От Chestnut
К Игорь Куртуков
Дата 19.01.2006 01:36:11
Рубрики 11-19 век; Локальные конфликты; Политек;

Из Британники

>>Встретил странную фразу: "после захвата (1851!) датских и голландских колоний, Англия продолжила экспансию за западном берегу Африки против Ашанти".
>
>На золотом берегу (ныне Гана) были колонии-форты самых разных европейских стран - Швеции, Португалии, Голландии, Дании, Англии вроде бы даже Пруссии. Постепенно остались только Датские и Голландские. Англия их не захватила, а выкупила - датские в 1850, голландские в 1871.

>Выкупила, как яполагаю, с целью консолидации своих владений в западной Африке.

A revolution in Ghanaian history was initiated by the establishment of direct sea trade with Europe following the arrival on the coast of Portuguese mariners in 1471. Initially Europe's main interest in the country was as a source of gold, a commodity that was readily available at the coast in exchange for such European exports as cloth, hardware, beads, metals, spirits, arms, and ammunition. This gave rise to the name Gold Coast, by which the country was known until 1957. In an attempt to preserve a monopoly of the trade, the Portuguese initiated the practice of erecting stone fortresses (Elmina Castle dating from 1482 was the first) on the coast on sites leased from the native states. In the 17th century the Portuguese monopoly, already considerably eroded, gave way completely when traders from the Netherlands, England, Denmark, Sweden, and Prussia—Protestant seapowers antagonistic to Iberian imperial pretensions—discovered that the commercial relations developed with the Gold Coast states could be adapted to the export of slaves, then in rapidly increasing demand for the American plantations, as well as of gold. By the mid-18th century the coastal scene was dominated by the presence of about 40 forts controlled by Dutch, British, or Danish merchants.
The presence of these permanent European bases on the coast had far-reaching consequences. The new centres of trade thus established were much more accessible than were the Sudanese emporia, and this, coupled with the greater capacity and efficiency of the sea-borne trade compared with the ancient overland routes, gradually brought about the reversal of the direction of the trade flow. The new wealth, tools and arms, techniques and ideas introduced through close contact with Europeans initiated political and social as well as economic changes. The states north of the forest, hitherto the wealthiest and most powerful, declined in the face of new combinations farther south. At the end of the 17th century the Akan state of Akwamu created an empire that, stretching from the central Gold Coast eastward to Dahomey, sought to control the trade roads to the coast of the whole eastern Gold Coast. The Akwamu empire was short-lived, but its example soon stimulated a union of the Asante states of the central forest, which union, after establishing its dominance over other neighbouring Akan states, expanded north of the forest to conquer Bono, Banda, Gonja, and Dagomba.
Having thus engrossed almost the whole of the area that served as a market and source of supply for the coastal trade, Asante turned toward the coastlands. There traditional ways of life were being increasingly modified by contact with Europeans and their trade, and when, beginning in the latter part of the 18th century, Asante armies began to invade the coastal states, their peoples tended to look for leadership and protection to the European traders in the forts. But between 1804 and 1814 the Danes, English, and Dutch had each in turn outlawed their slave trades, and the gold trade was declining. The political uncertainty following the Asante invasions impeded the development of new trades, and in these circumstances the mutually suspicious European interests were not always keen to embark on new political responsibilities. However, during 1830–44, under the outstanding leadership of George Maclean, the British merchants began to assume an informal protectorate over the Fanti states, much to the commercial benefit of both parties. As a result of this the British Colonial Office finally agreed to take over the British forts, and in 1850 it was able to buy out the Danes. However, trade declined under the new regime, which was averse to assuming formal control over the territory influenced from the forts, and in the 1860s, as a result of this influence and of the growth, from the 1820s onward, of Christian missionary education, the Fanti states attempted to organize a European-style confederacy. Further Asante incursions and the final evacuation of the coast by the Dutch (1872) combined to reverse this British policy, and in 1874 a punitive expedition sacked Kumasi, the Asante capital, and the Gold Coast was declared a British colony.

In hoc signo vinces
От Аркан
К Chestnut (19.01.2006 01:36:11)
Дата 19.01.2006 14:51:00

Кстати, судя по этому тексту, никто эти колонии в Наполеонку особо не захватывал (-)
От Администрация (wolfschanze)
К Chestnut (19.01.2006 01:36:11)
Дата 19.01.2006 01:56:35

Модераториал

--Нарушение правила 3.15 форума "3.15 При помещении на форум постингов на иностранных языках, рекомендуется давать перевод либо краткую аннотацию содержимого на русском языке".
Замечание.

Широко распростирает химия руки свои в дела человеческие