Forgotten Africa

Abram Petrovich Hannibal Gannibal A. P. (1696–1781)
Sold into Turkish slavery, Abram Petrovich Hannibal was brought as a Black servant to Czar Peter I, known as Peter the Great. He became one of the royal favorites, a general-in-chief, and one of the best-educated men in Russia in his era. His great-grandson was Alexander Pushkin, the famous Russian writer who later glorified the deeds of his black ancestor in his book, The Negro of Peter the Great.

Hannibal was born on an unknown date around 1696 in the principality of Logon in present-day Cameroon. 🇨🇲 Abducted by a rival ethnic group, Hannibal was sold to Turkish slave traders who brought him to Constantinople in 1703. As an eight-year-old boy he was brought to the court of Peter the Great who adopted him immediately. Being the Czar's godson, Hannibal assumed his name, Petrovich, and became his valet on Peter's various military campaigns and journeys. When the Czar visited France in 1716, Hannibal was left behind in Paris to study engineering and mathematics at a military school. Two years later, he joined the French army and fought in the war against Spain. In January 1723, Hannibal finally returned to Russia.

To Hannibal's misery, his protector, Peter the Great, died in 1725, leaving the young black artillery lieutenant dependent upon the royal advisor Prince Menshikov, who, due to his dislike of Hannibal, assigned him first to Siberia and later to the Chinese border where his task was to measure the Great Wall.

Hannibal’s fortunes changed in 1741 when Empress Elisabeth took the throne and Hannibal was allowed to officially return from his exile although in fact, he had done so clandestinely in 1731. Five years after his illegal return, he married his second wife Christina Regina von Schöberg, the daughter of a Swedish army captain, who bore him eleven children. One of his sons, Osip, was the grandfather of the poet Alexander Pushkin.
Although it had been Hannibal's wish to retire, Empress Elisabeth did not want to abandon him or his engineering skills. He was made military commander of the city of Reval, serving between 1743 and 1751 and by 1760 had been promoted to the rank of a full general. During his military career, he oversaw various projects including part of the expansion of the 73 miles Ladoga Canal near St. Petersburg which linked the Neva and Svir Rivers and Russian fortresses throughout the empire. Abram Petrovich Hannibal died on April 20, 1781, as one of the leading military figures in his country and probably the first outstanding engineer in Russian history.

Sources:
Hugh Barnes, Gannibal: The Moor of Petersburg (London: Profile Books, 2005); Allison Blakely, Russia and the Negro: Blacks in Russian History and Thought (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1986); N. K. Teletova, “A.P. Gannibal: On the Occasion of the Three Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of Alexander Pushkin's Great-Grandfather,” Under the Sky of My Africa: Alexander Pushkin and Blackness, Ed. Catharine Theimer Nepomnyashchy, Nicole Svobodny, and Ludmilla A. Trigos (Evanston, Northwestern University Press, 2006).

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BERLIN CONFERENCE 1884

The Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, also known as the Congo Conference regulated European colonisation and trade in Africa during the New Imperialism period and coincided with Germany's sudden emergence as an imperial power. The Portuguese government presented a project, known as the "Pink Map", or the "Rose-Coloured Map", in which the colonies of Angola and Mozambique were united by co-option of the intervening territory (the land later became Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Malawi). All of the countries attending the conference, except for Britain, endorsed Portugal's ambitions, and just over five years later, in 1890, the British government issued an ultimatum that demanded for the Portuguese to withdraw from the disputed area.

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Mau Mau rebellion

Mau mau which means to intimidate (someone, such as an official) through hostile confrontation or threats usually for social or political gain. This was a movement in Kenya that fought the British in the 1950s. Dominated by the Kikuyu people, Meru people and Embu people, the mau mau movement also called KLFA also comprised units of Kamba and Maasai peoplesfought against the white European colonist-settlers in Kenya, the British Army, and the local Kenya Regiment (British colonists, local auxiliary militia, and pro-British Kikuyu people).

The capture of rebel leader Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi on 21 October 1956 signalled the defeat of the Mau Mau, and essentially ended the British military campaign. However, the rebellion survived until after Kenya's independence from Britain, driven mainly by the Meru units led by Field Marshal Musa Mwariama and General Baimungi. Baimuingi, one of the last Mau Mau generals, was killed shortly after Kenya attained self-rule.

The KLFA failed to capture widespread public support. Frank Füredi, in The Mau Mau War in Perspective, suggests this was due to a British policy of divide and rule. The Mau Mau movement remained internally divided, despite attempts to unify the factions. The British, meanwhile, applied the strategy and tactics they developed in suppressing the Malayan Emergency (1948–60). The Mau Mau Uprising created a rift between the European colonial community in Kenya and the metropole, and also resulted in violent divisions within the Kikuyu community. "Much of the struggle tore through the African communities themselves, an internecine war waged between rebels and so-called 'loyalists' – Africans who took the side of the government and opposed Mau Mau. "Suppressing the Mau Mau Uprising in the Kenyan colony cost Britain £55 million and caused at least 11,000 deaths among the Mau Mau and other forces, with some estimates considerably higher. This included 1,090 executions at the end of the war, the largest wartime use of capital punishment by the British Empire.

List of leaders who have put up stern resistance against the French and the British rule in the Senegambia Region

1. Alboury Sainabu Njay 1847-1901
2. Lat Dior Ngone Latir Diop 1842-1886
3. Mamadou Lamine Drammeh 1834-1887
4. Amadou Cheikhou Bah 1830-1875
5. Lamin Senghor 1889-1927
6. Aline Sintoue Diatta 1920-1946
7. Foday Kabba Doumbia 1818-1901
8. Maba Diakhou Bah 1809-1867
9. Al hadj Omar Saidou Tall 1794-1864
10. Abdou Kader Kane 1726-1807
11. Foday Kombo sillah

The concessions that gave Cecil Rhodes exclusive right to own, control and plunder the southern part of the African Continent were "Lobengula Concession and Rudd Concession in 1888. The Concessions were signed in Bulawayo in Matabeleland. This historic event would later result to destruction environment, a whole culture, social values and myriads of lives in what we today called Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and South Africa.

A brutal way enslaved people in the plantation were punished.

Free Mumia Abu Jamal.