But then something changed, and the same Christian priests and theologians who had justified slavery because it also brought Christianity to heathens, were now arguing against slavery, because it was unChristian.
Phase 2 of the history of the continent begins here, and once again I am using the timeline in "Black Past", which can be found at
[this is where I ended the previous section]
1761: Portugal abolishes slavery in mainland Portugal and its possessions in India
[but not in Afruca; and even if they had done, as they will later, abolition does not impact Africa in any meaningful way, because colonial rule and subordination continue to impose poverty and degradation, and there is no meaningful difference to the Africans who are working there between a chocolate plantation in Cote d’Ivoire today (see TheWorldHourglass) or a cotton plantation in Georgia back then; or indeed, between being taken by galley to a tobacco farm in Jamaica, or by smuggle-boat from the Pas de Calais to a Zero Hours contract in Birmingham today; simply the term “slavery” has been replaced by “out-sourcing” and “migrant labour”]
1772: On June 22, Lord Chief Mansfield rules in the James Somerset case that an enslaved person brought to England becomes free and cannot be returned to slavery, laying the legal basis for the freeing of England's 15,000 slaves. [not in Africa]
1772: Slavery is declared illegal in England. [not in Africa - see June 23]
1776: Sultanate of Kilwa on the East African coast agrees to supply enslaved people from the interior for the French sugar plantations on Reunion and Mauritius. This agreement dramatically increases the slave trade in the region.
1779: Joseph de Bologne\Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges, an Officer of the Royal Guard of King Louis XVI, was an accomplished composer who in 1779 began performing music with Queen Marie-Antoinette. [not in Africa]
1781: Los Angeles is founded by fifty-four settlers including twenty-six of African ancestry. [not in Africa]
1783: Approximately 3,000 black supporters of the British during the American Revolution were repatriated to British Canada at the end of the conflict. [not in Africa]
1783: British take control of St. Kitts & Nevis. [not in Africa]
1784: The Shelburne (Nova Scotia) Race Riot is caused by resentment over David George, a black Baptist preacher, baptizing white residents and organizing racially integrated churches. [not in Africa]
1787: Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade is founded in London. [not in Africa]
1787: Sierra Leone is founded by British abolitionists as a colony for emancipated slaves [click here for what good it did them]
1793: Slavery is declared illegal in Upper Canada. [not in Africa]
1794: The French Government abolishes slavery. The law is repealed by Napoleon in 1802.
1795: The British capture the Cape of Good Hope and Capetown from the Dutch.
1796: The French crush a revolt by the Garifuna in St Vincent. In the aftermath nearly 5,000 Black Caribs (Garifuna) migrate to Honduras and British Honduras. [not in Africa]
1742: Jacobus Ellisa Capitein, an African-born Dutch scholar, receives an advanced degree from the University of Leiden for his dissertation on slavery and Christian liberty. [not in Africa]
1789: Child musical prodigy George Bridgetower of Great Britain gives his first public violin performance in Paris at the age of 10. [not in Africa]
1791: The Haitian Revolution begins when Toussaint L'Overture leads slaves in Saint-Domingue in a rebellion against French rule. [not in Africa]
1791: Slaves on Dominica initiate an unsuccessful rebellion against English plantation owners [not in Africa]
1792: The British government grants a charter to the Sierra Leone Company which is founded by abolitionists for the purpose of establishing a free labour colony for former slaves on the west coast of Africa.
1793: The British government outlaws the importation of enslaved people into Upper Canada (Ontario). The law also frees the children of enslaved women when those children reach the age of twenty-five. [not in Africa]
1796: Slaves revolt in Saint Lucia. The rebellion ends when the British agree to free those who lay down their weapons. [not in Africa]
1796: After Maroons in Jamaica attempt to instigate a general rebellion of slaves on the island, the British capture 600 of them and ship them to Nova Scotia and eventually to Sierra Leone.
1797: British troops in the Cape Colony wage war against the Xhosa, initiating a series of wars of expansion that will eventually result in their conquest of all of South Africa.
1801: Haitian forces invade and occupy Santo Domingo (now the Dominican Republic) and occupy the Spanish colony until 1844 [not in Africa]
1804: On January 1, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the successor to Toussaint L'Ouverture, declares Saint Dominque independent and renames it Haiti. It becomes the second independent nation in the western hemisphere (after the United States). [not in Africa]
1804: Usman Dan Fodio initiates a holy war (jihad) that established an Islamic theocratic state, the Sokoto Caliphate, in present day Northern Nigeria.
