is not justice. as we had never seen, never heard of, never dreamed of—they were the work of evil spirits! Several of my From Heinrich Schifflers, The Quest for Africa (New York: men plunged into the water…. What for? Did they fly Putnam, 1957), pp. 196–197.

imperialist convictions with a passion. He pressured camps from disease and starvation. Among Afrikaners Kruger to reduce the length of time for uitlanders to the memory of the deaths fueled animosity against the qualify for citizenship in the Transvaal. Although Mil- British for generations. ner thought Kruger would make significant concessions under pressure, Kruger was unwilling to meet all of Milner’s demands. War broke out in late 1899. Most observers EUROPEAN CONQUEST expected the British army to roll over the heavily out- OF AFRICA numbered Afrikaner forces. But Afrikaner soldiers were crack shots and expert horsemen. Knowing every In 1870 the European nations controlled only 10 per- inch of ground on which they fought, they frequently cent of the continent. The two most important holdings outmaneuvered the British troops by resorting to were at Africa’s geographical extremes: French-admin- guerrilla tactics. The British countered by conducting istered Algeria in the north and the Boer republics and a scorched-earth campaign, burning Afrikaner farms British colonies in the south. Most of the other Euro- and placing Afrikaner women and children and pean holdings were small commercial ones along the Africans who worked on their farms in unsanitary West African coast. concentration camps. About 30,000 Afrikaners (half of One of the first European leaders to acquire new them children) and 15,000 blacks perished in the African territory was King Leopold II of Belgium, CHAPTER 25 Africa and the Middle East, 1800–1914 13

t 2 P.M. we emerged out of the shelter of the deeply The monster canoe aimed straight for my boat, as A wooded banks and came into a vast stream, nearly though it would run us down; but when within fifty 2,000 yards across at the mouth. As soon as we yards off, it swerved aside and, when nearly opposite, entered its waters, we saw a great fleet of canoes hov- the warriors above the manned prow let fly their spears ering about in the middle of the stream…. We pulled and on either side there was a noise of rushing bodies. briskly on to gain the right bank, when looking But every sound was soon lost in the ripping, crackling upstream, we saw a sight that sent the blood tingling musketry. For five minutes we were so absorbed in fir- through every nerve and fiber of our bodies: a flotilla ing that we took no note of anything else; but at the of gigantic canoes bearing down upon us, which both end of that time we were made aware that the enemy in size and numbers greatly exceeded anything we had was reforming about 200 yards above us. seen hitherto! Our blood was up now. It was a murderous Instead of aiming for the right bank, we formed a world, and we felt for the first time that we hated the line and kept straight downriver, the boat taking posi- filthy, vulturous ghouls who inhabited it. We there- tion behind…. The shields were next lifted by the non- fore lifted our anchors and pursued them upstream combatants, men, women and children in the bows, along the right bank until, rounding a point, we saw and along the outer lines, as well as astern, and from their villages. We made straight for the banks and behind these the muskets and rifles were aimed. continued the fight in the village streets with those We had sufficient time to take a view of the who had landed. mighty force bearing down on us and to count the number of the war vessels. There were 54 of them! A From Henry M. Stanley, Through the Dark Continent, Vol. 2 monster canoe led the way, with two rows of upstand- (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1878), pp. 268–273. ing paddles, 40 men on a side, their bodies bending and swaying in unison as with a swelling barbarous Questions to Consider chorus they drove her down toward us…. The crashing sounds of large drums, a hundred You are a journalist covering the skirmish and you are blasts of ivory horns, and a thrilling chant from 2,000 relying on the accounts of Mojimba and Stanley for human throats did not tend to soothe our nerves or to your story. increase our confidence…. We had no time to pray or 1. What are the strengths and weaknesses of each source? to take sentimental looks at the savage world, or even 2. What would your account be? How would it differ from to breathe a sad farewell to it…. either source?

who had long dreamed of creating an empire mod- miles of territory along the Congo River, an area 75 eled on Dutch holdings in Asia and the Pacific. When times the size of Belgium. the Belgian government was reluctant to acquire Britain’s occupation of Egypt and Leopold’s colonies, Leopold took the initiative. In 1876 he orga- acquisition of the Congo moved Chancellor Otto von nized the International African Association (IAA) and Bismarck to overcome his indifference to colonies brought the explorer Henry Stanley (1841–1904) into and acquire an African empire for Germany. Begin- his service. The association, composed of scientists ning in February 1884, Bismarck took just a year to and explorers from many nations, was ostensibly annex four colonies: South-West Africa, Togoland, intended to serve humanitarian purposes. But the Cameroon, and German East Africa. However, Bis- crafty king had less noble motives. As he put it, he did marck’s imperial grab was still firmly rooted in his not want to lose a golden opportunity “to secure…a reading of European power politics. He wanted to slice of this magnificent African cake.”1 He sent Stan- deflect French hostility to Germany by sparking ley to central Africa on behalf of the association. French interest in acquiring colonies and to put Ger- Stanley brought along hundreds of blank treaty many in a position to mediate potential disputes forms and concluded agreements with various between France and Britain. African chiefs, few of whom understood the implica- While Bismarck was busy acquiring territory, he tions of granting sovereignty to the IAA. By 1882 the was also concerned about preventing clashes between organization had laid claim to over 900,000 square colonizers. In 1884 he called the major European 14 PART 5 The Century of Western Dominance powers together in Berlin to discuss potential prob- those of the Americans in negotiations with Native lems of unregulated African colonization. The con- American tribes is all too apparent. ference paid lip service to humanitarian concerns by The cultural differences between Africans and condemning the slave trade, prohibiting the sale of Europeans were especially vast regarding their concep- liquor and firearms in certain areas, and ensuring tions of land ownership. To most African societies, land that European missionaries were not hindered from was not owned privately by individuals but was vested spreading the Christian faith. Then the European par- in their chiefs, who allocated it to their people. When ticipants moved to much more important matters. chiefs allocated land or mineral rights to Europeans, Seeking to avoid competition for territory that they had no idea they were disposing of more than its could lead to conflict, they set down the ground rules temporary use. When the Europeans later claimed own- by which the colonizers were to be guided in their ership of the land, Africans were indignant, claiming search for colonies. They agreed that the area along that they had been cheated. In 1888 Charles Rudd, a the mouth of the Congo River was to be administered representative of Cecil Rhodes, signed a treaty with the by Leopold of Belgium but that it was to be open to Ndebele king, Lobengula (c. 1836–1894), in which he free trade and navigation. Drawing on precedents was given a monthly stipend and 1000 Martini-Henry beginning in the sixteenth century, when European rifles in exchange for a concession over minerals and nations were creating seaborne empires, they decided metals. Lobengula was told that the treaty gave Rhodes’s that no nation was to stake out claims without first company the right to dig a hole in one place, but the notifying other powers of its intention. No territory treaty actually gave Rhodes unlimited powers. could be staked out unless it was effectively occupied, African leaders who questioned treaty provisions and all disputes were to be settled by arbitration. In were treated cavalierly. King Jaja (c. 1821–1891) of spite of these declarations, the competitors often Opobo, a prosperous trading state in southeastern ignored the rules. On several occasions, war was Nigeria, refused to sign a British treaty unless the barely avoided. wording of clauses on protection and free trade was The humanitarian guidelines were generally dis- altered or scrapped. The British agreed to changes, but regarded. The methods used to acquire lands contin- when the British Consul invited the chiefs to sign the ued in many instances to involve deception of the treaty on a ship, they were detained and sent into exile. Africans. European colonists got huge land grants by giving chiefs treaties they could not read and whose contents they were not permitted to understand. In The Scrambling of Africa return, African chiefs were plied with bottles of gin, From the Berlin conference to World War I, European red handkerchiefs, and fancy red costumes. The com- imperialists partitioned the African continent among parison between the European treaty methods and themselves, with two exceptions—Liberia, which had

Representatives of 14 nations, including the United States, met in Berlin in 1884 to set new rules to govern their “scramble for Africa.” No representative from Africa was invited to participate. CHAPTER 25 Africa and the Middle East, 1800–1914 15 been established for freed American slaves, and was to create an empire linking Algeria, West Africa, Ethiopia, which fended off Italian invaders. The colo- and the region north of the lower Congo River. To nizers were woefully ignorant about the geography of achieve their goal, the French relied on their military the areas they colonized. Europeans had knowledge of to drive eastward from Senegal and northward from coastal areas, but nineteenth-century explorers had the lower Congo. In West Africa the British concen- largely concentrated on river explorations and knew trated on their coastal trading interests and carved out little beyond that. Thus, when European statesmen colonies in Gambia, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast drew boundaries, they were more concerned with (Ghana), and Nigeria. But they also scooped up pos- strategic interests and potential economic develop- sessions elsewhere. In East Africa they laid claim to ment than with existing kingdoms, ethnic identities, Kenya and Uganda, and by 1884, they gained control topography, or demography. About half the bound- over a stretch of African coast fronting on the Gulf of aries were straight lines drawn for simple conve- Aden. Because it guarded the lower approach to the nience. As Lord Salisbury, the British prime minister, Suez Canal, this protectorate (British Somaliland) was admitted: “[We] have been engaged in drawing lines of great strategic value. upon maps where no white man’s foot ever trod, we Equally important to British control of Egypt have been giving away mountains and rivers and lakes were the headwaters of the Nile, situated in the area to each other, only hindered by the small impediment known as the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The French also that we never knew exactly where the mountains and had their designs on the area as a bargaining chip to rivers and lakes were.”2 force the British to reconsider their exclusive control France and Britain were by far the two leading over Egypt. The French commissioned Captain Jean- competitors for African territory. The French vision Baptiste Marchand to march a force 3000 miles from

EUROPEAN IMPERIALISM EUROPEAN IMPERIALISM IN AFRICA, c. 1880 IN AFRICA, 1914

British Portuguese British German French Spanish French Belgian Portuguese Italian Spanish Independent SPANISH TUNIS OTTOMAN MOROCCO TUNISIA MED MOROCCO M ALGERIA ITERRANE EMPIRE EDITERRAN

