Page 65 - Sst Class - IX

• Some became peasants by cultivating land, others indulged in trading.

• Poor pastoralists borrowed money from moneylenders to survive.
• They still continued to survive and in many regions, their numbers have expanded.

• In many other parts of the world, new laws and settlement patterns forced pastoral communities to
alter their lives.
• In Africa, even today, over 22 million Africans depend on some form of pastoral activity for their
livelihood. Like pastoralists in India, the lives of African pastoralists have changed dramatically over
the colonial and post-colonial periods.

• Before colonial times, Maasailand stretched over a vast area from north Kenya to the steppes of
northern Tanzania.
• In 1885, it was cut into half with an international boundary between British Kenya and German
Tanganyika.

• After the cut, the best grazing lands were gradually taken over for white settlement and the Maasai
were pushed into a small area in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania.
• From the late nineteenth century, the British colonial government in East Africa encouraged local
peasant communities to expand cultivation.

• In pre-colonial times, the Maasai pastoralists had dominated their agricultural neighbours both
economically and politically.
• The loss of the finest grazing lands and water resources created pressure on the small area of land
that the Maasai were confined within.

• In the nineteenth century, African pastoralists could move over vast areas in search of pastures.
• From the late nineteenth century, the colonial government began imposing various restrictions on
their mobility.

• The new territorial boundaries and restrictions imposed on them suddenly changed the lives of
pastoralists, which adversely affected both their pastoral and trading activities.
• Pastoral communities in different parts of the world are affected in different ways.

EXERCISE
EXERCISE

Choose the correct option

1. Pastoralists primarily depend on which of the following activities for their livelihood?
a. Agriculture b. Fishing c. Animal husbandry d. Industrial work

2. Pastoralists are known for their seasonal movement in search of _______________.
a. gold and precious metals b. fertile land for cultivation

c. water and fresh pastures d. valuable artifacts
3. The process of settling down and adopting a sedentary lifestyle is known as _______________.

a. industrialisation b. globalisation c. urbanisation d. civilisation

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