Write a short note to explain the effects of the following:
The coming of rinderpest to Africa.
The coming of rinderpest to Africa:
(i) Entering Africa in the East, rinderpest moved West ‘like a forest fire’, streached around Africa’s Atlantic coast in 1892. Cape (Africa’s southernmost tip) was also infested by that lethal disease just after five years. Along the way, rinderpest killed 90 per cent of the total cattle.
(iii) The loss of cattle made African unemployed and starving. Planters, mine owners and colonial governments now successfully monopolised what scarce cattle resources remained, to strenghten their power and to force Africans into labour market.
(iii)Control over the scarce resource of cattle enabled European colonisers to conquer and subdue Africa.
