Author Archives: Pantita Saithip

Looking back into the past before the United States is “the United States” and before countries in Africa are now separated countries like in the present, they were ruled under the power of European countries. If we study the history of Europe, we will find out that European countries used to be very powerful and strong nations. The big four nations, England, France, Spain, and the Netherlands, were all racing on the colonial expansion and sometimes they even fought over lands. The targeted continents of the powerful countries were North America and Africa.

Before World War I period (which is around 1914-1918) most parts of Africa is colonized by two main nations, France and Britain. These two powers alone ruled around two third of the whole continent, those times were since 1800s. The lands in Africa were previously divided to the power nations at the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 when all the European powers met and partitioned Africa, accepting each other’s share of the continent. The main purpose of the conference was to make an agreement on imperialism and boundaries to prevent any future conflict between European powers dealing with colonization. According to Ali Mazrui (and his study on the African history), he suggested that there were three main reasons why Europeans were so interested in Africa and decided to travel there for the explorations of the continent. The first reason was associated with the need of new knowledge. With the strive of learning and exploring the unknown places, Africa was the great destination for the explorers since back in time it was referred as the “Dark Continent” due to its mysteries and its distance from Europe. The second reason was racism. Referring to the Christian doctrine, it stated that the Christian followers should spread the belief in the gospel to others and try to convert other people to become Christians. Since most of African people follow their own traditional believes, Europeans felt the need to teach and convert the native people to Christianity. The third reason was mainly influenced by imperialism, the desire of European patriots to contribute to their countries by claiming lands on other countries.

Main reason for Europeans to sail to Africa is not only to discover new lands but also to look for places to trade. However, the most beneficial and popular trade was slave trade. Many Africans were traded, sailed to Europe, and lost their lives along the way there. Slaves that survived the travel had to suffer from brutal punishment from the white people; sometimes the causes of punishment were unknown or unreasonable.

On the other hand, during the late 16^th century, Great Britain, France, Spain and the Netherlands started major colonization programs in eastern North America. Many colonizers from Europe went to North America with highly developed military, naval, governmental and entrepreneurial capabilities. Mercantilism was the basic policy enforced by Britain on its colonies from the 1660s. Mercantilism meant that the government and merchants based in England became partners with the goal of increasing political power and private wealth. The first successful English colony in North America was Jamestown in Virginia. The main goal of the colonizers was to find gold. They set up the London Virginia Company to corporate and responsible for the searching of gold in the new land. However, the first years were difficult for them because many of the colonizers died from disease, starvation and also wars with native Indians. After a failed plan searching for gold, the British turned their interests into crops. Their colony survived and flourish by trading tobacco. By the late 17^th century, new and richer settlers came into America, took up large portions of land and started to import slavery and servants. Soon after, African slaves replaced the servants and became the main labor force in America. Some of the settlers and some people moved to New England areas in order to escape from the limitation of religion and that was how towns in Massachusetts’s areas were settled.

Morocco is a country with a long history back to the ancient era. The studies show that the area of present-day Morocco has been inhabited since the Paleolithic times or around 190,000-90,000 BC. The first group or the native people of Morocco were the Berbers. The Berber people are the ethnicity indigenous to North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are distributed from the Atlantic Ocean to the Siwa Oasis in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean Sea to the Niger River. The Berbers usually lived as a large group dividing into different tribes. There was no actual proof of any government during the Berbers era, the Berbers were believed to be living in the tribes and follow their tribal leader’s rules. Each tribe could have totally different aspect of rules, which their people needed to follow. Since there were no actual rulers in the area, the land of Morocco was frequently invaded by many groups of empires and invaders during those times. Phoenicians were the first invaders of Morocco back to around the 12^th century BC. The Phoenicians started trading colonies and established settlements in the early Classical period. Mogador was one of the main settlements of the Phoenicians; it was a colony as early as the early 6^th century BC. Since the Phoenicians mainly did trading, they claimed a great amount of land on the coastline of Morocco.

Soon after, the Carthaginians took over around the 2^nd century BC and Morocco became a part of a North African empire headquarter in Carthage but later on became the target of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire captured and converted the Carthaginians’ strongholds in the area and rules Morocco until the empire fell apart. During the time period under the Roman Empire’s control, Christianity was introduced to the people and it gained converts in the Roman towns, among slaves and some Berber farmers. The falling of the Roman Empire allowed many more nations to invade the land. The first invader after the fall of the Empire was the Vandal and later by the Byzantium. The Arab invasion brought the end to the Byzantium era and it allowed the Arab to move into the area and take over the land. The first Arab rulers were the Idrisid dynasty; they ruled Morocco for over 150 years. During this time period, many of the Berbers converted to Islam and the first independent Muslim state in the area was established as the Kingdom of Nekor.

         The majority of the Moroccan culture nowadays comes from the time after the conflict between the Arabs and the Jews fighting over the control of the country. The war led the country into an unstable status however; a man by the name of Ahmed I al-Man-Sur brought the stability back to the country during his rule under the Sharifian dynasty. He established and unified the country between 1579 and 1603. Moors and Jews were expelled from the country and the Spanish began to settle in the area during this the same time period. Each nation brought many cultures such as art, food, etc. to Morocco, making Morocco became really diverse and filled with many cultures until its present day.

http://www.morocco.com/culture/ancient-morocco/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morocco#Prehistory_and_antiquity

http://www.maroc-insight.com/history.htm