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African History 4: The Effect of Slavery on West Africa 100 Views
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Description:
Today we'll learn about how West Africa wasn't disconnected from the rest of the world, like many people seem to think. Seriously. It's not on island or anything. Look at a map, people.
Transcript
- 00:04
Slavery wasn't something that just…happened.
- 00:06
Plantation owners didn't wake up one day and say… [Plantation owner wakes up yawning]
- 00:09
“Man, I’d love for my life to be a continuous war crime.”
- 00:14
And then BAM!
- 00:15
Slaves. [Slaves appear in Plantation owners bedroom]
Full Transcript
- 00:16
The slave industry was Godzilla-huge.
- 00:18
It relied on slavers, European governments, and some African kings all being in cahoots.
- 00:24
It also required a massive and complicated infrastructure.
- 00:27
In order to export millions of people, forts and dungeons needed building… [Ship carrying cargo]
- 00:31
Political systems needed reorganizing…
- 00:34
Shipping lanes needed finding…
- 00:37
And somebody had to find those vulnerable populations to exploit, right?
- 00:40
There’s a summer job we could take a pass on… [Man inspects summer job adverts]
- 00:44
The slavery industry was so colossal that it totally transformed West Africa.
- 00:48
And it seriously influenced how later West African history went down. [History of West Africa appears]
- 00:52
Despite what many people still think to this day, West Africa wasn’t particularly disconnected
- 00:57
from the rest of the world.
- 00:59
Though maybe it would’ve been better if it had a no talking to Europeans policy… [African man walks away from European man]
- 01:04
Also, West Africa wasn’t particularly backwards, primitive, undeveloped, or low-tech.
- 01:09
OK, it was no Silicon Valley.
- 01:12
But by the year 1400, African kingdoms were basically the twins of European kingdoms. [Africa and Europe in a room]
- 01:17
Seriously, Europe and Africa had all the same stuff.
- 01:20
Feudalism…
- 01:21
Bureaucrats…
- 01:22
Divinely appointed kings…
- 01:23
Armies of pikemen and knights…
- 01:25
It was the whole medieval shebang—just with more bananas and… fewer sheep. [Knights and sheep cross a road]
- 01:31
The reason that West Africa later came to be seen as primitive wasn't because of West
- 01:35
Africa's own development.
- 01:37
It was because the slave industry broke down settled states and laid waste to farmland.
- 01:43
On top of that, it stole talent and bankrupted consumers. [Slave kidnaps girl contestant]
- 01:47
Much of the rest of the world had excess people and wealth to develop and buy technologies.
- 01:52
But West Africans were struggling just to hold onto their kids.
- 01:55
In colonial times, anthropologists took a look at the mess that was West Africa and [Anthropologist working in a lab]
- 01:59
assumed it’d always been some kind of primitive wilderness.
- 02:04
Based on what they saw, it was inconceivable that Africa could’ve produced complex, developed
- 02:08
societies anywhere close to those in Europe.
- 02:11
But that would be like a guy walking into a house, dumping garbage on the floor, and [Man throws garbage on the floor]
- 02:14
saying…
- 02:15
…eh, guess it always stank in here…
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