1807: Great Britain abolishes the importation of enslaved Africans into its colonial possessions. [not in Africa]
[missing, and surprising that it should be, from the Black Past website, is "Importing of slaves to America made illegal in 1808", which can be found on Jan 1]
1807: George Bridgetower, a former child prodigy who at 11 performs his first concert before a Paris audience, is elected to the British Royal Society of Musicians. [not in Africa]
1811: Spain abolishes slavery at home and in all colonies except Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Santo Domingo. [not in Africa]
1813: Argentina abolishes slavery. [not in Africa]
1814: Mauritania becomes a French colony.
1814: Great Britain gains control of the Seychelles from France.
1816: Shaka Zulu becomes King of the Zulu nation and begins to create an empire in the southern African interior.
1819: The Canadian government refuses to cooperate with the United States government in the apprehension of fugitive slaves living in Canada. [not in Africa]
1820: Rev. Daniel Coker of Baltimore leads eighty six African Americans who become the first black settlers to Liberia.
1820: The American Colonization Society's first shop, Mayflower of Liberia, arrives in Liberia. [this needs more thinking about; is it the usual conquest-by-colonisation, which is how America started, or is there something positive for Africa, and for former slaves returning to their roots, about it?]
1820: Large numbers of British settlers begin arriving in the Cape Colony. [my question above given extra weight: because no question these “British settlers” were white conquistadors, not returning ex-slaves]
1820: New cash crops are introduced into central and southern Africa including cotton in Angola and cloves in Zanzibar. Shortly afterwards palm oil and groundnuts (peanuts) become important cash crops in West Africa [I don’t know about the cloves, but planting cotton cheaply in Africa to provide the white world with cheap clothing was the principal cause of the drought and famine in the Sahel in the 1980s]
1821: Ecuador adopts a gradual emancipation program. [not in Africa]
1821: Columbia adopts a gradual emancipation program. [not in Africa]
1821: Venezeula adopts a gradual emancipation program. [not in Africa]
1822: Liberia founded by the American Colonization Society as a colony for emancipated slaves. [which sounds different from Sierra Leone, above]
1823: Chile abolishes slavery. [not in Africa]
1824: Mexico outlaws slavery. This act creates the incentive for Anglo Texans to fight for independence. [not in Africa; and what is the difference between “outlaws” and “abolishes”?]
1824: Ira Aldridge, alumnus of the African Grove Theater, begins prominent acting career in London. [not in Africa; New York – click here]
1824: The Federal Republic of Central America [Guatemala?] abolishes slavery. [not in Africa]
1824: Moshoeshoe brings together rival clans to establish the Kingdom of Sotho in Southern Africa.
1825: [not on the Black Past timeline, but see Oct 10: Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger, born]
1827: Fourah Bay College is established in Freetown, Sierra Leone. The college is the first western-oriented institution of higher education on the African continent.
1828: Shaka Zulu, the Zulu leader, is assassinated by his half brother, Dingane who then proclaims himself ruler of the Zulu Empire.
1829: Mexican independence leader Vincente Guerrero of African and Indian ancestry becomes the second President of Mexico. Shortly afterwards he finally abolishes slavery in Mexico. [not in Africa]
1831: Bolivia abolishes slavery. [not in Africa]
1831: Guyana becomes a British colony. [not in Africa]
1833: The British Parliament abolishes slavery in the entire British Empire. [not in Africa]
1834: The British abolition of slavery in the Cape Colony prompts many boers to move further north into the interior of Southern Africa beyond the reach of British authority. Their migration eventually brings them into conflict with the Zulu nation and other indigenous African people.
1836: John B. Russwurm is appointed Governor of the Cape Palmas district of Liberia by the American Colonization Society.
1837: Muhammad Bello, the Sultan of Sokoto, and son of Usman dan Fodio, dies. With a population of ten million, Sokoto at the time is the largest state in West Africa [is that Nigeria?].
1837: The first groundnuts (peanuts) are exported to the United States and Europe from Sierra Leone [were they allowed to lie open and loose on the ship or were they bound in galleys?].
1838: Boers clash for the first time directly with the Zulu at the Battle of Blood River in Natal.
1840: Sayyid Said, the Sultan of Oman, moves his capital to Zanzibar which will soon evolve into the largest slave-trading state in East Africa.
1842: Uruguay abolishes slavery. [not in Africa]
1844: The British Governor of the Gold Coast forms an alliance with the Fante states along the coast against the Ashanti Empire.
1844: New Orleans-born African American playwright Victor Sejour's first play, Diegarias, is performed at the Theatre Francais in Paris. [not in Africa]
1845: By this date the French have constructed the forts of Assinie, Bassam, and Dabou on the Slave Coast in what is now Cote d'Ivoire.