N Suez

TRIPOLI i Canal l ALGERIA RIO DE (Ott Emp.) e RIO DE LIBYA ORO R FRENCH . ORO EGYPT SOMALILAND EGYPT RED SENEGAL GAMBIA S SENEGAL GAMBIA EA ERITREA BRITISH N FRENCH WEST AFRICA A C ig I SOMALILAND e Lake r GOLD R ANGLO- PORTUGUESE Chad F R COAST GUINEA . A EGYPTIAN FRENCH L A SOMALILAND IVORY NIGERIA I SUDAN R COAST O SIERRA ABYSSINIA T ETHIOPIA NIGERIA SOMALILAND A LEONE (ETHIOPIA) TOGO U LIBERIA GOLD CAMEROON Q Con E COAST RIO MUNI g Lake LIBERIA o H UGANDA Victoria RIO MUNI C R N KENYA . E R BELGIAN SIERRA LEONE F ITALIAN Lake PORTUGUESE CONGO GERMAN SOMALILAND Tanganyika INDIAN GUINEA EAST AFRICA Lake OCEAN Nyasa ATLANTIC ATLANTIC ANGOLA NORTHERN E ANGOLA ezi E U b R. U R OCEAN am Q OCEAN RHODESIA Q Z I A I B C SOUTHERN B M S SOUTH-WEST M A A RHODESIA A Z G AFRICA Z MADAGASCAR O O A BECHUANALAND M M D WALVIS BAY A (So. Afr.) M UNION SWAZILAND 0 1000 2000 CAPE 0 1000 2000 OF COLONY NATAL SOUTH AFRICA BASUTOLAND MILES MILES

Until the 1880s only a few European countries held colonies in Africa, mostly enclaves on the coast. How- ever, following the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, European nations moved rapidly to conquer and parti- tion Africa. By World War I, all of Africa, with the exception of Liberia and Ethiopia, was under European domination. Because Europeans were largely ignorant of Africa’s interior regions, they drew the boundary lines of their colonies without regard for preexisting states, trading relations, or ethnic ties. This has left an enduring legacy of ethnic strife. 16 PART 5 The Century of Western Dominance

central Africa to Fashoda on the White Nile south of introduction of breechloading rifles and machine guns Khartoum. In July 1898, several months after Marc- made it possible for European soldiers to defeat much hand planted a French flag at Fashoda, General H. H. larger African armies that possessed outmoded mus- Kitchener successfully led an Anglo-Egyptian force kets. However, technology was not the sole reason against Muslim forces in control of the Sudan. Then Europeans succeeded. Because European soldiers Kitchener turned his attention to Marchand, and their were still susceptible to African diseases and expensive forces faced off nervously at Fashoda. The showdown to maintain, European armies recruited Africans to nearly ended in war. To the British, control of the Nile fight on their behalf. And Africans, who typically made was a strategic necessity. To the French, it was a mat- up the vast majority of European-led units, did the ter of national prestige, but they were not prepared to bulk of the fighting. go to war over it, and they withdrew Marchand. African states were also at a disadvantage because Britain was the principal colonizer in southern they did not rethink outmoded battle tactics and Africa. British influence expanded northward from the because they did not put up a united front. In the face Cape Colony largely through the personal efforts of the of European expansion, African states sought to pre- diamond magnate Cecil Rhodes, who dreamed of an serve as much of their own autonomy and sovereignty uninterrupted corridor of British territory from the as possible. This response usually prevented them Cape of Good Hope to Cairo. When the British gov- from entering into alliances with other African states ernment hesitated to claim territory north of the to confront a common enemy. Limpopo River, Rhodes took the initiative. Rhodes Most African societies resisted European con- had heard the stories that King Solomon’s mines were quest at some point, but they first weighed the costs located there, and he thought the area had even more and benefits of European rule and considered whether potential than the Witwatersrand goldfields. Lured by they should resist, make accommodations, or negoti- a mirage of gold, he poured his personal fortune into ate with Europeans. They queried European mission- founding the British South Africa Company. In 1890 aries in their midst for information on the colonizers. he dispatched a column to settle and, if need be, con- They watched developments in neighboring states to quer the area that eventually bore his name, Rhodesia. see the results of resistance, and they sought advice on Both Portugal and Italy had grandiose visions of the implications of European protection. They empire, but they had to settle for territories the major assessed their rivalries with neighboring states and the European powers did not covet. Although the Por- possibility of profit from an alliance with Europeans. tuguese had been involved in Africa longer than any of They also calculated whether they had the support of the other European colonizers, their ambition to unite their own people. In the East African kingdom of Mozambique and Angola through a central African Buganda, a Protestant ruling faction sought British corridor was thwarted by Rhodes and British inter- allies to maintain an advantage over Muslim, Catholic, ests. Italy emerged from the scramble for colonies and traditionalist rivals. with very little territory. The Italians gained a piece of African states often changed tactics over the the Red Sea coast and a slice of barren and desolate course of time. Moshoeshoe’s Basotho kingdom land on the Indian Ocean. But these areas were of lit- fought the Boers in the Orange Free State on two tle value without the rich plateau of Ethiopia in the occasions, appealed for British protection in 1868 to hinterland. However, their bid to conquer the interior shield it from Afrikaner rule, fought a war against the was soundly rebuffed by the Ethiopian army. Cape government in 1880 after the Cape tried to dis- arm Sotho warriors, and then invited the British to reestablish colonial rule in 1884. Despite the disparity in firearms, African states EUROPEAN TECHNOLOGY valiantly sustained resistance to European colonizers until World War I. One of the most durable and inno- AND THE AFRICAN vative resistance leaders was Samori Touré (c. RESPONSE TO CONQUEST 1830–1900), who came from a Dyula trading family in the region of the upper Niger River in West Africa. He The European conquest of most of Africa was facili- built up an army to protect his family’s trading inter- tated because of advances in technology and medi- ests and then, between 1865 and 1875, created a pow- cine. Until quinine was perfected, Europeans setting erful Islamic kingdom among the Mandinke people foot in Africa died in droves from illnesses such as that stretched from Sierra Leone to the Ivory Coast. malaria. Advances in military technology gave Euro- Samori’s army could field over 30,000 soldiers and pean armies a decisive advantage in their encounters cavalry armed with muskets and rifles, some home- with African forces. The gunboat allowed European made and some imported from Freetown on the armies to dominate lake and river regions, while the Sierra Leonean coast. CHAPTER 25 Africa and the Middle East, 1800–1914 17

Samori’s forces were a formidable opponent when they first clashed with French soldiers probing west from Senegal in 1881. However, the French superiority in weaponry eventually forced Samori to wage a scorched-earth campaign as he moved his kingdom eastward. He then had to deal with internal revolts from his new subjects and also with the British, who refused to declare a protectorate over his kingdom. Squeezed between the French and the British, he fought as long as he could before he was captured and exiled by the French in 1898. Because of their ability to inspire and unite followers, religious leaders often led the resistance to European invaders. In Sudan, Muhammad Ahmad (1844–1885), a Muslim shaykh from a village north of Khartoum, proclaimed himself a Mahdi (“guided one”) in 1881. Muslims believe that in times of crisis a redeemer appears whose mission it is to overthrow tyrannical and oppressive rulers and install just governments in their place. Declaring himself a successor to the prophet Muhammad, Muhammad Ahmad called on people to join him in a jihad against the unbelievers, the Egyptian-appointed administrators who were levying taxes and suppressing a profitable slave trade. From a base 300 miles southwest of Khartoum, Mahdist forces scored numerous successes against Egyptian forces and laid siege to Khartoum in 1884. Despite last-ditch efforts by British officer Charles Gordon to negotiate with the Mahdi, the Mahdists swept into Khartoum in early 1885, killing Gordon and setting up an administration at Omdurman, across the Nile from Khartoum. The Mahdi died a short time later, but his successors founded a Muslim state that lasted until an Anglo-Egyptian force invaded Religious leaders played a leading role in inspiring Shona resis- the Sudan in 1898. tance against white settlers in Zimbabwe in 1896–1897. This pho- tograph is of the spirit mediums Nehanda and Kagubi awaiting A Shona spirit medium by the name of Charwe trial after they were captured. also inspired resistance against the British South Africa Company’s (BSA) colonization of Rhodesia in the 1890s. Shona peoples believed that a person could communicate with God through a dead person’s spirit. Nehanda and Kagubi, who secretly spread the mes- This spirit can possess a living person who becomes a sage of revolt and urged people to take up arms. Their spirit medium. People especially consulted mediums inspirational leadership sustained the Shona who were possessed by important figures of the past. Chimurenga (uprising) for a year. Although the whites These mediums were thought to be guardians of the were nearly expelled, they eventually defeated the people and able to ensure good luck in hunting, pro- rebels. Nehanda and Kagubi were captured and sen- ducing rainfall, and controlling diseases. In the case tenced to hang in March 1898. But Nehanda was defi- of Charwe, she claimed to have been possessed by the ant to the end. She refused to be converted to spirit of Nehanda, a woman who had lived four cen- Christianity at the last minute and she denounced the turies before. whites until the moment she was executed. Her In 1896, many Shona and Ndebele rose up prophecy that “my bones will rise” to recapture free- against the BSA’s exploitative policies. Company offi- dom was remembered by guerillas fighting in the cials were expropriating African land, seizing their struggle against white domination in the 1970s.3 They, cattle, levying taxes, and forcing Africans to work on too, consulted spirit mediums, including an elderly the mines. Some Shona chiefdoms were inspired to woman who claimed she had been possessed by revolt by prominent spirit mediums such as Ambuya Nehanda’s spirit. 18 PART 5 The Century of Western Dominance

Although African armies scored some victories signed the Treaty of Wuchale, in which Italy recog- against European forces, only one African state, nized Menelik as emperor of Ethiopia in return for Ethiopia, successfully repulsed European invaders. In giving the Italians a free hand in a region controlled the second half of the nineteenth century, several kings by one of his rivals. However, the treaty’s Italian ver- had revived a unified kingdom of Ethiopia, but none sion stated that Ethiopia had to conduct foreign rela- was as impressive as Menelik II (1844–1913), the king tions through the Italians, while the Amharic version of Shewa, who was crowned emperor of Ethiopia in merely stated that Ethiopia could consult with Italy on 1889. He moved the capital to Addis Ababa and mod- foreign matters. When Menelik learned through diplo- ernized his kingdom by constructing the first railway matic exchanges with Britain and France that Italy line and laying telephone lines for communication with was claiming a protectorate over Ethiopia, he provinces. He aggressively expanded Ethiopia’s bound- denounced the treaty and prepared for an eventual aries, more than doubling the size of his kingdom. showdown with Italy by importing massive quantities At the same time, he kept a wary eye on British, of weapons, many of them from Italy. French, and Italian intrigues in the region. “I have no When the Italians mounted an offensive in Tigré intention,” he wrote Queen Victoria, “of being an province in 1896, Menelik called on his nation to resist indifferent spectator if the distant Powers hold the them: “Enemies have come who would ruin our coun- idea of dividing up Africa.”4 In 1889 Italy and Ethiopia try.…With God’s help I will get rid of them.”5 Menelik’s army of 100,000 soldiers was more than a match for the 20,000-strong Italian army. At the battle of Aduwa, the Italians suffered a humiliating defeat. The Italians were forced to recognize Ethiopia’s independence and content themselves with their enclave on the Red Sea coast, Eritrea.

THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE REFASHIONED At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Middle East consisted primarily of two large and loosely struc- tured empires, the Qajar Empire in Persia and the Ottoman Empire, which included Anatolia, the Arab provinces, and most of North Africa. The Ottoman Empire stretched from the Balkans to Sudan and from the Maghreb to Arabia; and the Ottoman sultan could still claim a certain preeminence in the Islamic world based on his position as Protector of the Holy Cities. For centuries the Islamic world had extended well beyond the Middle Eastern heartlands. United by their worship of one god, devotion to the Prophet Muham- mad, and adherence to the Sharia Islamic law, Mus- lims looked to Mecca as the sacred site of pilgrimage. Every year the number of believers traveling to Mecca grew, and by 1900 it is estimated that more than 50,000 Indians and 20,000 Malays were making the hajj each year. But the Islamic world had been politically divided since the early centuries of Islam, and Muslim states from Southeast Asia to Morocco pursued their own political agendas with little or no reference to the sovereign who controlled the Islamic heartlands. Crowned emperor of Ethiopia in 1889, Menelik II carried out campaigns of conquest in his region while maintaining his kingdom’s autonomy in the face of European imperialism. When Menelik’s Challenges to Ottoman Power efforts to keep the Italians restricted to the Red Sea coast failed, he was forced into a military confrontation. Menelik’s army routed In the sixteenth century, the Ottoman administration the Italian forces at Aduwa in 1896. had been a model of effectiveness. The Ottoman navy CHAPTER 25 Africa and the Middle East, 1800–1914 19

dominated the eastern Mediterranean, and Ottoman Napoleon invaded Ottoman Egypt, and although his armies continued to expand the territories of the sul- stay there was short, his easy victory illustrated the tan. The balance of trade was markedly in favor of tenuousness of Ottoman control over the North Asia, with European merchants sending precious coin African provinces. to procure the goods they wanted from the Ottoman The capitulations, treaties that granted special Empire, Persia, and South and Southeast Asia. By the trade privileges to European states, also weakened eighteenth century, however, that balance of military both Ottoman and Qajar Empires. In the sixteenth and economic power had begun to shift in favor of century the Ottoman and Persian sovereigns had dic- Europe, where some states were benefiting from tated the terms of foreign trade. But as their industrialization and new military technologies. In economies weakened, they granted more and more this era the Ottoman Empire faced the challenges of extensive privileges to European traders, which gave decentralizing forces within and vigorous pressure states like Britain and France increasing leverage in from rivals beyond its boundaries. commercial affairs. These concessions harmed the Internally, central government power had been businesses of local Ottoman traders who could not weakened by the increasing autonomy of regional gov- compete. As the nineteenth century progressed, Euro- ernors (ayan) in the provinces. These notables mobi- pean states would extend their influence by granting lized their own provincial forces and resisted or large loans to Middle Eastern rulers. evaded the authority of the central government in Istanbul. They gathered bands of men armed as irreg- ular soldiers in Ottoman military campaigns to serve as their own personal armies. In North Africa the local Ottoman Reform lords had long enjoyed relative autonomy, and by the To counter these challenges, Sultan Selim III end of the eighteenth century, the Ottomans had little (1789–1806) launched a series of reforms, focusing on real power in the Maghreb. the military. He created a new infantry corps com- The ranks of the janissary corps, the premier posed of Turkish peasants. Selim also opened chan- Ottoman fighting force, had also become grossly nels of communication with the European capitals by inflated. Thousands possessed papers which entitled setting up embassies in London, Paris, Berlin, and them to collect military pay and rations but performed Vienna. The janissaries, however, were hostile to no military service; others were forced to take second Selim’s reforms and unwilling to relinquish their cen- jobs because inflation had drastically reduced the turies-long position of prominence. They deposed the value of their pay. So the janissaries, once the front sultan. Still, Selim’s reign marks the start of an era of line of Ottoman defense, became a source of rebellion Ottoman reform that would last into the early twenti- and a drain on the government treasury. eth century (see Chapter 20). Indeed, the most evident signs of Ottoman weak- A much more successful reformer was Sultan ness were military. The Russians defeated the Mahmud II (1808–1839). Mahmud restored central Ottoman armies, and the empire had to sign the authority in the provinces to some degree and cleared humiliating treaty of Küchük Kaynarca in 1774. Not the way for military reform by annihilating the janis- only did the empire lose territory, but the Russians sary corps. He then established a new army, modeled demanded the right to intervene in the affairs of the on successful European armies and trained by Pruss- Orthodox Christian community in the empire. This ian and French officers. Mahmud also reformed pro- concession for the first time granted a foreign state the fessional education by opening medical and military power to meddle directly in Ottoman affairs. In 1798 schools. The language of instruction was French; this, of course, gave an advantage to a new class of young men who were educated in French. Beyond the military sphere, Mahmud’s reforms included a restructuring of the bureaucracy, the launching of an official The Era of Ottoman Reform newspaper, and the opening of a translation bureau. Men trained in the new professional schools and 1808–1839 Reign of Ottoman reformer Mahmud II translation bureau would form a new nineteenth-cen- 1839–1876 Tanzimat, Ottoman reform period tury elite, sometimes called the “French knowers.” Able to deal with the European powers on their own terms, 1876 First constitutional revolution these men would both challenge and reform the old 1876–1909 Reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II Ottoman institutional order. Whereas French-style uni- forms were the symbol of the new military, the frock 1908 Young Turk Revolution reinstates Ottoman coat was a symbol of the Europeanization of the civil constitution bureaucracy. Mahmud II’s reforms were not designed to cast off Ottoman culture and ideology but rather to 20 PART 5 The Century of Western Dominance

AUSTRIA- RUSSIAN EMPIRE FRANCE HUNGARY ITALY BOSNIA SERBIA ROMANIA CORSICA MONTE- C (Fr.) BULGARIA BLACK SEA A SPAIN NEGRO S IA P SARDINIA ALBANIA ON Istanbul I ED C A ATLANTIC C AU N A CA PORTUGAL SU M S M OCEAN TS. S ANATOLIA E SICILY T i A Algiers GREECE gr Tunis i M s Navarino Eu E R CO TUNIS D CRETE ph C I ra . O T E tes R R RR CYPRUS O ATLAS MTS. AN . M ALGERIA Tripoli EAN Baghdad AFGHANISTAN (Fr.) SE Damascus TRIPOLI A AICA Jerusalem PERSIA EN YR C Alexandria

P ARABIA E R FEZZAN S IA EGYPT N INDIA G SAHARA Medina ULF

Mecca OMAN RED SEA INDIAN

R OCEAN

l i

N THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE c. 1900 Ottoman Empire, 1878

0 500 1000 Aden Territory lost, 1878–1913 (Br.) MILES Ottoman Empire, 1914

Military defeats and nationalist rebellions diminished the size of the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century. However, it still controlled a significant amount of territory in 1914 when the region was engulfed in the conflicts of World War I.

create systems that would enable the empire to com- The Greek Revolt captured the imaginations of pete with Europe and recoup its status as a world European intellectuals who were enamored of the power. Some people resented these changes, preferring Greek classical tradition and saw the revolt as a the status-quo; others saw the new schools and new romantic instance of the forces of freedom triumph- positions as an opportunity for upward mobility that ing over the forces of despotism. Although that roman- had been denied them under the old system of elites. ticism had little to do with the ground-level realities of the revolt, it did fuel support for the Greeks in the cities of western Europe. Educated Europeans saw Challenging Ottoman Sovereignty themselves as inheritors of the classical Greek traditions and ideals of liberty; conversely, they portrayed in Europe the Ottomans as barbarians. In the end a predomi- Ottoman territorial integrity was challenged in the nantly British fleet sank the Ottoman navy at Navarino nineteenth century by a series of separatist move- in 1827, and Britain, Russia, and France engineered a ments in the Balkans. The rise of nationalism in treaty to establish an independent Greece. Europe and Great Power meddling in Ottoman affairs Russia and Britain would encounter each other were both factors in the emergence and evolution of again over Ottoman territory, but on opposite sides, in these movements. The Serbs rose in revolt in 1804, fol- the Crimean War (1854–1856). Britain saved Istanbul lowed by the Greeks in 1821, the Romanians in the from Russian conquest, thereby preserving the bal- 1850s, and the Bulgarians in the 1870s. ance of power. But by the end of the nineteenth cen- The Serbs achieved autonomy in 1830 after a long tury, Europeans were referring to the empire as the struggle. The Greek Revolt, however, more directly “sick man of Europe,” and the Ottomans had lost con- engaged the energies of the Great Powers, who inter- trol over most of their Balkan provinces. The nation vened to ensure its success. The Ottomans had states carved out of the Balkans have had a compli- crushed the Greek insurrection in its early stages. But cated history since that time. Borders have been Britain, Russia, and France all viewed the rebellion as drawn and redrawn (such as those of Yugoslavia in the a focal point in what came to be called the “Eastern twentieth century) and ethnic and religious tensions Question”—whether the Ottoman Empire would be have been exacerbated, as they were in Africa and dismembered, and if so, who would get what (see India for example, by the demands of contending Chapter 27). nations for independence. CHAPTER 25 Africa and the Middle East, 1800–1914 21

