Africa, Plundered

choi

Howard F French, Diamonds in the Rough. Africa has never been a poor place. For ages it has been the source of fabulous wealth for others, yet seldom for its own people. Wall Street Journal, Dec 4, 2014
www.wsj.com/articles/book-review ... meredith-1417562898
(book review on Martin Meredith, The Fortunes of Africa; A 5000-year history of wealth, greed, and endeavor. PublicAffairs, 2014)

Quote:

Note:
(a) diamond in the rough (n)
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/diamond%20in%20the%20rough

(b) "Around the year 150 BC * * * Marcus Porcius Cato displayed a fresh fig before his Senate colleagues, which he said had been picked in Carthage just three days before. The point was to demonstrate * * * that the subjugation of their longtime rival would at last clear the way for Rome’s appropriation of it. Within 200 years, through conquest and colonization, North Africa, including Egypt, was supplying as much as 300,000 tons of corn per year to feed the Roman Empire. Figs were thrown in as a bonus."
(i) I do not believe it. Corn was domesticated in Mexico, brought to the Old World after Columbus' discovery. It should be “grains.”
(ii) Carthage
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthage
(The name is "derived from the Phoenician Qart-ḥadašt meaning 'New City,' implying it was a 'new Tyre' [a city in Lebanon, pronounced the same as tire])
(A) "According to tradition, Carthage was founded by the Phoenicians of Tyre in 814" BC.  Encyclopaedia Britannica
(B) It was destroyed in Third Punic War
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Punic_War
(149–146 BC; senator Cato the Elder [234 – 149 BC] usually finished his speeches on any subject in the Senate with the phrase ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam, which means "Furthermore, it is my opinion that Carthage must be destroyed")

(c) "one finds another budding empire, that of late-15th century Portugal, trading slaves taken from West Africa’s Benin coast and selling them in exchange for gold at a place called El Mina (the Mine) in present-day Ghana. Within little more than two decades, the gold production there accounted for a very substantial portion of the world supply and helped finance Portugal’s subsequent conquests in Asia."
(i) Benin
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benin
(section 1 Etymology)

was Slave Coast.
(ii) Ghana
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghana
(Ghana has been a significant petroleum and natural gas producer since December 2010, and one of the world's largest gold and diamond producers, and is projected to be the largest producer of cocoa in the world as of 2015)

Search "gold" in its history.
(iii) Ghana is to the west of Benin, with Togo (nation) in between.
(iv) Portuguese English dictionary
mina (noun feminine): "mine (place from which ore is extracted)"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mina

choi

(d) "Table Bay, near the Cape of Good Hope, became a favored port of call, especially for English and Dutch ships. A small community of European settlers began to form there, and as their numbers grew, tensions rose with the native population of Khoikhoi. It culminated in a battle in 1659 * * * what followed serves up a rejoinder of sorts. A little more than 100 years later, the Cape Colony had gone from a settlement that measured 6 miles by 2 miles to cover an area of 110,000 square miles."
(i) Table Bay
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_Bay
("overlooked by Cape Town * * * and is at the northern end of the Cape Peninsula;" was named because it is dominated by the flat-topped Table Mountain [vew the second photo on the right])

Click "Cape Peninsula," In the map of the new Web page, check out "Cape of Good Hope," "Cape Town," and "Table Bay"--moving from the tip northerly /up.
(ii) Khoikhoi–Dutch War
sen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khoikhoi–Dutch_Wars

* Khoikhoi = "people people"  Wikipedia
(iii) Cape Colony
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Colony
(1652-1910)

(e) "Mr Meredith points out that in World War I, some 150,000 Africans served on the Western Front, where 30,000 were killed in action."

This is a lie. See Al Shaw, African Soldiers in World War One. Dec 28, 2007
alshaw.blogspot.com/2007/12/african-soldiers-in-world-war-one.html
("Black South Africans were not permitted to serve as front line troops in Europe")

That is why Chinese were recruited to cook in Europe in WWI. Some died there--due to flu, not battle.

See also military history of African Americans
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_African_Americans
(section 7 World War I: Most African American units were largely relegated to support roles and did not see combat)

(f) "History is told here mainly through the experiences of famous white people, like Belgium’s monstrous king, Leopold, who regarded Africa as a 'magnificent cake'”
(i) Leopold II of Belgium
en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Leopold_II_of_Belgium
(1835 – 1909; reign 1865-1909; quote: I do not want to miss a good chance of getting us a slice of this magnificent African cake)
(ii) The French (Léopold), German, and Dutch surname Leopold: "from a Germanic personal name, Luitpold, composed of the elements liut ‘people’ + bald ‘bold,’ ‘brave’. The form of the first element has been influenced by Leonard"