1846: Tunisia abolishes slavery.
1847: Sweden abolishes slavery. [not in Africa]
1847: On July 26, Liberia becomes an independent nation. Its first president is Joseph Jenkins Roberts.
1848: Denmark abolishes slavery. [not in Africa]
1848: Slavery is abolished in all French Colonies [including those in Africa]
1848: France founds Gabon for the settlement of emancipated slaves.
1848: The French Assembly grants full voting rights to the inhabitants of Dakar and Rufisque, the two largest cities in the colony of Senegal. These inhabitants will govern themselves and send representatives to the French Assembly in Paris. This is the first time African colonial subjects will have a voice in the government of France. In 1872 similar rights will be granted to St. Louis and Goree Island.
1850: Denmark sells its colony on the Gold Coast to the British and withdraws from Africa.
1850: Swahili-Arab traders extend trading routes for enslaved people and ivory across Lake Tanganyika into what is now the eastern Congo.
1851: The Liberian legislature authorizes the establishment of Liberia College which will eventually become the University of Liberia.
1851: Columbia abolishes slavery. [not in Africa; and I think that should be Colombia; or do they mean British Columbia, as in Canada? see 1866 below]
1852: The Hawaiian Kingdom abolishes slavery. [not in Africa]
1852: Swahili traders from east Africa cross the continent and reach the Atlantic coastal state of Benguela [which I think is now Angola]
1853: The British allow the Gold Coast colony to have a legislative council. This is the first instance of the British providing limited self-government for their sub-Saharan colonial subjects.
1853: Mary Ann Shadd becomes the first woman of African ancestry to publish a newspaper anywhere in the world when she takes control of the Provincial Freeman in Chatham, Ontario. [not in Africa]
1854: Venezuela abolishes slavery. [not in Africa]
1854 Peru abolishs slavery. [not in Africa]
1854: Al-Hajj Umar, a Muslim religious leader from Futa Toro (in present-day Senegal), initiates a jihad which captures much of the interior of west Africa including the Kingdom of Kaarta.
1854: Quinine is used in in the Gold Coast for the first time in Africa to treat malaria.
1855: Ras Kassa unifies the warring states of Ethiopia and crowns himself Emperor Tewodros II.
1855: Msiri, a Nyamwezi ivory and slave trader establishes a permanent interior state (called Nyamwezi) with a capital at Bunyeka.
1855: An estimated 4,000 fugitive slaves from Texas and the U.S. Southwest are living in and around the Mexican border town of Matamoras. [not in Africa]
1857: [not on the Black Past timeline, but see Oct 2 on the blog: Marthinus Theunis Steyn born, (6th and last President of Orange Free State when it was a stand-alone); why do I have him listed? “As President of the Orange Free State, Steyn was deposed by the British, and went on to conduct government and wage a guerilla war from the field.”
1858: Spain gains control over Equatorial Guinea.
1861: The British establish a protectorate at the port of Lagos, the first step in creating the colony of Nigeria.
1861: Tukulor leader Al-Hajj Umar conquers the Kingdom of Segu.
1861: France gains control over Djibouti.
1863: Slavery is abolished in all Dutch colonies [including those in Africa, but don’t tell anyone in Soweto]
1863: Al-Hajj Umar clashes with the French in the Senegal Valley and captures Timbuktu. The following year Umar is killed putting down a rebellion in Masina.
1863: The French establish a protectorate over Porto Novo in Dahomey.
1864: Former slave Samuel Crowther becomes the first African Anglican bishop. He is appointed to serve in what is now Nigeria.
1865: Samori Toure, the leader of the Mandinka, begins an empire in the upper Niger River basin.
1865: Tippu Tip, a Swahili trader, gains control over the ivory and slave trade in the east African interior and becomes a rival to Msiri.
1865: The Dominican Republic is declared independent from Spain. [not in Africa]
1866: In November Mifflin W. Gibbs is elected to the Victoria, British Columbia City Council. He becomes the second black Canadian resident elected to office.
1867: Diamonds are found at Kimberley in the Orange Free State in what is now South Africa.
1868: Ethiopian Emperor Tewodros II is defeated by the British at the Battle of Aroge and subsequently commits suicide.
1868: Moshoeshoe, the King of Sotho in southern Africa requests British annexation of his kingdom to avoid being overrun by the Boers.
1868: Antonio Maceo Grajales joins the Cuban independence movement eventually rising to the level of General in the insurgent army at the time of his death in 1896. [not in Africa]
1869: Slavery is abolished in Portugal's African colonies [including those in Africa]
1869: Gold is discovered at Tati in South Africa and in neighbouring Botswana, setting off an international gold rush into the region.
