Africa

Greeks founded the city of Cyrene (c. 631 B.C..) Cyrenaica became a

flourishing colony, though being hemmed in on all sides by absolute desert

it had little or no influence on inner Africa. The Greeks, however, exerted

a powerful influence in Egypt. To Alexander the Great the city of

Alexandria owes its foundation (332 B.C.), and under the Hellenistic

dynasty of the Ptolemies attempts were made to penetrate southward, and in

this way was obtained some knowledge of Abyssinia. Neither Cyrenaica nor

Egypt was a serious rival to the Carthaginians, but all three powers were

eventually supplanted by the Romans. After centuries of rivalry for

supremacy1 the struggle was ended by the fall of Carthage in 146 B.C.

Within little more than a century from that date Egypt and Cyrene had

become incorporated in the Roman empire. Under Rome the settled portions of

the country were very prosperous, and a Latin strain was introduced into

the land. Though Fezzan was occupied by them, the Romans elsewhere found

the Sahara an impassable barrier. Nubia and Abyssinia were reached, but an

expedition sent by the emperor Nero to discover the source of the Nile

ended in failure. The utmost extent of geographical knowledge of the

continent is shown in the writings of Ptolemy (2nd century A.D.), who knew

of or guessed the existence of the great lake reservoirs of the Nile and

had heard of the river Niger. Still Africa for the civilized world remained

simply the countries bordering the Mediterranean. The continual struggle

between Rome and the Berber tribes; the introduction of Christianity and

the glories and sufferings of the Egyptian and African Churches; the

invasion and conquest of the African provinces by the Vandals in the 5th

century; the passing of the supreme power in the following century to the

Byzantine empire—all these events are told fully elsewhere.

In the 7th century of the Christian era occurred an event destined to

have a permanent influence on the whole continent.

North Africa conquered by the Arabs.

Invading first Egypt, an Arab host, fanatical believers in the new faith

of Mahomet, conquered the whole country from the Red Sea to the Atlantic

and carried the Crescent into Spain. Throughout North Africa Christianity

well-nigh disappeared, save in Egypt (where the Coptic Church was suffered

to exist), and Upper Nubia and Abyssinia, which were not subdued by the

Moslems. In the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries the Arabs in Africa were

numerically weak; they held the countries they had conquered by the sword

only, but in the 11th century there was a great Arab immigration, resulting

in a large absorption of Berber blood. Even before this the Berbers had

very generally adopted the speech and religion of their conquerors. Arab

influence and the Mahommedan religion thus became indelibly stamped on

northern Africa. Together they spread southward across the Sahara. They

also became firmly established along the eastern sea-board, where Arabs,

Persians and Indians planted flourishing colonies, such as Mombasa, Malindi

and Sofala, playing a role, maritime and commercial, analogous to that

filled in earlier centuries by the Carthaginians on the northern sea-board.

Of these eastern cities and states both Europe and the Arabs of North

Africa were long ignorant.

The first Arab invaders had recognized the authority of the caliphs of

Bagdad, and the Aghlabite dynasty—founded by Aghlab, one of Haroun al

Raschid's generals, at the close of the 8th century—ruled as vassals of the

caliphate. However, early in the 10th century the Fatimite dynasty

established itself in Egypt, where Cairo had been founded A.D. 968, and

from there ruled as far west as the Atlantic. Later still arose other

dynasties

Appearance of the Turks.

