CBSE · Class 10 · Social Science · History: The Making of a Global WorldWhat was Rinderpest and how did it affect people's livelihoods in Africa in the 1890s?

Rinderpest, also known as the cattle plague, was a devastating infectious viral disease of cattle that arrived in Africa in the late 1880s. By the 1890s, it spread rapidly across the continent, killing nearly 90 percent of Africa's livestock. This loss of cattle destroyed the traditional livelihood of Africans, who depended heavily on animal husbandry, forcing them into the labor market to work for European colonizers on plantations and in mines.