Eugène Delacroix, Massacre at Chios (1824). Euro- pean liberals and Romantics such as Delacroix supported the Greeks in their struggle for independence from the Turks, whom they depicted as cruel oppressors.

military along European lines, and built up a new, conscripted peasant army. This was a radical change for the rural peoples since, traditionally, peasants had not been employed in the military. Muhammad Ali founded new professional schools and a government printing press, reorganized the agricultural and taxation systems of Egypt, sent men to study in France, and launched an ambitious program of industrialization. He also undermined the power of the religious establishment, the ulama. Unlike religious leaders (like the Mahdi) elsewhere in Africa, the ulama in Egypt (and in the Ottoman empire in general) were generally subordinated to the state and did not lead jihads or religious revolts. Egypt and the Rule Muhammad Ali’s reforms were more extensive than those of Sultan Mahmud II, but these two con- of Muhammad Ali temporaries were both major symbols of Middle East- Egypt had been a province of the Ottoman Empire ern reform. Once Muhammad Ali consolidated his since its conquest by Sultan Selim the Grim in 1517. By power, he moved to challenge the Ottoman state the late eighteenth century, however, Ottoman rule was directly. Initially, he had defended Ottoman interests little more than nominal as Egypt was controlled in fact by defeating the Wahhabis (a puritanical movement in by local leaders, the heads of Mamluk households. In Arabia that aimed to cleanse Islam of innovations like the nineteenth century Egypt was conclusively Sufism) and helping put down the Greek Revolt. But detached from Ottoman rule, first by a highly success- in 1831 he sent his son Ibrahim to invade Syria and ful Ottoman military commander named Muhammad Anatolia; Ibrahim marched his armies to within 150 Ali and then by the British, who seized Egypt as a miles of Istanbul. strategic link to their colonial empire in India. Here again, Russia, Britain, and France inter- Muhammad Ali came to power in Egypt in the vened to preserve the Ottoman Empire. Muhammad aftermath of Napoleon’s invasion. The French occu- Ali ultimately established an autonomous dynastic pation of Egypt was short-lived, although it served to state in Egypt where his descendants occupied the stimulate European interest in Egyptian civilization. throne until the 1950s. His career illustrates the weak- When a joint British-Ottoman expedition arrived in ness of the Ottoman Empire and its tenuous control Egypt in 1801 to end the French occupation, Muham- over its more distant provinces. European states cap- mad Ali was one of the Ottoman commanders. He italized on the disruptions caused by Muhammad Ali established himself as the dominant military leader, to negotiate more advantageous commercial agree- filling the power vacuum left by the French departure. ments with the beleaguered Ottoman sultan, thus Muhammad Ali destroyed the Mamluks (as Mah- undermining the economic foundations of the empire mud II had destroyed the janissaries), organized his even further. 22 PART 5 The Century of Western Dominance

commercial privileges. Some Middle Eastern people The Suez Canal gained employment from these concessionaires but Muhammad Ali’s successors pursued parts of his others lost out as more advanced European trans- reform programs, with little military or economic suc- port and communication technologies (telegraph, cess. Egypt benefited from the American Civil War steamship, railroads) began to replace more tradi- when Egyptian cotton was used to replace the South’s tional modes and those who provided them. The cotton exports, which were cut off when the Union building and completion of the Canal itself radically blockaded southern ports. But foreign loans and the disrupted patterns of labor as peasants were forcibly uncontrolled spending of its rulers left Egypt bankrupt seized from their villages and forced to provide by the 1870s. unpaid labor digging the canal. Families were torn The idea of a canal linking the Mediterranean to apart, women left their farm-plots to follow and care the Red Sea was not new. The Mamluks, rulers of for their drafted husbands, and thousands died in medieval Egypt, had planned such a canal but lacked the course of the digging. the technology to accomplish it. In 1854 the Egypt- The Suez Canal was completed in 1869 during the ian ruler, Said, granted a Frenchman, Ferdinand de reign of Khedive Ismail (1863–1879). Ismail was com- Lesseps, a concession to build a canal. De Lesseps mitted to the European-style transformation of his was only one among many European entrepreneurs realm. But his lavish spending, particularly on his and concessionaires pouring into Egypt at this time opening ceremonies for the canal, threw Egypt into a to take advantage of building opportunities and financial crisis. The opening ceremonies were a world

The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 was an international event attended by numerous heads of state. Lavish spending for this event helped bankrupt Egypt. CHAPTER 25 Africa and the Middle East, 1800–1914 23

event. Ismail commissioned the opera Aïda (which was not completed in time) and built special pavilions to house visit- ing dignitaries. His extravagance dazzled even the jaded aristocrats of Europe. The empress Eugénie of France, a notorious “clothes horse,” was said to have taken 250 dresses with her to the affair. Plagued by financial troubles, Ismail sold Egypt’s shares in the canal to Britain for 4 million pounds sterling in 1875. The stock shares were snapped up by Disraeli, the astute prime minister of Great Britain, while the French dithered over whether to buy them. This sale gave Britain virtual control of this essential water link to its South Asian empire. The following year (the same year the Ottoman Empire defaulted on its loans), Egypt was unable to pay the interest on its foreign loans. Britain and France then forced Egypt to accept European control over its debts and hence its economy. This assertion of foreign control paved the way for a British invasion of Egypt. The British and French forced Ismail to abdicate in 1879; in 1881 an army officer named Colonel Urabi, of peasant origins, led a military and pop- ulist revolt against foreign control in Egypt. He aimed to limit the power of the khedive and to form a national assembly. There was antiforeign rioting in Alexan- Egypt was part of the Ottoman Empire for more than 350 years. Although the dria, where many Europeans lost their British conquered Egypt in 1882, the Ottomans still thought of it as their own ter- lives. The British, claiming they were ritory. This Ottoman cartoon, published in Istanbul in 1908, expresses bonds of acting in the best interests of the Egypt- brotherhood between the Ottoman constitutionalist and the Young Egyptian nation- alists who were trying to throw off British imperial rule. As the giant symbol of Eng- ian people, then shelled Alexandria and land leans lazily against the pyramids, the tiny Egyptians do not seem to have much took Cairo in 1882. Although their occu- of a chance. pation was supposedly temporary, they remained until the Egyptian Revolt of 1952 and kept control of the Suez Canal until 1956. Thus, as elsewhere in Africa, the Euro- him the hatred of many and helped galvanize the pean imperial states used a combination of economic Egyptian nationalist movement. incentive, military force, and treachery to seize con- Those sentiments are symbolized by an episode trol of African empires. in 1906 that came to be called the Dinshaway Inci- dent. The affair began simply with British officers on a pigeon shoot in the countryside. The officers, heed- Lord Cromer and the Dinshaway less of the fact that Egyptian villagers kept pigeons for food, pursued their hunt and wounded a villager Incident in Dinshaway, in the Nile delta. In the ensuing scuf- When the British conquered Egypt, they appointed Sir fle, two officers were wounded, and one subse- Evelyn Baring, later named Lord Cromer, to reorga- quently died. nize Egyptian finances, eliminate corruption, improve What made this episode famous was the British the cotton industry, and oversee the country’s affairs response. Determined to make an example of Dinsh- from 1883 to 1907. Cromer was an able administrator away, the British punished the whole village. They who stabilized the Egyptian economy, but his harsh tried dozens of villagers and publicly hanged four. This policies and contempt for the Egyptian people earned incident provoked anger throughout Egypt, prompted 24 PART 5 The Century of Western Dominance the penning of patriotic songs, and gave force to the The first target was Algiers. In the 1820s the ruler of nationalist movement. The Dinshaway Incident Algiers (called the Dey) sent ships to aid the Ottomans showed that the people in the Middle East, and not in putting down the Greek Revolt; he also dealt with just the elites, could be mobilized to protect their own internal revolt as Algiers’s Berber tribesmen fought economic security and to resist the inroads of Euro- against his janissary troops. Meanwhile, the French pean states. were enmeshed in conflicts with the Dey over fishing rights, piracy, and a debt the French owed Algiers. In 1827, using the pretext that the Dey had North Africa West of Egypt insulted the French consul by publicly hitting him The appellation “North Africa” suggests a radical sep- with a fly whisk, France blockaded Algiers. Pursuing aration between Mediterranean and sub-Saharan France’s imperialist agenda, King Charles X then Africa. But these two areas have long been linked by invaded Algiers in 1830. He sent a large army of occu- networks of trade. North Africa is grouped here with pation, but only after 17 years of fierce resistance the Middle East because it was Islamized during the could Algeria be directly incorporated as an integral early Arab conquests and because it was loosely con- part of the French state. (Over one hundred years later, trolled by the Ottoman Empire during the premodern the Algerians would fight just as long and fiercely to era. West of Egypt, North Africa contained the state of free themselves from French rule.) Morocco, ruled by the Filali dynasty since 1631, and Algiers then became a base for France to extend three coastal states based on Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli its influence in North Africa. Tunis remained singu- that were established under Ottoman rule. These lat- larly autonomous of Ottoman rule and in 1861 estab- ter three dominated the western Mediterranean for lished its own constitution. An insurrection, which three centuries, remaining nominally under Ottoman united tribal and urban elements in 1864, led to the control. Semi-autonomous governors, however, exer- bankrupting of Tunis in 1869. Its French, Italian, and cised the real power in the coastal states, attempting, British creditors then gained control of the Tunisian with limited success, to subordinate tribal leaders in economy. Italy coveted the coastal state with its rich their hinterlands. agricultural hinterland, but the French stayed those Algiers, Tripoli, and, to a lesser extent, Tunis were ambitions by invading in 1881 and making it a pro- corsairing states that collected revenues from pirate tectorate. After that time, much of the country’s wealth activity off their coasts. In the eighteenth century they was siphoned off into French coffers, and most of the benefited from treaties with various European states population lived in desperate poverty. that were willing to pay tribute and gifts in exchange From the 1840s to the end of the century, French for security for their merchant shipping. That ship- interests also dominated in Morocco. But Germany ping was part of a vast web of seaborne trade that was emerging as a significant power in the late nine- reached from Southeast Asia and China to the Amer- teenth century and also cast its eye on African terri- ican colonies. tory, including Morocco. France, however, used its When the American colonies gained their inde- established bases in North Africa and its alliance with pendence from Britain, they, too, negotiated treaties the British to win this particular standoff. They with these “Barbary States” in order to protect the promised the Germans territory elsewhere in Africa lucrative American trade with North Africa. Sidi and took over Morocco in 1912. The French left the Muhammad (1757–1790) of Morocco granted the Moroccan dynasty in place but did not relinquish their fledgling United States its first official trading privi- hold on the country until 1956. leges in 1786. The U.S. Congress authorized $40,000 The Italians were latecomers in the scramble for for a treaty and $25,000 annual tribute for Algiers in Africa. Frustrated by the Ethiopians in their ambitions 1790 and, shortly thereafter, provided for the building for East Africa, they decided to seize a piece of the of a navy to gain leverage against the corsair state. North African pie. Capitalizing on the disruptions In the nineteenth century, however, European pow- caused by the Ottoman constitutional revolution, they ers began to look to North Africa as an area ripe for con- declared war on the Ottoman Empire in 1911 and quest. Like Egypt, the rest of North Africa experienced invaded the area around Tripoli, annexing it in the European economic penetration before it suffered face of a failed Ottoman defense. The Sanusi order of actual invasion. That penetration took the form of capit- sufis, which had great influence in the region, vigor- ulations, reflecting commercial concessions granted to ously resisted Italian (and French) expansionism. This European states by the Ottomans and the exploitation order, established in the area in 1843, worked as both of North Africa as a market for European goods. an Islamic reform movement and a political force. It CHAPTER 25 Africa and the Middle East, 1800–1914 25