such as the Almoravides and Almohades. Eventually the Turks, who had

conquered Constantinople in 1453, and had seized Egypt in 1517, established

the regencies of Algeria, Tunisia and Tripoli (between 1519 and 1551),

Morocco remaining an independent Arabized Berber state under the Sharifan

dynasty, which had its beginnings at the end of the 13th century. Under the

earlier dynasties Arabian or Moorish culture had attained a high degree of

excellence, while the spirit of adventure and the proselytizing zeal of the

followers of Islam led to a considerable extension of the knowledge of the

continent. This was rendered more easy by their use of the camel (first

introduced into Africa by the Persian conquerors of Egypt), which enabled

the Arabs to traverse the desert. In this way Senegambia and the middle

Niger regions fell under the influence of the Arabs and Berbers, but it was

not until 1591 that Timbuktu—a city founded in the 11th century—became

Moslem. That city had been reached in 1352 by the great Arab traveller Ibn

Batuta, to whose journey to Mombasa and Quiloa (Kilwa) was due the first

accurate knowledge of those flourishing Moslem cities on the east African

sea-boards. Except along this sea-board, which was colonized directly from

Asia, Arab progress southward was stopped by the broad belt of dense forest

which, stretching almost across the continent somewhat south of 10 deg. N.,

barred their advance as effectually as had the Sahara that of their

predecessors, and cut them off from knowledge of the Guinea coast and of

all Africa beyond. One of the regions which came latest under Arab control

was that of Nubia, where a Christian civilization and state existed up to

the 14th century.

For a time the Moslem conquests in South Europe had virtually made of the

Mediterranean an Arab lake, but the expulsion in the 11th century of the

Saracens from Sicily and southern Italy by the Normans was followed by

descents of the conquerors on Tunisia and Tripoli. Somewhat later a busy

trade with the African coast-lands, and especially with Egypt, was

developed by Venice, Pisa, Genoa and other cities of North Italy. By the

end of the 15th century Spain had completely thrown off the Moslem yoke,

but even while the Moors were still in Granada, Portugal was strong enough

to carry the war into Africa. In 1415 a Portuguese force captured the

citadel of Ceuta on the Moorish coast. From that time onward Portugal

repeatedly

Spain and Portugal invade the Barbary States.

interfered in the affairs of Morocco, while Spain acquired many ports in

Algeria and Tunisia. Portugal, however, suffered a crushing defeat in 1578

at al Kasr al Kebir, the Moors being led by Abd el Malek I. of the then

recently established Sharifan dynasty. By that time the Spaniards had lost

almost all their African possessions. The Barbary states, primarily from

the example of the Moors expelled from Spain, degenerated into mere

communities of pirates, and under Turkish influence civilization and

commerce declined. The story of these states from the beginning of the 16th

century to the third decade of the 19th century is largely made up of

piratical exploits on the one hand and of ineffectual reprisals on the

other. In Algiers, Tunis and other cities were thousands of Christian

slaves.

But with the battle of Ceuta Africa had ceased to belong solely to the

Mediterranean world. Among those who fought there was

Discovery of the Guinea coast—Rise of the slave trade.

one. Prince Henry ``the Navigator,'' son of King John I., who was fired

with the ambition to acquire for Portugal the unknown parts of Africa.

Under his inspiration and direction was begun that series of voyages of

exploration which resulted in the circumnavigation of Africa and the

establishment of Portuguese sovereignty over large areas of the coast-

lands. Cape Bojador was doubled in 1434, Cape Verde in 1445, and by 1480

the whole Guinea coast was known. In 1482 Diogo Cam or Cao discovered the

mouth of the Congo, the Cape of Good Hope was doubled by Bartholomew Diaz

in 1488, and in 1498 Vasco da Gama, after having rounded the Cape, sailed

up the east coast, touched at Sofala and Malindi, and went thence to India.

Over all the countries discovered by their navigators Portugal claimed

sovereign rights, but these were not exercised in the extreme south of the

continent. The Guinea coast, as the first discovered and the nearest to

Europe, was first exploited. Numerous forts and trading stations were

established, the earliest being Sao Jorge da Mina (Elmina), begun in 1482.

