African Kingdoms Research Paper

Compare and Contrast African Kingdoms and The Industrial Revolution

The African Kingdoms of the Lozi and Zulu, people had rich and historic backgrounds, quite similar to the Industrial Revolution. These African Kingdoms, and the Industrial Revolution all had a well structured, civilization, and a similar outline, but eventually, had different outcomes. For example, all three civilizations shared the traits of having social classes, a centered religion, a written language, and a fairly stable economy, but lack similarities when it comes to monumental architecture, and the development of cities. These civilizations were able to be successful, due to their structure to uphold their society, in many different ways.

Sharing the same economic structure, the African tribes and the time period of the Industrial Revolution are all centered around capitalism. Due to the government not being in control of trade within its state or kingdom, a capitalist economy is formed. Therefore, natural resources can be used to create different goods and uphold specializations. Such as having an abundance of cotton later resulting in the textile mill. Both African kingdoms also perform similar situations. Zulu’s workers trade beadwork and complex sculptures and Lozi’s exchange grain, fish, and iron work.

Capitalism allows for free trade and the creation of social classes due to the success or inferiority of one's enterprise.

With this being exemplified by the African Kingdoms and the Industrial Revolution, their social classes are similar. As in history social classes are divided into rich and poor. As the Industrial Revolution was divided into a high class, middle class, and lower class. This also happened to the African Kingdoms such as Lozi was divided into royal, commoners, and slaves. Kingdom Zulu, social classes were divided into chiefs and slaves. As shown the similarities to one another, that led to their

civilization.
The African Tribes were able to trade of their goods, was due to their economy having enough food for the people to do other jobs. As for the Zulu Kingdom there was a lack in the amount of food as it was not as much “extra” food, to lead to specialization.
As these civilizations were able to create a specialization for their community, these African Kingdoms and Industrial Revolution was able to do other things, such as learning. Education for the Zulu Kingdom was not strong for their people to get right away. As the civilization grew, they began to have a efficient education.
The civilization were also to develop a religion as specialization occurred. As these African Kingdoms, and the Industrial Revolution differ, but was similar. Zulu and Europeans during the time of the Industrial Revolution had belief in a God. The god for the Europeans was the christianity that has been around for centuries. As for the God in the Zulu Kingdom, who is known as Nkulunkulu. Nkulunkulu is thought to be above interacting in day-to-day human affairs. As for the Lozi they believed in a mark of aristocracy. The Lozi people would grow their fingernails in order to show that they did not do manual labor and were free citizens.
The development of cities contrasts when evaluating the African kingdoms and the Industrial Revolution. In the division of the Lozi people, cities are constructed around the Zambezi river. The high and low tide seasons of this river dictate the food cycle of the Lozi kingdom. Thus, when river levels get high, the citizens move to higher ground for safety in turn, developing cities there. Zulu’s cities are mainly established by which areas have plentiful resources up for trade. During the Industrial Revolution, the abundance of farmers ended up kicking people off their land which caused them to go specialize. This urbanization lead to the modernization and development of populous cities. The differences in location also affect which natural resources a given area has. This plays a part on dictating what monumental architecture can be created. Because of its bounty of iron and carbon, Great Britain created a lot of steel artifacts and some of the first steel bridges. Being surrounded with wild life, Lozi people built a lot of monumental objects out of ivory. The Zulu created their housing architecture out of mainly mud and straw, goods that were ubiquitous to them.

The Industrial Revolution was able to occur due to the large amount of food, that had occurred because of an Agricultural Revolution that led to specialization. Thus leading to the growth in the technological and economical fields benefiting the features of the capitalistic economy. Due to the similarities between the African Kingdoms and the Industrial Revolution, many foundational traits were shared such as - social classes and economic structure. Although opposing traits were discovered when looking at the development of cities, monumental artifacts, and religion. These cultures differ in many ways, but were all able to run semi successfully.