Document A Middle Eastern Vision of the West

Middle Easterners traveled to Europe for a variety of reasons in the nineteenth century. Some went for plea- sure or educational purposes, others went for medical treatments or business. As European states gained military advantages over Middle Eastern states, more Middle Eastern rulers sent diplomats to gather information on the newly prominent powers. In 1844 France bombarded Moroccan ports and forced a treaty on the Moroccan sultan, Mulay Abd ar-Rahman. The following year, interested in studying the sources of French power, Morocco sent an embassy to France. One of its members was the scholar Muhammad as-Saf- far, who later recorded his impressions of French society. As a distinguished visitor, as-Saffar tended to travel in elite circles, and he certainly did not get to see all aspects of French life. But he was intensely interested in French society—from its business practices, to its roads, its printing presses and even its eating habits. Muhammad as-Saffar expressed admiration for French efficiency and military organization, recom- mending that his ruler imitate these traits in order to ensure Morocco’s survival. He also enjoyed the specta- cle of men and women dancing together at balls, although he found the French arrogant and uncharitable and their long, drawn-out dinners annoying. All in all, he was an astute observer of French culture, as these excerpts show.

he people of Paris, men and women alike, are their custom to stretch out the talk during the meal so T tireless in their pursuit of wealth. They are never they can overindulge in food. The Arabs say that per- idle or lazy. The women are like the men in that fect hospitality is friendliness at first sight and regard, or perhaps even more so…. Even though leisurely talk with one’s table companions. But we they have all kinds of amusements and spectacles of detested the arrival of mealtimes because of the end- the most marvelous kinds, they are not distracted less waiting, nor did we understand their conversa- from their work…. Nor do they excuse someone for tion. Moreover, much of the food did not agree with being poor, for indeed death is easier for them than us, and we got tired and irritated with the long sitting poverty, and the poor man there is seen as vile and and waiting. contemptible. [At dinner as-Saffar noted the free mingling of the Another of their characteristics is a hot-tem- sexes and commented on the women’s dress.] Their pered and stubborn arrogance, and they challenge clothing covered their breasts, which were hidden each other to a duel at the slightest provocation. If from view, but the rest of their bosom, face and neck one of them slanders or insults another, the chal- were bare and exposed. They cover their shoulders lenged one has no choice but to respond, lest he be and upper arms in part with filmy, closefitting sleeves branded a despicable coward for the rest of his life. that do not reach the elbow. They bind their waists Then they decide the conditions of the combat— beneath their dresses with tight girdles which give what weapons they will fight with, how it will be them a very narrow middle. It is said they are trained done, and the place—and no one in authority inter- into this [shape] from earliest childhood by means of feres with them. a special mold…. In the lower part they drape their You should know that among the customs of these clothing in such a way that the backside is greatly people is that they sit only in chairs and they know exaggerated, but perhaps this is due to something they nothing of sitting directly on the floor…. Another of put underneath [bustles]…. their customs is that they do not touch food with their hands, nor do they gather around a single platter…. Questions to Consider Two people may share one pitcher but each has his 1. Why do you think as-Saffar commented on French eat- own glass from which no one else may drink, for they ing habits? What do you think eating habits and dress regard that as the height of uncleanliness…. At the end styles reveal about a people and their culture? of every course, the servant removes the dishes and 2. What aspects of a diplomat’s life might be enjoyable? other things, and brings fresh ones. The number of What aspects might be unpleasant? dishes piles up, because they change them at every course and no dish is ever eaten from twice. This is From Susan G. Miller, trans. and ed., Disorienting Encoun- ters: Travels of a Moroccan Scholar in France in 1845–1856 due to their excessive concern for cleanliness…. they (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), pp. 153, 158, linger at table for more than two hours, because it is 163–65. 26 PART 5 The Century of Western Dominance

One type of European penetration into the Ottoman Empire was the opening of textile factories in western Anatolia. The young girls and women who worked in these factories often made relatively good wages, but their work in factories raised moral issues about “unsupervised” women, much as it did in the factories of Europe. These young women workers in a silk-thread factory pose for the camera in 1878.

had enormous support among the people both in the the class of “French knowers” expanded, and a more cities and in the rural areas. The order would later modern and secular civil bureaucracy was estab- gain power in the new state of Libya when the colo- lished. The power of the ulama was diminished by nial powers withdrew. For the time, however, the early the legal and educational reforms. As new, more sec- twentieth century saw North Africa, like sub-Saharan ular schools opened, the ulama lost their monopoly Africa, divided among the European imperial powers on education. The government also tried to ward off and incorporated into European empires. separatist sentiments by emphasizing the ideology of Ottomanism, the notion that all Ottoman subjects were equal and should be committed to the preser- Young Ottomans and vation of the empire, regardless of ethnicity or religion. Of course, not everyone accepted this ideology, Constitutional Reform but it did hold sway in the government until the end The challenges to Ottoman sovereignty, combined of the empire. with the prospect of a newly emerging “modern” Out of the reforms of the Tanzimat emerged a world order, prompted a period of reform known as new civil and military elite, some of whom favored the Tanzimat (reorganization) from 1839 to 1876. elements of European culture and more democratic New professional schools were opened in the empire, forms of government. Among them, a group of intel- CHAPTER 25 Africa and the Middle East, 1800–1914 27 lectuals and bureaucrats, sometimes called the kul system, and was primarily domestic rather than Young Ottomans, revitalized Ottoman literature and agricultural. It was characterized by a predominance called for a new synthesis that would combine the of female slaves (rather than the Atlantic slave trade’s best elements of traditional Islamic culture with 2–3:1 male to female ratio), the use of both white and European ideas and technology. These reformers black slaves, and the provisions of Islamic law which debated issues such as constitutional freedoms, stated that the children of a slave female and her mas- changing the Ottoman calendar and clocks to Euro- ter were free and entitled to inherit. pean time schemes, “modern” schools, and the In 1876 a group of Ottoman reform-minded elites “woman question,” the rights and education of the spearheaded a drive to depose Sultan Abdülaziz and “modern” woman. install Western-style constitutional government in the The reformers also considered the question of Ottoman Empire. They did not wish to eliminate the slavery. Britain had been trying to force the Ottoman monarchy, and the new constitution they proposed left empire to end the slave trade for some time, but the considerable power in the hands of the sultan. But Young Ottomans tended to conclude that slavery in they did want an elected assembly, freedom of the Muslim countries was fundamentally different from press, and equality for all Ottomans. The constitu- that found in European colonies and in the Americas. tionalists installed a new sultan, Abdülhamid II Indeed, there were fundamental differences from the (1876–1909). But once Abdülhamid consolidated his Atlantic slave trade. Ottoman slavery included the elite power, in 1878, he abrogated the constitution and suspended the parliament.