The chief commodities dealt in were slaves, gold, ivory and spices. The

discovery of America (1492) was followed by a great development of the

slave trade, which, before the Portuguese era, had been an overland trade

almost exclusively confined to Mahommedan Africa. The lucrative nature of

this trade and the large quantities of alluvial gold obtained by the

Portuguese drew other nations to the Guinea coast. English mariners went

thither as early as 1553, and they were followed by Spaniards, Dutch,

French, Danish and other adventurers. Much of Senegambia was made known as

a result of quests during the 16th century for the ``hills of gold'' in

Bambuk and the fabled wealth of Timbuktu, but the middle Niger was not

reached. The supremacy along the coast passed in the 17th century from

Portugal to Holland and from Holland in the 18th and 19th centuries to

France and England. The whole coast from Senegal to Lagos was dotted with

forts and ``factories'' of rival powers, and this international patchwork

persists though all the hinterland has become either French or British

territory.

Southward from the mouth of the Congo2 to the inhospitable region of

Damaraland, the Portuguese, from 1491 onward, acquired influence over the

Bantu-Negro inhabitants, and in the early part of the 16th century through

their efforts Christianity was largely adopted in the native kingtom of

Congo. An irruption of cannibals from the interior later in the same

century broke the power of this semi-Christian state, and Portuguese

activity was transferred to a great extent farther south, Sao Paulo de

Loanda being founded in 1576. The sovereignty of Portugal over this coast

region, except for the mouth of the Congo, has been once only challenged by

a European power, and that was in 1640-1648, when the Dutch held the

seaports.

Neglecting the comparatively poor and thinly inhabited regions of South

Africa, the Portuguese no sooner discovered than they coveted the

flourishing cities held by Arabized peoples between Sofala and Cape

Guardafui. By 1520 all these Moslem

The Portuguese in East Africa and Abyssinia.

sultanates had been seized by Portugal, Mozambique being chosen as the

chief city of her East African possessions. Nor was Portuguese activity

confined to the coast-lands. The lower and middle Zambezi valley was

explored (16th and 17th centuries), and here the Portuguese found semi-

civilized Bantu-Negro tribes, who had been for many years in contact with

the coast Arabs. Strenuous efforts were made to obtain possession of the

country (modern Rhodesia) known to them as the kingdom or empire of

Monomotapa, where gold had been worked by the natives from about the 12th

century A.D., and whence the Arabs, whom the Portuguese dispossessed, were

still obtaining supplies in the 16th century. Several expeditions were

despatched inland from 1569 onward and considerable quantities of gold were

obtained. Portugal's hold on the interior, never very effective, weakened

during the 17th century, and in the middle of the 18th century ceased with

the abandonment of the forts in the Manica district.

At the period of her greatest power Portugal exercised a strong influence

in Abyssinia also. In the ruler of Abyssinia (to whose dominions a

Portuguese traveller had penetrated before Vasco da Gama's memorable

voyage) the Portuguese imagined they had found the legendary Christian

king, Prester John, and when the complete overthrow of the native dynasty

and the Christian religion was imminent by the victories of Mahommedan

invaders, the exploits of a band of 400 Portuguese under Christopher da

Gama during 1541-1543 turned the scale in favour of Abyssinia and had thus

an enduring result on the future of North-East Africa. After da Gama's time

Portuguese Jesuits resorted to Abyssinia. While they failed in their

efforts to convert the Abyssinians to Roman Catholicism they acquired an

extensive knowledge of the country. Pedro Paez in 1615, and, ten years

later, Jeronimo Lobo, both visited the sources of the Blue Nile. In 1663

the Portuguese, who had outstayed their welcome, were expelled from the

Abyssinian dominions. At this time Portuguese influence on the Zanzibar

coast was waning before the power of the Arabs of Muscat, and by 1730 no

point on the east coast north of Cape Delgado was held by Portugal.

It has been seen that Portugal took no steps to acquire the southern part

of the continent. To the Portuguese the Cape of

English and Dutch at Table Bay—Cape Colony founded.

