Summery on Reading

Reading Summery

South Africa’s ancient history and later European settlement greatly influenced the region’s culture. One of the Bantu groups in the early history of South Africa called the Shona build an empire that was located in what is now most of Zimbabwe and Mozambique. The Shona farmed, raised sheep and cows, and traded gold with different groups on the coast. When Great Zimbabwe was found in the late 1000s, it was a small trading and herding centre. Later, the population grew and farming and gold mining became more significant. With all those resources, it became the centre of a large trading network. In the 1400s the Portuguese explored parts of Africa on their way to trading with India. Other European’s arrived in later times. Dutch, French, and Germen settlers and their descendants in South Africa were called Afrikaners. Over time, a new language called Afrikaans evolved in Cape Colony. In the 1800s, Great Britain took over the area of the Cape. People called Boers, or Afrikaner farmers who spread out across the area of the Cape colony, resisted the British. People in Africa have hundreds of different tribes and ethnic groups, some of them really large, others extremely small. Because of the great variety of different groups, South Africans speak many other languages. In addition to the many languages, Africans also brought many religions.