Abdülhamid II and the Young Turk Revolution Abdülhamid, paradoxically, was both a reformer and an autocrat. He continued many of the trends set in the Tanzimat era but controlled opposition through spies, censorship of the press, exile, and imprisonment. The sultan faced severe challenges on all fronts. Russia declared war on the empire in 1877, resulting in the loss of more Ottoman territory and the creation of a large refugee population fleeing newly acquired Russian lands. Britain occupied Egypt and the island of Cyprus. Meanwhile, the empire, hampered by huge debts that it could not pay, was engaged in trying to redeem its Balkan territories. Abdülhamid tried to control the centrifugal forces at work on the empire by enhancing central government control, bolstering the military, and establishing closer relations with an increasingly powerful Germany. Kaiser Wilhelm made two state

Abdülhamid II. Photography was all the rage in the empire during Abdülhamid’s reign, and the sultan supported several court photogra- phers. He sent commemorative volumes documenting his reforms and Ottoman progress to heads of state in the United States and Britain. Widespread discontent with his oppressive rule lent strength to the constitutional movement of the Young Turks, who ultimately deposed the sultan in 1909. 28 PART 5 The Century of Western Dominance

Document Halide Edib: Education, Generation, and Class in the Late Ottoman Empire

Halide Edib, born into an elite family in Istanbul in 1883, was a famous Turkish author and nationalist leader. Her father was a progressive who believed women should be educated. Thus Halide was schooled in Turkish, English, and French by tutors. She later became one of the first graduates of the new American Col- lege for Girls and wrote a famous novel on the problems of the educated woman. Married at a young age to a prominent scholar many years her senior, she divorced him in 1910 when he decided to take a second wife. Afterward, Edib became a pioneer educator, fought along with her second husband in the War of Turkish Liberation after World War I, and became a prominent international lecturer. She was a member of the Turk- ish parliament from 1950–1954. Halide Edib’s memoirs reflect the era of transformation during which she came of age. Ottoman society during the rule of the Young Turks was refashioning itself and the “Woman Question” was a topic of considerable debate. Here she reflects (for 1913–1914) on the differences between the generations and on a conflict of class and dress that arose while she was pursuing her work in education.

fter her divorce Halide took a house in Istanbul admit they made me ashamedly conscious of how [Awhere she lived with her two sons and her ridiculous our class could be…. “Oh, oh, look at her!” beloved grandmother, an elderly woman of the elite shouted the girl with the umbrella—there was neither class.] Granny was living with me as usual, but I had rain nor sunshine. “On her head she has a cauldron, a lost the old sense of nearness to her for the moment. I silk shawl around her belly has she. She has a well- was constantly out for lessons and lectures; the [Turk- ring around her throat and wrists [white collar and ish nationalist] club demanded much of my time and cuffs] and her shoes are bath clogs [high heels].” A my circle of friends had a great deal happen to it. My unanimous shout of laughter, accompanied by savage writing I had to do after ten o’clock at night when the and significant movements, inimitable imitations but noisy little house slept and left me quiet in my room. openly hostile to me, greeted her speech…. I would Granny also enjoyed those quiet hours; she came to have given anything to throw off the offending gar- me for talks then. She was much shocked by the new ments, which displayed my class, at whose expense women. Their talk, their walk, their dress, and their they were laughing, and join in their play. As it was, I general aspect hurt her. She felt lonely, like a stranger was in real danger of being badly stoned, or of having in a world where she felt she had stayed too long, like my dress torn in a way that would have been worse a visitor who has outstayed his welcome; it was as if than inconvenient. I immediately lifted my veil and the newly arrived guests had taken all the room and joined in the conversation. The human face, especially they looked ever so different from her. She suffered the human eyes, have their force among their kind. A because they shook their arms when they walked, human being whose eyes and face are invisible is eas- looked into men’s eyes, had loud voices, and smoked ier to attack…. I disarmed the little crowd for a in public; above all they did not iron their clothes as moment. But the moment I made the slightest show she did every morning. of movement, they all bent down, picked up stones [One afternoon Halide took a short cut through a from the old pavement and got ready in case I should poor section of town, Arasta Street, on the way home escape. [Edib was rescued by a shopkeeper who drove from the school where she taught.] the children off. In the future she took care to let her I had on the fashionable [tight] black charshaf dress “resemble that of the other women of the neigh- [long overgarment] and veil of my class.…. up and borhood” and not to cover her face when she traveled down the street walked a series of little girls…. they about Istanbul’s poorer districts.] had print dresses of the poorest sort, and bare feet shod with wooden clogs which they dragged painfully, Questions to Consider but they had a saucy and aggressive way of walking in 1. Why did Halide’s grandmother feel like a stranger in her spite of this impediment. One had a dirty baby in her own home? arms, half her own size, and the baby’s nose was run- 2. What does the children’s attack on Halide suggest about ning all the time. Another had a broken silk umbrella, class and fashion? which must have had a prosperous past and was evi- dently stolen property. All lifted their dresses in mock From Halide Edib (Adivar), Memoirs of Halide Edib. New imitation of the chic women of the city; all strutted in York: Century Co., n.d. (approximately 1926), pp. 352, a make-believe promenade of great ladies. I must 362–365. CHAPTER 25 Africa and the Middle East, 1800–1914 29 visits, in 1889 and 1898, including a triumphant trip and schoolchildren across the empire contributed to Jerusalem during which the kaiser, a good poli- their coins to help ensure its success. tician, declared his friendship with the world’s The constitutional ideal in the Ottoman Empire, Muslims. Wilhelm’s visit had an impact on the archi- however, had not been lost, and opposition to the sul- tecture of Jerusalem as well as on Ottoman-German tan mounted as Abdülhamid entered the third decade relations. The gates of the old walled city of of his reign. Outside the empire, a group of exiles Jerusalem were too narrow to admit the kaiser’s car- labored to promote the reinstatement of the constitu- riage. Rather than subject the German empress to the tion. Inside the empire revolutionary sentiments grew indignity of getting out of her carriage and walking among students, bureaucrats, and some members of through the gate, Abdülhamid had one of the gates the military. In 1889 a group of students in the mili- knocked out and enlarged. tary-medical school founded a secret organization The sultan fostered the ideology of Pan-Islam to called the Committee for Union and Progress (CUP). legitimize his reign and mobilize the support of the This group was instrumental in mobilizing opposition world’s Muslims. His rhetoric of Islamic unity and his to the regime. claim to be caliph decidedly did not strike a chord In 1908 a military revolt became the catalyst for among all Muslims. But his project for a Hijaz railway the second Ottoman constitutional revolution, known to bring pilgrims from Damascus to the Holy City of as the Young Turk Revolution. Support for the revolt Mecca did generate popular support for the sultan, spread rapidly, and the revolutionaries demanded that

Young Turks march in triumph after their successful coup and overthrow of Abdülhamid II and his government. Like the sultan, the Young Turks used photography to document the events and successes of their government. 30 PART 5 The Century of Western Dominance

Abdülhamid reinstate the constitution. He acceded reluctantly to their demands, elections were held, cen- The Political Transformation of Persia sorship was suspended, and the Young Turks relegated the sultan to a position of secondary importance. 1848–1896 Reign of Nasir al-Din Shah Among the issues debated by the new assembly were rehabilitating the navy, reforming the police, and 1891 Tobacco Rebellion and boycott warding off attacks by the empire’s neighbors. 1896–1906 Reign of Muzaffar al-Din Shah Reactionaries launched a counterrevolution, in which Abdülhamid was implicated, in April 1909; but 1905 Constitutional revolution begins it was put down by the army. Abdülhamid was 1907–1909 Reign of Muhammad Ali Shah promptly deposed, and the CUP came to dominate the Ottoman constitutional regime. Although a new sul- 1909 Constitutionalists depose Muhammad tan was installed, the revolution marked the end of a Ali Shah centuries-long era of Ottoman monarchical power. The new government remained firmly in the hands of a civilian elite. Discontent simmered in the Arab provinces as the CUP continued the centralizing policies of Abdülhamid. But in general, the government commercial privileges. Soon the British were demand- and the remaining provinces stayed committed to the ing similar rights. As the nineteenth century pro- empire until World War I. gressed, the Qajars found themselves caught in a As in other areas of the globe, the population of military and commercial squeeze play between Russia the empire was affected to varying degrees by this and Britain. change of regime. The lives of peasants in the coun- Foreign incursions reached a climax in the second tryside were not radically altered, and many of those half of the nineteenth century with the long reign of who held power under the old regime took positions Nasir al-Din Shah (1848–1896). Unlike the Ottomans or in the new one. There was, however, a greater oppor- Muhammad Ali, the Qajars remained dependent on the tunity for political participation, more freedom of the decentralized military power of tribal chiefs to defend press, a mass freeing of prisoners, and expanded Persia. Nasir al-Din implemented some military and opportunities for the lower classes to be educated and educational reforms, but his government remained for women in the middle classes to have a greater role weak. To bolster his position, the shah negotiated loans, in public society. sold concessions to foreign investors, and brought in Russian military advisers to establish a Cossack brigade. While Russian influence prevailed in the Qajar military, Britain moved to penetrate various spheres PERSIA AND THE GREAT of the Persian economy. The British completed a telegraph line from London to Persia in 1870, symboliz- POWER STRUGGLE ing their increased interest in the area. In 1890 Nasir The Ottoman revolution of 1908 was not the only al-Din granted a British group exclusive rights over upheaval to transform government and society in the the entire Persian tobacco industry. This act alienated Middle East. In fact, the same tensions among monar- the merchant classes, who aligned themselves with the chy, foreign intervention, and Western-style constit- Shi‘ite ulama to launch a rebellion against the shah utional reform that prompted the Young Turk and the tobacco concession. Revolution also provoked a constitutional revolution The ulama in Persia had never been subordinated in Persia two years earlier. Farther east, a series of by the government to the same degree as in the Afghan rulers struggled to retain their autonomy while Ottoman Empire. More like their counterparts in caught between the expansionist powers of British Africa, these religious leaders constituted a powerful India and tsarist Russia. force for opposition against the government and would be instrumental in the national revolutions of the twentieth century. During the tobacco rebellion Qajar Rule and the Tobacco of 1891, the ulama engineered a countrywide boycott of tobacco, and the shah was forced to cancel the Rebellion tobacco concession. This boycott not only illustrated Persia had been controlled by the Qajar dynasty since the mobilizing power of the Shi‘ite clerics, but (like the 1794. After a military defeat by the Russians in 1828, Dinshaway Incident in Egypt) also pointed up popu- the Qajar shah was forced to concede extraterritorial lar discontent over the increasingly intrusive Euro- rights to Russian merchants and give them special pean presence. CHAPTER 25 Africa and the Middle East, 1800–1914 31

pled by his economic dependence on foreign powers, THE PERSIAN GULF REGION the shah made three costly trips to Europe during his c. 1900 short reign. These visits were criticized by the Persian Russian territory public as extravagant. But the shah used these visits British territory Railroads to solicit still more foreign loans from the British, the Proposed Russian railroads French, and the Russians.

