... which required labor to pick handle and distribute cotton, this was also the case in the U.S., and a popular task amongst slaves in the U.S. was working in cotton plantations. In colonies where there were large deposits of minerals, colonial governments encouraged the exploitation of minerals. (Exploringafrica.matrix.msu.edu). Blood diamonds or the much less evocative term, conflict diamonds; come from Angola, Sierra ... Leone, Cote d'Ivoire, Liberia, or The Congo. They are mined and sold by rebel armies (such as the Revolutionary United Front) largely to finance the purchase of arms, a...

• Word Count: 3051
• Approx Pages: 12
• Has Bibliography

... still part of the fading Mogul empire, which a century earlier had brought Muslim administrators and conquerors. Just to protect its ability to do business in a land already riddled with fierce animosities, the company found itself forced to defend trading posts with hired soldiers. Before long, the posts became cities ... de facto ruler of British India from 1772-85, he rode eight miles each day before breakfast, drank nothing stronger than tea, took cold baths and turned in at 10 every night. Under the Governor General's highly principled eye, extra-curricular profits were quickly cut ...

• Word Count: 5127
• Approx Pages: 21
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... horrors of battle surface in The Widow's Party: ...For half my company's laying still Where the Widow give the party. ...We broke a King and we built a road-- A courthouse stands where the regiment goad. And the river's clean where the raw blood flowed When the Widow ... . Kipling moves from admiration to compassion as well, in a scene that could have come from our own Civil War: I've heard him crying from the ground Like Abel's blood of old, An' skirmished out to look, an' found, The beggar nearly cold. I've waited on 'till 'e was dead (Which ... couldn't help him much), But many grate...

• Word Count: 4292
• Approx Pages: 17
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School