1869: The Suez Canal is opened with Great Britain and France in control of the waterway [three mentions on the blog: April 25, July 26 and Nov 17]
1873: Slavery is abolished in Puerto Rico [not in Africa]
1873: The British persuade the Sultan of Zanzibar to end the slave trade.
1873-74: The Anglo-Ashanti War. After initial victories by the Ashanti, the British eventually prevail and force the Ashanti Emperor to surrender [that’s Ghana, I believe]
1879: In the first Anglo-Zulu War the British suffer a crushing defeat at Isandlwana.
1880: Samori Toure extends his conquests to include the west African gold fields and the upper Niger valley.
1880: Afro-French explorer Pierre de Brazza-Savorgnan negotiates a treaty with the Kingdom of the Kongo which relinquishes its claim to the north bank of the Congo River. He founds Brazzaville, the first settlement in the new colony.
1881: The Mahdist Revolution began on June 29 when a Sudanese Islamic cleric, Muhammad Ahmad, proclaimed himself the Mahdi.
1882: Great Britain gains control over Egypt from the Ottoman Empire.
1884: Nehemiah Tile founds the Tembu National Church, the first of a series of African-controlled churches in South Africa, in the Transkei region of South Africa.
1884: Germany acquires Namibia, Togo, and Cameroon as its first African colonies.
1884: European nations at the Berlin Conference reach agreement on the partition of Africa.
1885: Germany establishes a protectorate over the Tanganyika coast.
1885: King Leopold of Belgium acquires the Congo, a vast area of nearly 905,000 square miles, as his personal possession. He calls the area the Congo Free State.
1885: The French declare a protectorate over Madagascar.
1885: Pan-Africanist intellectual Edward Wilmot Blyden campaigns unsuccessfully for President of Liberia. After his defeat he goes into self-imposed exile in neighboring Sierra Leone.
1885: The Royal Niger Company, backed by the British Army, takes control of the Lower Niger and Benue River valleys. With that expansion they effectively rule half of what will eventually be the colony of Nigeria.
1886: Slavery is abolished in Cuba [that is incorrect: in all parts of Cuba except the brothels and casinos of Havana where slavery remained in place until the overthrow of Battista in 1958]
1886: City of Johannesburg is founded in South Africa.
1886: The Comoros Islands become a French protectorate.
1887: The British declare a protectorate over what is now Southern Nigeria.
1888: Slavery is abolished in Brazil. [not in Africa]
1888: The British help the Germans crush Muslim resistance on the East African coast.
1889: Italy gains control over Eritrea.
1889: Cecil Rhodes' British South African Company begins to colonise the African interior. White settlers name the colony Rhodesia.
1889: Menelik II becomes the Emperor of Ethiopia and initiates a campaign of expansion which will double the size of the empire.
1893: Henry Ossawa Tanner paints The Banjo Lesson while living in France. The painting is eventually hailed as one of the major works of art of the late 19th Century. [not in Africa]
1893: French forces capture Timbuktu and destroy the Tukulor Empire.
1893: The French declare the Ivory Coast to be their colony.
1894 Buganda is occupied by the British who begin to form the colony of Uganda.
1894: The French conquer Dahomey.
1895: Tananarive, the capital of Madagascar, surrenders to the French.
1896: The Ethiopians, under Emperor Menelik II, defeat the Italians at the Battle of Adwa and become the only African nation to successfully resist European conquest during this period.
1896: Sultan Khaled surrenders Zanzibar to the British.
1896: British forces invade and occupy the Ashanti Empire.
1897: Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, a prominent 19th century Brazilian writer is a founder and the first President of the Brazilian Academy of Literature. He holds the post until his death in 1908. [not in Africa]
1897: Zanzibar abolishes slavery.
1897: The British Army creates the West African Frontier Force, regiments of African soldiers led by British officers.
1898: Afro-English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor is commissioned at 23 to write his Ballade in A Minor for Britain [he is in “A Journey In Time and the Book of Days blog] [not in Africa]
1898: The French gain control over Guinea.
1899: The British and French establish joint rule over Sudan.
1899: Germany conquers Rwanda.
Which brings us to the end of the 19th century, and is this not the most shameful, the most disgraceful, the most disgusting website you have ever read - nor am I blaming the people who made the website; they, like me, are simply recording history. It is the history, and the perpetrators of that history, who deserve the epithets. And yes, it gets better in the second half of the 20th century, when the ghastly Europeans finally start to leave; but still pretty horrible for much of the continent in the years since, self-inflicted as well as residual.
Click here to follow the timeline into the 20th and 21st centuries.
You can find David Prashker at:
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