RUSSIAN EMPIRE Kazalinsk Aiming to dominate the sea routes between Suez

ARAL and their Indian empire, the British also gained SEA CASPIAN SEA Tashkent Andizhan footholds in the Persian Gulf region through treaties Khiva with a number of shaykhs, including the rulers of Samarkand Bokhara Muscat, Oman, Bahrain, and Kuwait (1899). In 1903 Merv Gunib Territory given to Afghanistan by the British foreign secretary issued what has been Territory annexed Russia and Britain by Russia from Kabul called a British Monroe Doctrine over the area: “I say Turkey Meshed KHYBER PASS Tehran it without hesitation, we should regard the establish- AFGHANISTAN Area under Russian control ment of a naval base or a fortified port in the Persian Kandahar PERSIA Gulf by any other power as a very grave menace to Kerman British interests, and we should certainly resist it by BRITISH P Area under KUWAIT E Bushire BALUCHISTANINDIA 6 R British control all means at our disposal.” Thus, the British won the S IA Bender N imperialist struggle for control of the Persian Gulf just RED SEA BAHRAIN G U L ARABIA QATAR F as France won the struggle for control of the coast of OMAN North Africa. Persia had no navy and could not, in any INDIAN case, match British firepower. OCEAN Responding to foreign intervention in Persia, the shah’s ineffectual rule, and the growing impetus for 0250 500 representative government, various factions within the MILES nation mobilized a revolt beginning in 1905. This rev- By the late nineteenth century Britain and Russia were both olution began with a series of protests culminating in pressing hard to advance their interests in Persia and a general strike. Mass demonstrations, a strike by the Afghanistan. Negotiating agreements with local rulers, Britain ulama, and a massacre of protesters in Tehran by the used the Persian Gulf region as a strategic base for its powerful fleets and as a link to its empire in India. Afghanistan became a Cossack brigade followed in 1906. contested buffer zone between British India and tsarist Russia. The shah succumbed to this pressure and authorized a Constituent National Assembly. Elections were held, and new newspapers flourished in the capital. But Muzaffar al-Din died in 1906, and his successor, Muhammad Ali Shah (1907–1909), soon The Persian Constitutional attempted to overturn the constitutional regime, plunging Persia into civil war. The new shah’s Revolution tyranny and his use of Russian troops against Per- By the beginning of the twentieth century, parts of sians prompted some members of the ulama to send northern Persia were under the control of the Rus- a telegram to the Ottoman sultan, asking for his aid sians. Tsarist forces trained the Persian army, put up to protect fellow Muslims. telegraph lines, established a postal system, and devel- After a bitter struggle, the constitutional forces oped trade. Some Persian workers crossed into Russia won and deposed Muhammad Ali Shah in July 1909, to work in the Caucasus oilfields. The Russian ministry installing his 12-year-old son in his place. The nation of finance even set up a bank, The Discount and Loan has had a constitutional government ever since, Bank of Persia, with branches in many parts of the although its power has often been compromised by nation. This bank lent the Persian government 60 mil- the preservation of the monarchy. lion rubles and provided 120 million rubles to Persian The Persian constitutional revolution was merchants to enable them to buy Russian goods. watched closely in Istanbul and served as a prelude to The British in turn set up the Imperial Bank of the Ottoman revolution, which followed quickly on its Persia in the southeastern part of the country. In 1901 heels. The constitutionalists in both empires were Muzaffar al-Din Shah (1896–1906) granted a British inspired by the example of Japan, a modernizing subject a concession for the oil rights to all of Persia power with a strong military. They were impressed except a few northern provinces. This grant would that Japan was an Asian power (with a long history of lead to British control over Persian oil that would con- traditional monarchy) that had successfully modern- tinue into the second half of the century. Already crip- ized and decisively beaten a European power, Russia, 32 PART 5 The Century of Western Dominance

in 1905. The new Persian and Ottoman constitutional power over Afghanistan, but Britain retained its hold regimes faced similar problems and were preoccupied on Afghanistan’s foreign affairs. with many of the same issues of modernization, free- Russia, meanwhile, was expanding toward the dom, and reform. southeast. Many indigenous peoples, such as the Mon- gols, Afghans, Turkomans, and Tatars, came within Russia’s sphere of influence. Their cities—Samarkand, The Great Power Struggle Tashkent, and Bokhara—became tsarist administra- tive centers. Russia’s advance was accomplished not for the East only by its army but also by the construction of the As so often happens, revolution provided the oppo- Trans-Caspian railway, which, at its completion in nents of the Ottoman and Qajar Empires with oppor- 1888, reached 1064 miles into the heart of Asia. The tunities to grab territory. European powers extended Orenburg-Tashkent railway, completed in 1905, their hold on onetime Ottoman lands. Between 1908 stretched 1185 miles farther. Inspired by the feats of and 1913 Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and both the army and the engineers, some Russian impe- Herzegovina, Greece annexed Crete, and Italy—in the rialists dreamed of conquering Afghanistan and pen- course of a short but difficult war—seized Tripoli and etrating India itself. But British pressure blocked Cyrenaica (northeastern Libya). In 1912 and 1913 the Russia’s design on Afghanistan, and a British military Balkan nations fought two wars, which resulted in expedition to Lhasa in 1904 countered Russian influ- the partitioning of Macedonia. Although the ence in Tibet. Ottomans launched popular boycotts against both By the terms of the Anglo-Russian entente in Austria and Italy (boycotting, for example, Italian 1907, Russia and Britain agreed to leave Afghanistan spaghetti) they could do nothing to reverse their ter- intact. Russia agreed to deal with the sovereign of ritorial losses. Afghanistan only through the British government. In Persia, Russia capitalized on the revolution to Great Britain agreed to refrain from occupying or seize territory in the northwest. The British and Rus- annexing Afghanistan so long as the nation fulfilled its sians signed a treaty in 1907 dividing Persia into treaty obligations. This partnership was, however, only spheres of influence, with the British claiming powers a marriage of convenience brought on by larger pres- of intervention in the south and Russia claiming the sures in Europe. Neither side wished to alienate the same powers in the north. These two states held Per- other in the face of the emerging threat of Germany’s sia in a great pincers, with the British navy protecting war machine. its interests in the Persian Gulf and Russia’s powerful armies posing a constant threat to Persian sovereignty in the north. Persia was not, however, the only object of this CONCLUSION competition. Afghanistan, to its east, controlled the Khyber Pass, the most direct land route through the By 1914, European states had established their pri- mountains from Russia to British-controlled India. macy over Africa and the Middle East. While thou- The country had been divided previously between the sands of Africans worked in European-owned mines, Mughul and Persian Empires, but with its mountain- thousands of Persians crossed into Russia to work in ous terrain and contending warlords, Afghanistan did tsarist oilfields. While financiers in London, Berlin, not lend itself to unified rule. By the nineteenth cen- and Paris skimmed the profits from the resources of tury the shah in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, held ten- Africa and Asia, European officials and diplomats dic- uous sway over the tribal confederations that tated policy for much of the region. Although the controlled the area. Young Turk and Persian Revolutions brought consti- During the first half of the nineteenth century, tutional governments to the Ottoman and Qajar Persia and Afghanistan were caught up in armed con- Empires in the Middle East, only Persia would survive flicts with the Russians and the British. In an effort to the consuming conflicts of World War I. The Young increase their influence in the area and protect India’s Turks, engaged in rebuilding the Ottoman Empire, northern frontiers, the British attempted to install chose to enter the war on the German side and suf- their own handpicked ruler in Afghanistan. The fered disastrous consequences. attempt backfired, and the British were forced to Even before 1914, however, the forces that would retreat. But in 1879 Britain, using its powerful colo- eventually remove European dominance in the next half nial army, seized the Khyber Pass and Kabul and sub- century were at work. In Africa and Egypt various ordinated the Afghan ruler, Yaqub Khan. Between indigenous groups mobilized to throw off the European 1881 and 1901 Amir Abdur Rahman consolidated his yoke. In Europe citizens and parliamentary representa- CHAPTER 25 Africa and the Middle East, 1800–1914 33

tives debated the relative costs and benefits of empire from the West while retaining many elements of the and colonies. Many remained committed to social Dar- old order. winism, the idea of civilizational hierarchy expressed in The assertion of European primacy over Africa the notions of carrying the “white man’s burden” of and the Middle East had dramatic effects. Euro- spreading “civilization” to the “lesser peoples.” But peanization altered economic, political, and legal despite European military, economic, and technological structures. In many cases it radically altered the edu- superiority over the Middle East and Africa, the “white cation systems and even the languages of the con- man’s burden” would become increasingly onerous as quered territories. French and English culture were the twentieth century progressed and as the conquered adopted to some degree by many subject peoples, peoples mobilized to gain independence and to assert especially among the upper and middle classes. Other their own cultural identities. African and Middle Eastern peoples rejected the Culture and identity, of course, are not fixed; they imported European traditions or modified them to are constantly evolving. The period from 1800 to 1914 suit their own needs. in the Middle East and Africa was one of particularly European influence thus created new cultural syn- intense and rapid cultural change prompted by theses. While upper-class ladies in Istanbul sought out marked transformations in economic organization French fashions, upper-class European women and in the technologies of transportation and com- dressed in “Turkish” style and consumed Orientalist munications. The effects of such transformations on art. In many ways, however, European culture was a African and Middle Eastern societies were com- veneer applied to powerful local cultural traditions. pounded as those societies were subjugated by, or sub- Islam retained its strength, and European Christian ordinated to, European states and economies. missionaries met with little success in their efforts to People reacted in different ways to that subordi- convert Muslims in the Middle East. African peoples nation, depending on their position, class, education, adapted Christianity to their own rituals. Armed with religion, and ethnicity. Some advocated emulation of the technological, intellectual, and political lessons Europe in order to regain lost powers; others advo- they learned confronting the Europeans, African and cated vigorous resistance and adherence to traditional Middle Eastern peoples would soon craft new states mores; many saw some advantage in compromise, in the nation-state mold of the new twentieth-century taking technologies and organizational structures world order.

