Art History: African art and the effects of European contact and colonization

• Introduction of guns, Christianity, and European commodities to West Africa.
• African cultures never existed in isolation—there was always movement, trade, and the exchange of ideas.
• African art is dynamic and has changed in form, function, and meaning over time.
• During the slave trade and colonization, for example, some artists created work to come to terms with these horrific events—experiences that often stripped people of their cultural, religious and political identities.
• While slavery had long existed in Africa, the transatlantic slave trade constituted a mass movement of peoples over four and a half centuries to colonies in North and South America. Ten million people were taken to labor on cotton, rum, and sugar plantations in the new world.
• Territorial disputes, poverty, famine, corruption, and disease increased as a result of the brutality of the slave trade and European colonization.
• With the collapse of the Atlantic slave trade in the 19th century, European imperialism continued to focus on Africa as a source for raw materials and markets for the goods produced by industrialized nations.
• A continent defined by artificial borders with little concern for existing ethnic, linguistic, or geographic realities.
• The introduction of Christianity and the spread of Islam in the 19th and 20th century also transformed many African societies and many traditional art practices associated with indigenous religions declined.
• as imported manufactured goods entered local economies, hand-made objects like ceramic vessels and fiber baskets were replaced by factory-made containers. 
• Art plays a central role, particularly in oral societies, as a way to remember and heal.