Guns, Germs, and Steel Episode 3: Into the Tropics PDF Fall 2024

Guns, Germs, and Steel Episode 3: Into the Tropics Africa.. the birthplace of humanity.. cities and kingdoms once spread across the continent, then vanished, leaving barely a trace. What happened to this great achievement?  Africa The first European settlers arrived in Southern Africa...

Guns, Germs, and Steel Episode 3: Into the Tropics Africa.. the birthplace of humanity.. cities and kingdoms once spread across the continent, then vanished, leaving barely a trace. What happened to this great achievement?  Africa The first European settlers arrived in Southern Africa in the mid 1600s. They landed in the Cape of Good Hope, at the southernmost tip of the continent. They quickly established themselves in this new land, laying out farms, planting wheat and barley, ranching cattle and sheep. Southern Africa is 5,000 miles from Europe. How was it possible for the settlers to import European crops and animals to such a distant part of the world?  Africa As much as skill, Geography ! The Cape and Europe lie at a similar latitude, or distance from the equator, and this means that the temperature and climate of these widely separated regions are almost exactly the same. The Europeans were able to establish prosperous farms and settlements, properties now owned by their descendants. Into the Africa The voertrekkers (the Dutch settlers), were using a muzzle-loading rifle which they could reload and fire from horseback. By February 17th 1838, the voertrekkers had reached 800 miles inland from the Cape. But they were entering the unexplored land of Zulus. The Zulus were the authors of a unique and highly developed African state. Their military skills had allowed them to overwhelm their native African neighbors. They held more than 30,000 square miles of land, and had established a sophisticated economy and society. The Battle of Blood River 3500 Zulus were killed. 3 voertrakkers were injured.  Further into the Africa Maxim gun: As opposed to the old single-shot weapons that had been used in years before, this gun could fire continuously for up to 500 rounds a minute. It had the equivalent fire power of probably 100 men in a company with single shot weapons. The victorious European settlers pushed on beyond Zulu lands, while new developments in their technology let them increase the pace of conquest. Further into the Africa As they drove further into Africa, Europeans encountered new tribes, some just as hostile to invasion as the Zulus had been. But for peoples like the Matabele, there was simply no answer to the world’s first fully-automatic weapon. The Matabele conflict of October 1893 lasted a matter of hours.  Further North into the Africa As they moved north, settlers cleared land for farms, confident they could build a prosperous life in Africa. However, the land became impossible to plough. Their crops refused to grow. Their animals died. They had entered the Tropic of Capricorn –a totally different world. Only two seasons: the dry season, and the rainy. Wheat and barley, the crops that had sustained European civilization for centuries, had not evolved to survive in this tropical climate. Africans Yet the native Africans, the Zulus, the Matabele, all the tribes that the settlers had encountered, depended on agriculture just as much as the Europeans. How were they succeeding as the Europeans failed? Africans had developed a unique tropical system of agriculture that had spread across the continent, and become the foundation of complex societies, trading as far afield as India. Tropical diseases The smallpox virus originally crossed over from cattle to man centuries ago, and experts now believe it may have first originated in tropical Africa. Africans were certainly familiar with the disease. They had even developed methods of vaccination that bestowed immunity for life. Native Africans had also developed antibodies against one of the most virulent diseases on earth: Malaria. Carried by the humble mosquito, this was the disease that was now overwhelming the European settlers. Tropical diseases Tropical Africans were combating malaria with more than just antibodies. Their entire civilisation had evolved to help them avoid infection in the first place. They tended to settle in high or dry locations, away from the wet, humid areas where mosquitoes breed. by living in relatively small communities, spread out over vast areas, Africans could limit the level of malaria transmission. But the Europeans understood little of the Africans’ way of life. They built settlements by the rivers and lakes they used for water, in places infested by mosquitoes. Thousands died. Exploitation Unlike in South or North America, the Europeans had failed to settle Africa’s land. But Africa still had one great draw for the colonizing powers – vast reserves of natural resources; copper; diamonds; gold. Millions of Africans were compelled to abandon a way of life perfectly adapted to the tropics, and to labor for Europeans.