Suggestions for Web Browsing Literature and Film You can obtain more information about topics included in this A prominent early twentieth-century South Africa politician and chapter at the websites listed below. See also the companion journalist, Solomon Plaatje set his novel Mhudi (Passagiatta website that accompanies this text, www.ablongman.com/brummett, Press, 1986) during the wars of the Mfecane, while contempo- which contains an online study guide and additional resources. rary wirter Andre Brink treated a slave uprising in the western Cape in the early nineteenth century in A Chain of Voices (Mor- Age of European Imperialism: The Partitioning of Africa in the row, 1994). Beverly Mack and Jean boyd, The Collected Works of Late Nineteenth Century Nana Asma/ui (African Historical Sources, No. 9, 1998) is a col- http://pw2.netcom.com/~giardina/colony.html lection of the poetry and other writings of the daughter of a Site discusses the partitioning of Africa and includes an inter- famed West African cleric, Usman dan Fodio. Marcia Wright’s esting selection of maps tracing the imperial drive in Africa. Strategies of Slaves and Women (Lillian Barber Press, 1993) presents the histories of nineteenth century East and Central End of the Slave Trade in Africa African women. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/africa/africasbook.html In The Days, trans. Hilary Wayment (American University The Impact of Slavery at Cairo Press, 2001), Taha Hussein presents the wonderful Documents regarding the termination of slave trade in Africa, three-volume biography of Taha Hussein, the blind village boy from the Internet African History Sourcebook. who studied at al-Azhar in Cairo and became a famous scholar and author. The Press and Poetry of Modern Persia (Kalimat Internet Islamic History Sourcebook: Western Intrusion, Press, 1984 reprint of 1914 edition) by Edward G. Brown is a 1815–1914 collection of prose, poetry, cartoons, and excerpts from the http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/islam/islamsbook.html press. Hasan Javadi, in Satire in Persian Literature (Fairleigh Extensive on-line source for links about the history of the Mid- Dickinson University Press, 1988) offers a survey of satire dle East, including short primary documents describing nine- divided topically, including, for example, satire on women and teenth-century European imperialism and the end of the on religion. The Strangling of Persia (Washington, D.C.: Image Ottoman Empire. Publishers, 1987, reprint of 1912 edition) is a memoir of the 34 PART 5 The Century of Western Dominance

American financial expert brought to Iran in 1911 to manage World (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1993). The best treatments of the empire’s finances. Edwin Pears, in Forty Years in Constan- the Anglo-Boer War are Bill Nasson, The South African War, tinople, the Recollections of Sir Edwin Pears 1873–1915 (Books 1899–1902 (Oxford University Press, 1999), and Thomas Paken- for Libraries Press, 1871 reprint of 1916 edition.) gives an ham, The Boer War (Random House, 1979). interesting commentary by an outsider on Ottoman affairs. Studies on the European scramble for Africa include The Diary of H.M. The Shah of Persia During His Tour Through Ronald Robinson and J. Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians (St. Europe in A.D. 187, trans. J. W. Redhouse (Mazda, 1995) is a Martin’s Press, 1969); Thomas Pakenham, The Scramble for memoir of the Iranian Shah Nasir al-Din’s journey to Europe. Africa (Random House, 1991); H. L. Wesseling, Imperialism and Ethiopian fimmaker Haile Gerima’s Adwa (1999) chronicles Colonialism (Greenwood Press, 1997); and David Levering the famous victory of the Ethiopians over the Italians in 1896. Lewis, The Race to Fashoda: Colonialism and African Resistance Senegalese fimmaker Ousmane Sembene’s Ceddo (1977) deals (Henry Holt, 1995). The use of technology to facilitate conquest with how nineteenth century West Africans responded to exter- is treated in Daniel Headrick, The Tentacles of Progress: Technol- nal forces, such as European traders, Christian missionaries, ogy Transfer in the Age of Imperialism, 1850–1940 (Oxford Uni- and Muslim jihads. Part of an eight-part series on Africa nar- versity Press, 1988) and Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure rated by Basil Davidson, The Magnificent African Cake (1984) of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance covers the European scramble for Africa. (Cornell University Press, 1989). The general subject of African resistance to European conquest is comprehensively treated in Robert Rotberg and Ali Mazrui, Protest and Power in Black Africa (Oxford University Suggestions for Reading Press, 1970), and Bruce Vandervort, Wars of Imperial Conquest Usman dan Fodio’s jihads and the creation of the Sokoto in Africa, 1830–1914 (Indiana University Press, 1998). Yves Caliphate are treated in Mervyn Hiskett, The Sword of Truth: The Person has written the authoritative biography of Samori Life and Times of the Shehu Usman dan Fodio (Northwestern Touré, Samori: La Renaissance de L’Empire Mandique (ABC, University Press, 1994) and Ibrahim Sulaiman, A Revolution in 1976). Ethiopia’s return to a centralized kingdom and its resis- History: The Jihad of Usman dan Fodio (Mansell, 1986). The tance to European conquest is covered in Harold Marcus, The trans-Saharan slave trade is covered in Elizabeth Savage, ed., Life and Times of Menelik II: Ethiopia, 1844–1913 (Red Sea The Human Commodity (Cass, 1992). The decline of the Atlantic Press, 1995). slave trade and the expansion of trade with Europe are traced in On the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century, see Paul Lovejoy, Slow Death for Slavery: The Course of Abolition in Roderic H. Davison, Turkey: A Short History, 3rd ed. (Eothen Northern Nigeria, 1897–1938 (Cambridge University Press, 1993), Press, 1998), for a brief, well-written survey; and Donald and Robin Law, From Slave Trade to “Legitimate” Commerce: The Quataert, The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922 (Cambridge, 2000) Commercial Transition in Nineteenth-Century West Africa (Cam- for a student-friendly survey. Bernard Lewis provides the intel- bridge University Press, 1996). Long-distance trade and state for- lectual and cultural context in The Emergence of Modern mation in eastern Africa is treated in John Iliffe, A Modern Turkey, 2nd ed. (Oxford University Press, 1968). See also Carter History of Tanzania (Cambridge University Press, 1979); Abdul Findley, Ottoman Civil Officialdom: A Social History (Prince- Sheriff, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar (Ohio University Press, ton University Press, 1989); and Selim Deringil, The Well Pro- 1987); and Edward Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa tected Domains: Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the (Heinemann, 1975). Ottoman Empire, 1876–1909 (I.B. Tauris, 1999). On the Young John D. Omer-Cooper, The Zulu Aftermath: A Nineteenth- Turk revolution and its political and cultural impacts, see Century Revolution in Bantu Africa (Northwestern University Feroz Ahmad, The Young Turks: The Committee of Union and Press, 1966), remains the only overview of the Mfecane in Progress in Turkish Politics, 1908– 1914 (Clarendon Press, southern Africa, while Carolyn Hamilton covers the historio- 1969); and Palmira Brummett, Image and Imperialism in the graphical debates about the period in The Mfecane Aftermath: Ottoman Revolutionary Press, 1908–1911 (State University of Reconstructive Debates in Southern African History (Witwater- New York Press, 2000). srand University Press, 1995). Because facts about Shaka’s life Economic issues are covered in Roger Owen, The Middle East are the subject of dispute, several writers have examined in the World Economy, 1800–1914 (Methuen, 1981), and Charles Shaka’s powerful imagery, including Carolyn Hamilton, Terrific Issawi, ed., The Economic History of the Middle East, 1800–1914: Majesty: The Power of Shaka Zulu and the Limits of Historical A Book of Readings (University of Chicago Press, 1975). Invention (Harvard University Press, 1998), and Dafnah Golan, A lucid and balanced survey of the “Eastern Question” is J. Inventing Shaka: Using History in the Construction of Zulu A. R. Marriott, The Eastern Question: A Historical Study in Euro- Nationalism (Rienner, 1994). John Laband has written a com- pean Diplomacy (Clarendon Press, 1917). L. S. Stavrianos, The prehensive treatment of nineteenth-century Zulu history, The Balkans Since 1453 (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1961), provides Rise and Fall of the Zulu Nation (Arms & Armour, 1997). a treatment of the evolution of the Balkan states in the context Moshoeshoe’s life is treated in biographies by Leonard Thomp- of Ottoman rule. See also Mark Pinson, ed. The Muslims of son, Survival in Two Worlds: Moshoeshoe of Lesotho (Oxford Bosnia Herzegovina (Harvard, 1994). For a British account of the University Press, 1975), and Peter Sanders, Moshoeshoe, Chief Mahdi and the Sudan, see Winston Churchill, The River War of the Sotho (Heinemann, 1975). (Prion, 1997). On North African politics and culture see Ali The impact of the end of slavery in South Africa is treated Ahmida, The Making of Modern Libya: State Formation, Colo- in Nigel Worden and Clifton Crais, eds., Breaking the Chains: nization, and Resistance, 1830–1932 (State University of New Slavery and Its Legacy in the Nineteenth-Century Cape Colony York Press, 1994); and Malek Alloula, The Colonial Harem (Min- (Witwatersrand University Press, 1994). Studies on nineteenth- nesota, 1984). century South Africa include Timothy Keegan, Colonial South For treatments of the Qajars and the Persian constitu- Africa and the Origins of the Racial Order (University of Virginia tional revolution, see Peter Avery, Gavin Hambly, and Charles Press, 1996) and Jeff Peires, The Dead Will Arise: Nongqawuse Melville, eds., The Cambridge History of Iran: Vol. 7, From Nadir and the Great Xhosa Cattle-Killing Movement of 1856–7 (Indiana Shah to the Islamic Republic (Cambridge University Press, University Press, 1989). An overview of the diamond industry is 1968); Edmond Bosworth and Carole Hellenbrand, eds., Qajar Stefan Kanfer, The Last Empire: De Beers, Diamonds, and the Iran: Political, Social and Cultural Change, 1800–1925 (Mazda, CHAPTER 25 Africa and the Middle East, 1800–1914 35

1992); Janet Afary, The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 4. Adu Boahen, Africa under Colonial Domination, 1880–1935 1906–1911 (Columbia University Press, 1996), which also con- UNESCO General History of Africa, Volume VII (Berkeley: siders the origins of Iranian feminism; and Ervand Abra- University of California Press, 1985), p. 4. hamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions (Princeton University 5. Harold Marcus, The Life and Times of Menelik II Ethiopia Press, 1982). 1844–1913 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1975), p. 160. 6. Quoted in N. D. Harris, Europe and the East (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1926), p. 285. Notes 1. Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost (New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1998), p. 58. 2. London Times, Aug. 7, 1890. 3. David Lan, Guns and Rain: Guerrillas and Spirit Mediums in Zimbabwe (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), p. 6.