Search
Did you mean: Agora?
Remove Ads
Advertisement
Search Results
Collection
Portugal & the Age of Exploration
The Portuguese built an empire from 1420 onwards that was largely composed of trade centres dotted around the coasts of three continents. This colonial enterprise was driven by a search for African gold, Asian spices, and Christian kingdoms...
Definition
Berlin Conference 1884-5 - Establishing the Rules of the Scramble for Africa
The Berlin Conference, also known as the Berlin West Africa Conference, was held between November 1884 and February 1885. Imperial powers, notably Great Britain, France, Belgium, and Germany, met to thrash out their competing claims for control...
Article
Slavery in Plantation Agriculture
The first plantations in the Americas of sugar cane, cocoa, tobacco, and cotton were maintained and harvested by African slaves controlled by European masters. When African slavery was largely abolished in the mid-1800s, the center of plantation...
Article
The Portuguese in East Africa
The Portuguese first took an interest in East Africa from the beginning of the 16th century as their empire spread eastwards across the Indian Ocean. Trade in the region was already well-established and carried out by Africans, Indians, and...
Article
Life on a Colonial Sugar Plantation
Raising sugar cane could be a very profitable business, but producing refined sugar was a highly labour-intensive process. For this reason, European colonial settlers in Africa and the Americas used slaves on their plantations, almost all...
Article
Clotilda, the Last Slave Ship - Greed, Rebellion, and Ultimate Triumph
It began with a bet in 1859 and would end in a burning in 1860, but, for the 110 African men, women, and children who had been illegally smuggled into the United States aboard the Clotilda, the flames that engulfed it were only the beginning...
Article
Ivory & the Colonization of Africa
European colonising powers sought to exploit Africa's resources from the 15th century onwards. Arab traders had been doing the same in North Africa and East Africa through the Middle Ages, but it was from the 17th century that European traders...
Image
Map of European Expansion & Mercantile Empires, c. 1700
A map of European empires c. 1700. By the 18th century, European power had become truly global through a combination of maritime expansion, state-backed commerce, and military force. The leading Atlantic empires, Spain, Portugal, the Dutch...