North Africa from the 15th to 19th Centuries.

The 15th and 16th centuries in North Africa were a period of struggles between
dynasties, insurrections, raids, and near anarchy. During this period, too, the
Spaniards and Portuguese obtained a foothold in the ports of the Mediterranean
coast. In 1415 the Portuguese captured Ceuta in Morocco; and the Spaniards took
Oran in Algeria in 1409 and Melilla in Morocco in 1496. In 1578, however, a
Portuguese crusade against the Moors in Morocco ended in disaster, in which the
King of Portugal and the flower of the Portuguese nobility were killed.
It was shortly after this, in 1590, that the Sultan of Morocco, Ahmed al Mansur, sent
an army across the Sahara which led to the destruction of the Songhay Empire (see
chapter 5), and from which great riches were acquired. The reign of Ahmed al
Mansur (1578-1603) is regarded as a "golden age" in Moroccan history.
In the 16th century Spain and Portugal were confronted in the Mediterranean by the
Ottoman Turks, who had taken over the leadership of the Moslem world. After taking
Constantinople in 1453 (and so obliterating the remains of the Byzantine Empire) the
Turks conquered the whole of the Middle East (including Egypt in 1517), advanced
far into south-eastern Europe, and dominated the eastern Mediterranean. From
Egypt they extended their Empire along the North African coast as far as Algiers by
the end of the 16th century, after being opposed for a time by the Spaniards in
Tunisia.
Until early in the 19th century North Africa, except for Morocco, then remained under
Turkish suzerainty. But the Turks did not take much interest in ruling their vassal
states in North Africa, interfering little in the feuds of the native dynasties and tribes
provided that they paid their taxes - and the money to pay the taxes came mainly
from piracy in the Mediterranean. For some 300 years the headquarters of the
notorious pirates of the Barbary (Berber) coast was at Algiers, which survived many
bombardments and blockades by the European trading nations.
Morocco also took part in the piracy, extending it into the Atlantic.
By the 18th century the native rulers in Algeria, Tunisia, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica,
though nominally subject to the Sultan of Turkey, were virtually independent.
Chapter 9. Portuguese Exploration and
Colonisation.
Soon after the capture of Ceuta in 1415 the Portuguese, under an organisation set
up by Prince Henry (the Navigator),became the pioneers in European exploration to
the western coasts of Africa and the search for a sea route round Africa to the East.
The trade route to the East through the Mediterranean and overland to the Red Sea
and Indian Ocean had for long been dominated by the Arabs - and was also subject
to interference by the Barbary pirates of the Mediterranean.
In the first half of the 15th century the Portuguese discovered the Atlantic island of
Madeira, the Azores and the Cape Verde Islands. All were uninhabited, and the
Portuguese annexed them. In 1446 they landed and established trading posts in the
Senegal district of West Africa. In the south west they reached the Congo estuary in
1482, and later made settlements in Angola, with access to trade with the Kingdoms
of Kongo and Ndongo. In 1497-98 the Portuguese Vasco da Gama sailed round the
south of Africa and on to India, calling at the East African ports Malindi and Mombasa
on the way.
When da Gama returned to Portugal he described the great wealth of the Swahili
cities; and subsequently the Kings of Portugal sent fleets to capture and loot these
cities. The Swahili trading community was largely ruined, and some of the cities were
abandoned. But some survived, as did the Swahili culture; and at the end of the 17th
century the Portuguese were expelled from the East African ports north of
Mozambique by Arabs from Oman in south eastern Arabia.
Portuguese activity in Benin and Morocco in the 16th century has already been
mentioned (see previous chapters). Also in this century they tried, from settlements
on the Mozambique coast, to gain control of the gold mines of Zimbabwe -
unsuccessfully in the Rozvi Kingdom of southern Zimbabwe, but with more success in
the northern Kingdom of the Mwana Mutapas. In 1573 they persuaded the King to
give them possession of some mines and permission to settle along the Zambezi
river in northern Mozambique. But the settlers wanted more, and gradually increased
their influence over the affairs of the kingdom. In 1628-29, with hired African
soldiers, they defeated the King's forces, and a new treaty made him a puppet of the
Portuguese.
The same thing happened in Angola. At first on friendly terms with the King of
Ndongo*, the settlers' ambitions culminated in a war of conquest. This went on
intermittently from about 1580 to 1670, by when Ndongo was a broker kingdom; but
resistance continued, and Portuguese penetration of the interior was very slow.
The Kingdom of Kongo suffered the same fate. At first an ally of Portugal, Kongo
later became a target for military invasion - about 1665, when the King of Kongo
was captured and killed, and the independence of Kongo was ended.
One of the motives in these Portuguese conquests was the procurement of slaves.
When the Portuguese first landed in West Africa in 1446 they brought back, not only
gold, but a few slaves; and during the rest of the 15th century the trade for slaves in
return for European goods expanded partly to relieve Portugal's limited resources of
manpower.
The sale of slaves was no new custom in Africa (nor in Europe). In Africa there were
“rightless persons" who where subject to sale; and at first these were the people sold
to Portugal, where they became household servants or were trained as craftsmen.
Their lot in Portugal was probably little worse than that of the free, but poor,
Portuguese. A big change in the nature and extent of the slave trade, however, came
after the discovery of America and the beginning of European colonisation there in
the 16th century.
* In Ndongo the King's title was Ngola - which the Portuguese mistook for the name
of the country; hence Angola.