Africa Background

When Africa was first colonized the native people where seen as a lesser race to the Europeans that settled there. They labeled them as savages that were cannibals. The first man to find meet with Africa natives was Vasco do Gama. When he met with the natives he found them very kind and came with food and trading animals. It was in the later years that the Khoisan were called savages. With white people pushing the Khoisan into undesirable areas to live where they learned to live off of hunting and gathering made white think that these people where primitive beings compared to them. With the Khoisan going back to the ways of the bushmen they soon became amusement for people to see. Some where killed and put into a museum to be on display for people to all see. Scientist look at the Bushmen as animals that they could perform tests on and just treat like they were some wild thing they had found. With scientist looking at these people they soon found out they weren’t as primitive as thought out to be they had a complex language, along with there technical skills in there environment. They also had a very well organized social relationship. They were extremely caring for their children along with their elders. Bushmen were well skilled artist as there is rock painting all over Africa that are very detailed for that time of art. There are over 30,000 rock art sites in South Africa. When the art was found in the 1900s people concluded that no one from Africa could of make such great art so it was thought to be from others who had set foot in Africa. When the Bushmen were finally credit for the art it was in the 1990s when South Africa’s apartheid regime collapsed as the art portrays belief of the San people or Bushmen.

Africa is a very rich continent as it has many resources from many various types of plants (8,500) to a ton of diamonds. Africa is a harsh land to grow plants as in is very dry and the soil is very rocky. With the finding of diamonds, gold, platinum, chromium, nickel, and many other valuable materials, has helped Africa with that problem of bad farming. With all those great a shiny things Africa sit has one great thing to add to its many wonders. The Bushveld Igneous Complex it is not like anything on earth not only is it jam backed with various of minerals, it is also the largest complex in the known world stretching 25,480 miles. The complex single handle got Africa 5 billion dollars in U.S. money to its economy in 1995.

The first sitting of wealth in Africa was by a Dutch man who went and visited a friend next to the Vaal River in 1867. A child was playing with a shinny stone that caught the man’s eye and asked the father of the child if he could buy it from them. He got it for feed the father had no idea that it was a diamond. With in 3 years after the find of the diamond over 5,000 prospectors were staking their claims. With the finding of diamonds they found the mother load you could say which became known as Kimberley. It was the the biggest man hole in the world 985 feet across and 295 feet deep. Kimberley had produced more diamond than any other place in the world. This brought Africa many jobs which brought a pretty good pay for people. With the people making such good pay as miner it was adding up, so the mine owners turned to convicts as it was cheaper to get them to work. They couldn't quite or leave they worked as long as they were told. Then in 1932 they stopped using convicts and got worker, but by then the work places where like prisons and people where held there until their contract was up. There was no contact to the outside world and they moved through a fence that roofed over the top of them so they couldn't throw diamonds to family.

Some say Africa that Africa isn't able to hold a strong goverment it was never ment to work. Africa is at the bottom of the list with health, food, educationn, and many other problems. WIth only a small percentage of people living in homes that have good food and water. Also witht he bad health, Africa has a large number of diseases with twenty-five million poeple infected by AIDS. With that there are many other diseases that are in Africa that have deadly effects on people.