The Health of Africans

This chapter starts with a brief discussion of the demographic impact of the various colonial policies in Africa, which are said to have caused or were associated with the recurrence of famine and hunger and infertility, as well as the resulting depopulation in almost every colony, and the rapid spread of disease. Studies of the colonial period show that concern about higher infertility among colonized Africans was more pronounced among the concessionaire companies’ work areas, particularly in French Equatorial Africa, Chad, Oubangui-Shari (Central African Republic), Congo, and Gabon, and in such East African territories as Uganda (Retel-Laurentin 1974; Romaniuk 1967). The concern for infertility forced the French colonial regime, which suspected that the condition was a result of the ravages of sleeping sickness, to initiate major campaigns against epidemics during the 1920s. In fact, Denis Cordell, writing on infertility in Equatorial Africa, noted that: “At the end of the nineteenth century, Oubangui-Shari was characterized by high and increasing mortality, by what was probably the manifestation of low fertility and some sterility, and by new patterns of more intensified migration. Morbidity and the health environment in general, probably suffered rapid deterioration, particularly with the introduction of new diseases and the epidemic outbreak of old ones. ” All this was certainly exacerbated by new epidemics, slavery, and colonialism, causing the higher devastation during the first 10 years of 1900. Cordell et al. put it in no unclear terms

Colonialism · Environmental health · Ethnology · Famine · Fertility · Geography · German · Infertility · Outbreak · Population · Portuguese · Pregnancy · Socioeconomics · Sociology · African history and culture studies · Demography · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Medicine

• The lake regions of Central Africa

  Open Access•Richard F Burton•1860

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• France and Britain in Africa

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• The Specter of Genocide

  Open Access•Eric Weitz, Omer Bartov et al.•Specter of Genocide•2003

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• Education in the Italian colonies during the interwar period

  Open Access•Matteo Pretelli•Modern Italy•2011

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• Parish Registers

  Open Access•Harri Siiskonen, Anssi Taskinen et al.•History in Africa•2005

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• France and Britain in Africa

  Graham W Irwin, Prosser Gifford et al.•The American Historical Review•1975

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• Italian Colonial Policy in Northern Africa

  Carlo Schanzer•Foreign Affairs•1924

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• Historical Dictionary of Chad

  Humphrey J Fisher•African Affairs•1979

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• Historical Dictionary of Mozambique

  Anna Maria Gentili, Mario Azevedo et al.•The International Journal of…•1993

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• Historical Dictionary of Chad

  Knut S Vikør, Samuel Decalo•The International Journal of…•1988

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• East African Doctors

  David Gordon, John Iliffe et al.•The International Journal of…•1998

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• Famine Analysis and Family Relations

  Megan Vaughan•Past & Present•1985

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