The Retrospect of European Upheaval Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Retrospect of European Upheaval - Essay Example Trade developed around a ‘triangle’; from Britain to West Africa taking goods such as Glassware , cloth and ammunition, from West Africa to the Americas carrying enslaved people, and finally from the Americas back to Britain with raw materials such as sugar, tobacco and cotton. This all resulted due to developments in maritime technology as it enabled European sailors to have longer voyage. Enslaved Africans were sold to work on plantations or in the households of the slave owners upon their arrival in America. They grew cash crops – tobacco, sugar, coffee, cocoa – for the European markets. Entrepreneurs on the islands of the Caribbean and in the US depended on slave labour to grow these crops profitably as the labour was cheap. 1500 Africans during the between Spain and Britain war escaped to mountains, evaded capture for 150 years and undertook guerilla warfare against the plantation owners. The French Revolution in 1789 created a new French republic and perturbed Haiti (which was created as a result of Successful rebellion) when the slaves revolted led by the formidable soldier Toussaint L’Ouverture, who himself was once a slave and self educated. He had an army of 100.000 revolts which took control of Spanish Santo Domingo(Now known as Haiti) and freed other slaves. Later on, he agreed to stop fighting if French would abolish the slavery. Mongol Empire, Ottoman Empire, 1453, Sunni Islam When Baghdad fell to Mongols by Slejuks, they declared an independent Sultanate in east and central Asia. Later on the Slejuks were overthrown by Uthman, an Uzbek of the Ottoman clan and proclaimed the Sultan of Asia Minor in 1301. Constantinople, heart of the Byzantine Empire became the capital of the Ottoman Empire when it was conquered in 1453 by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II. Mehmet slaughtered many of the population and forced the rest into exile. The city was repopulated by importing people scattered in Ottoman Territories. He renamed C onstantinople Istanbul – the 'city of Islam' - and embarked for recuperating physically and politically as he made it his capital. Scramble for Africa, Berlin Conference, King Leopold II, Congo Free State In 1884 a meeting was convened at the Berlin residence of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Foreign Ministers from fourteen European Nations and United States promulgated rules for further exploitation of African continent without making the inhabitant’s part of the process. Otto von Bismarck wanted not only to expand German spheres of influence in Africa but had a hidden agenda to play off Germany's colonial rivals against one another to the Germans' advantage. France, Germany, Great Britain, and Portugal were the major players in the conference, controlling most of colonial Africa at the time among the fourteen nations. The French were prevalent in West Africa, while the British had occupied in East and Southern Africa. The Belgians acquired the vast territory which lat er became The Congo. The Germans ruled in 4 colonies which were all across the region. The Portuguese held a small colony in West Africa and two large ones in Southern Africa. Kind Leopold II had coerced the Africans in Congo to gather rubber, illegal killing of elephants for their ivory and to facilitate export routes, infrastructure was build. Those who failed to meet these tasks were massacred. King Leopold regime is regarded as the most excruciating disasters of Africa as 10 million Congolese had been