Course Description
Social, political, and economic changes in southern African societies (South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Botswana, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique) as they assimilated non-African peoples, their ideas, and material culture. Independent, viable and adaptable, Africans engaged Portuguese, British, Boers, and Germans as they competed for land, cattle, and trade.
Athena Title
Southern Africa 1600-1902
Prerequisite
Any HIST course or ENGL 1101 or ENGL 1101E or ENGL 1101S or ENGL 1102 or ENGL 1102E or ENGL 1102S or POLS 1101 or POLS 1101E or POLS 1101H or POLS 1101S
Semester Course Offered
Offered every year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student Learning Outcomes
- By the end of this course, students will be able to arrive at conclusions about the history of Southern Africa by gathering and weighing evidence, logical argument, and listening to counter argument.
- By the end of this course, students will be able to write stylistically appropriate papers and essays. Students will be able to analyze ideas and evidence, organize their thoughts, and revise and edit their finished essays.
- By the end of this course, students will be able to identify how the history of early modern Southern Africa has shaped diverse social and cultural attitudes toward race, colonialism, and resistance, encouraging them to understand diverse worldviews and experiences.
- By the end of this course, students will be able to apply appropriate methodological approaches to their analysis of primary sources and to organize their evidence to show historical continuities and discontinuities.
Topical Outline
- Week One: Introduction to the course and African History
- Week Two: Introduction to South African History
- Week Three: The European Conquest of the Cape of South Africa
- Week Four: Anthropology, Race and Africa in the European Imagination
- Week Five: Settlers Meet African Resistance - Khoi and Xhosa Wars
- Week Six: The Colonial State, Settlers, and the Dispossessed
- Week Seven: The Mfecane - African Turmoil in the Transvaal
- Week Eight: Shaka and Zulu Nationalism
- Week Nine: The Great Trek - the Boers Flee British Authority
- Week Ten: Slavery in Nineteenth-Century South Africa
- Week Eleven: Gold and Diamonds Discovered in the Transvaal
- Week Twelve: Imperialism and Resistance
- Week Thirteen: The Zulus' Last Stand and the Battle of Isandlwana
- Week Fourteen: Cecil Rhodes and British Imperialism
- Week Fifteen: The Boer War and The Scramble for Africa
