1.32 Africa: a.d. 1801 to 1900  (Page 3/7)

The bay of Algeria was constantly bickering with the French government over coral fishing concessions and finally in 1830 the French intervened with 37,000 soldiers in 103 ships and launched the largest and most destructive military campaign in the story of European imperialism in Africa. They had pushed the Ottoman Turks out completely by 1841, but they made the mistake of using Jews, who were despised by the Muslims, for support.

Abd al-Kadir, at the head of a religious group in western Algeria, set up a Muslim theocratic state, which was only subdued in 1847 by 108,000 French troops. (Ref. 83 ) By that time there were 100,000 European settlers in Algeria, with the French in control. Further insult to that country occurred in 1867-68 with the worst drought of its history, along with locusts and cholera. Some 300,000 people died out of a population of 2 1/2 million. The French also occupied Tunis in 1881, provoking a large scale Islamic uprising, followed by sporadic warfare in the south, in the next century. Phosphates from Tunis were used as fertilizer in France. (Ref. 8 , 176 , 213 ) Morocco kept foreigners pretty much at bay until 1850, when the French waged a victorious war to become, in essence, the owner of that country. (Ref. 83 )

In the meantime, the Ottoman Turks had obtained a firm hold on Tripoli, the Fezzan and Cyrenica by 1835. In the oasis of Jaghbut in the latter country, the Muslim teacher, Sayyid Muhammad al-Sanusi (Grad Sanusi) established a religious center, which was continued after his death in 1859 by his son, Muhammed al-Mahdi. Missionaries were sent from the center out along the caravan routes. (Ref. 83 )

We must not leave this section on North Africa without mentioning its troubles with the new United States of America at the beginning of this century. Throughout the Napoleonic Wars the United States had attempted to remain neutral in foreign struggles and had paid almost $2,000,000 or 1/5 of its national income to the Moslem states of Morocco, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli for ransom or tolls. When President Jefferson cut out some of the tolls in 1801 the bashaw of Tripoli declared war on the new nation. In 1804 Commodore Preble attacked Tripoli with the U.S.S. Constitution and the f rigate Philadelphia, was taken prisoner, but then rescued by the night-time heroics of Lt. Stephen Decature, in the captured schooner Intrepid. This, coupled with a heroic desert march by William Eaton across Libya, resulted in a final favorable treaty with Tripoli, which was later repudiated.

Sub-saharan africa

At the beginning of the century the interior of Af rica was almost wholly isolated from the rest of the world. The only resident Europeans lived precariously along the coasts where the slave forts and trading posts existed. Most of Africa lagged 100 years behind in economic development, a feature which led to many of the African problems of the 20th century. It will be convenient to discuss the history of Sub-Saharan Africa in the first half of the century separately from that of the second half, and in each instance five main areas will be listed. For the first half of the 19th century, then: