Write a note to explain the effects of the following:

The coming of rinderpest to Africa.

Rinderpest (a fast spreading disease of cattle plague) arrived in Africa in the late 1880s. It had a terrifying impact on people’s livelihoods and the local economy. It started in East Africa and soon spread to the other parts of the continent. In 1892, it reached Africa’s Atlantic coast, and within five years, it reached the Cape (Africa’s Southernmost tip). It spread through an infected cattle imported from British Asia to feed the Italian soldiers invading Eritrea in East Africa. Using this situation to their advantage, colonizing nations conquered and subdued Africa by monopolizing scarce cattle resources to force Africans into the labour market.

Effects of rinderpest on Africans:

(i) Rinderpest killed 90 per cent of the cattle and destroyed African livelihoods.

(ii) It strengthened colonial government’s power and Africans were forced into the labour market which earlier they were reluctant to do due to abundance of land and livestock.

(iii) European colonizers thus conquered and subdued Africa.