Annotation # 9. Assignment # 14

          Ehert, Christopher. The Civilizations of Africa. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. 2002. 459-460. Print.

         This book is mainly a history book. It goes as far back as 16,000 BCE and ends in the eighteenth century. I looked at the end of the book and found information on the eighteenth century. I wanted to use this book to become more knowledgeable in the African slave trade. "Far across the continent, from the eastern Sudan and interior East Africa, growing numbers of Africans continued to be exported as slaves to the Middle East until the close of the nineteenth century. The nineteenth century is roughly 300 years ago. If you think about that, that isn't to long ago. We just started the twenty first century.  I was considering using this book in my argument of how Africa is still in the process of becoming developed. They haven't had as many years to organize their continent the way America has. America has also used slaves from Africa to help develop our continent to the way that it is today. We did not use our own people to work the land, or put them in  dangerous factories. Granted at one point in time we did but to start off with we used slaves while the white men just sat around calculating the numbers or at least in my mind that's what I image them to be doing most of the time. The white men would watch over the slaves and make sure they worked and beat the slaves if they weren't working sufficiently.
         "By the close of the eighteenth century, a quickening of commerce and a deepening of the ties of Africans to an emerging world economy had begun to be felt almost everywhere in Africa. The trade in human cargoes from the western coasts of the continent continued to at a high rate for another fifty years, but gradually and slowly the struggle against this trade gained the upper hand." The export of the African people being used as a thing or resource to benefit other countries greatly disturbed Africa. Other countries not only took the people but also took natural resources which has cause several set backs in the growth and development of  Africa.
       I believe this source to be reliable and credible. It is a history book so it is not based on opinion and thoughts by this author. The author is Christopher Ehert and the book includes several illustrators along with an illustration credit in the back of the book. This book also has an index which helped me determine whether or not I wanted to use this as a source.