Choroby jako czynnik ekspansji europejskiej w Afryce Południowej w XVIII w.
Diseases as a factor of European colonial expansion in 18th-century South Africa

Author(s): Michał Leśniewski
Subject(s): Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology, 19th Century
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Africa; South Africa; contagious diseases; malaria; smallpox; trypanosomiasis; African horse sickness; colonialism; European settlement
Summary/Abstract: The goal of this paper is to offer a presentation of the role of contagious diseases as a factor supporting or blocking European overseas expansion, using the example of the Cape Colony up to the end of the eighteenth century. South Africa is a useful example, as it shows both the role of diseases brought by Europeans in facilitating their expansion in the region and the significance of the lack of African diseases such as malaria or trypanosomiasis for the development of European settlement there. In this way, the paper also shows the role of those diseases in hindering European penetration of other parts of Africa.

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