1890s African rinderpest epizootic

In the 1890s, an epizootic of the rinderpest virus struck all across Africa, but primarily in Eastern and Southern Africa. It was considered to be "the most devastating epidemic to hit southern Africa in the late nineteenth century."^[1] It killed more than 5.2 million cattle south of the Zambezi,^[2] as well as domestic oxen, sheep, and goats, and wild populations of buffalo, giraffe, and wildebeest. The effects of the outbreak were drastic, leading to massive famine, economic collapse, and disease outbreak in humans. Starvation spread across the region, resulting in the death of an estimated third of the human population of Ethiopia and two-thirds of the Maasai people of Tanzania.^[3]

The famine and the massive decrease in cattle population led to a change in the landscape from grass to thornbush.^[4] This formed the ideal habitat for tsetse fly and allowed them to expand from central and western Africa to the rest of the continent. Tsetse fly carry the parasite that causes the deadly African sleeping sickness. This disease, which affects both humans and animals, further exacerbated the economic and social effects of rinderpest on Africans.^[4] The Rinderpest epizootic facilitated further colonial conquest by creating famine, economic dislocation, and landscape transformations.^[5]