http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² (11.7 million sq mi) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area.[2] With a billion people (as of 2009, see table) in 61 territories, it accounts for about 14.8% of the World's human population. The continent is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Suez Canal and the Red Sea to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Not counting the disputed territory of Western Sahara, there are 53 countries, including Madagascar and various island groups, associated with the continent.
Africa, particularly central eastern Africa, is widely regarded within the scientific community to be the origin of humans and the Hominidae tree (great apes), as evidenced by the discovery of the earliest hominids and their ancestors, as well as later ones that have been dated to around seven million years ago – including Sahelanthropus tchadensis, Australopithecus africanus, A. afarensis, Homo erectus, H. habilis and H. ergaster – with the earliest Homo sapiens (human) found in Ethiopia being dated to ca. 200,000 years ago.[3]
Massey, in 1881, derived an etymology from the Egyptian
af-rui-ka, "to turn toward the opening of the Ka." The
Ka
is the energetic double of every person and "opening of the Ka" refers
to a womb or birthplace. Africa would be, for the Egyptians, "the
birthplace."
Slavery has been practiced in Africa, as well as other places, throughout recorded history.[35][36] Between the seventh and twentieth centuries, Arab slave trade
(also known as slavery in the East) took 18 million slaves from Africa
via trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean routes. Between the fifteenth and
the nineteenth centuries, the Atlantic slave trade took 7-12 million slaves to the New World.[37][38][39]
In
West Africa, the decline of the
Atlantic slave trade
in the 1820s caused dramatic economic shifts in local polities. The
gradual decline of slave-trading, prompted by a lack of demand for
slaves in the
New World, increasing
anti-slavery legislation in Europe and America, and the
British navy's
increasing presence off the West African coast, obliged African states
to adopt new economies. Between 1808 and 1860, the British
West Africa Squadron seized approximately 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans who were aboard.
[40]
Action was also taken against African leaders who refused to agree to
British treaties to outlaw the trade, for example against "the usurping
King of
Lagos", deposed in 1851. Anti-slavery treaties were signed with over 50 African rulers.
[41] The largest powers of West Africa: the
Asante Confederacy, the
Kingdom of Dahomey, and the
Oyo Empire,
adopted different ways of adapting to the shift. Asante and Dahomey
concentrated on the development of "legitimate commerce" in the form of
palm oil,
cocoa,
timber and
gold, forming the bedrock of West Africa's modern export trade. The Oyo Empire, unable to adapt, collapsed into civil wars.
[
