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Africa

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Teaching

Short Teaching Module: Borderland Migration and Communities in Twentieth-Century West Africa

Cross-border mobility has created borderland cultures and led to the development of vibrant communities that in some cases have stretched across several states.

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Source

Map and Population Table for British Gambia, 1915-1918

Many people in West Africa fled across colonial boundaries to avoid military conscription in the late 19th and early 20th century. For example, during World War I, tens of thousands of people left the French colony of Senegal for neighboring British Gambia and Portuguese Guinea-Bissau.

Ship Plan of a Late-19th Century Steamship
Teaching

Short Teaching Module: Connecting the French Empire

For a long time, historians tended to study colonial empires of the 19th and 20th centuries one colony at a time, or through the relationship of one colony to its metropole.

Image of the Mahabodhi Temple: a stepped pyramid with round dome-shaped structure (stupa) on top
Methods

Analyzing Travel Records

In a way, all historical thinking and all historical writing deal with travel accounts.

Photograph of a group of men posing. Description in annotation.
Source

Photograph of "Principal Chiefs" from West Africa

The following is an image that appears in the on page 296 in the book Britain Across The Seas: Africa; A History And Description Of The British Empire In Africa published in 1910 and written by Harry Johnson. This particular photograph was taken by Capt. T.C. Hincks.

Ship Plan of a Late-19th Century Steamship
Source

Ship Plan of a Late-19th Century Steamship

This ship plan from the late-19th century offers a partial view of spatial arrangements within a Messageries steamship.

Shipping Company Route Map from 1889
Source

Shipping Company Route Map from 1889

This route-map of the Messageries Maritimes shipping company displays the main routes connecting metropolitan France to its empire in the Indo-Pacific. While the map dates to 1889, these routes retained their basic structure through the 1950s.

A image of a kasai velvet textile, woven in a diamond pattern in cream and black
Source

Kasai Velvet, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Despite its name, Kasai velvet, or velours du kasai, is not actually a velvet.

Thumbnail of a propaganda poster that features a black man dressed in robes holding up a gun against a backdrop of flames
Source

“Drive the old and new colonialists out of Africa!” Propaganda Poster, 1964

This Chinese propaganda poster, dated August 1964, was designed by Chinese painters Wang Datong and Du Yongqiao and published by the People’s Fine Arts Publishing House in Beijing.

1844 Business contract between Richard P. Waters and his Omani-Zanzibari trading partner, Esau bin Abdul Rahman
Source

Business contract between Richard P. Waters and his Omani-Zanzibari trading partner, Esau bin Abdul Rahman

This contract represents how business was typically transacted in Zanzibar and throughout the Omani Empire.