Good Hope was simply a landmark on the road to India, and mariners of other

nations who followed in their wake used Table Bay only as a convenient spot

wherein to refit on their voyage to the East. By the beginning of the 17th

century the bay was much resorted to for this purpose, chiefly by English

and Dutch vessels. In 1620, with the object of forestalling the Dutch, two

officers of the East India Company, on their own initiative, took

possession of Table Bay in the name of King James, fearing otherwise that

English ships would be ``frustrated of watering but by license.'' Their

action was not approved in London and the proclamation they issued remained

without effect. The Netherlands profited by the apathy of the English. On

the advice of sailors who had been shipwrecked in Table Bay the Netherlands

East India Company, in 1651, sent out a fleet of three small vessels under

Jan van Riebeek which reached Table Bay on the 6th of April 1652, when,

164 years after its discovery, the first permanent white settlement was

made in South Africa. The Portuguese, whose power in Africa was already

waning, were not in a position to interfere with the Dutch plans, and

England was content to seize the island of St Helena as her half-way house

to the East3. In its inception the settlement at the Cape was not intended

to become an African colony, but was regarded as the most westerly outpost

of the Dutch East Indies. Nevertheless, despite the paucity of ports and

the absence of navigable rivers, the Dutch colonists, freed from any

apprehension of European trouble by the friendship between Great Britain

and Holland, and leavened by Huguenot blood, gradually spread northward,

stamping their language, law and religion indelibly upon South Africa. This

process, however, was exceedingly slow.

During the 18th century there is little to record in the history of

Africa. The nations of Europe, engaged in the later half of the

Waning and revival of interest in Africa.

century in almost constant warfare, and struggling for supremacy in America

and the East, to a large extent lost their interest in the continent. Only

on the west coast was there keen rivalry, and here the motive was securance

of trade rather than territorial acquisitions. In this century the slave

trade reached its highest development, the trade in gold, ivory, gum and

spices being small in comparison. In the interior of the

continent—Portugal's energy being expended—no interest was shown, the

nations with establishments on the coast ``taking no further notice of the

inhabitants or their land than to obtain at the easiest rate what they

procure with as little trouble as possible, or to carry them off for slaves

to their plantations in America'' (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 3rd ed.,

1797). Even the scanty knowledge acquired by the ancients and the Arabs was

in the main forgotten or disbelieved. It was the period when — Geographers,

in Afric maps, With savage pictures filled their gaps, And o'er unhabitable

downs Placed elephants for want of towns.

(Poetry, a Rhapsody. By Jonathan Swift.)

The prevailing ignorance may be gauged by the statement in the third

edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica that ``the Gambia and Senegal

rivers are only branches of the Niger.'' But the closing years of the 18th

century, which witnessed the partial awakening of the public conscience of

Europe to the iniquities of the slave trade, were also notable for the

revival of interest in inner Africa. A society, the African Association,4

was formed in London in 1788 for the exploration of the interior of the

continent. The era of great discoveries had begun a little earlier in the

famous journey (1770-1772) of James Bruce through Abyssinia and Sennar,

during which he determined the course of the Blue Nile. But it was through

the agents of the African Association that knowledge was gained of the

Niger regions. The Niger itself was first reached by Mungo Park, who

travelled by way of the Gambia, in 1795. Park, on a second journey in 1805,

passed Timbuktu and descended the Niger to Bussa, where he lost his life,

having just failed to solve the question as to where the river reached the

ocean. (This problem was ultimately solved by Richard Lander and his

brother in 1830.) The first scientific explorer of South-East Africa, Dr

Francisco de Lacerda, a Portuguese, also lost his life in that country.

Lacerda travelled up the Zambezi to Tete, going thence towards Lake Mweru,

near which he died in 1798. The first recorded crossing of Africa was

accomplished between the years 1802 and 1811 by two half-caste Portuguese

traders, Pedro Baptista and A. Jose, who passed from Angola eastward to the

Zambezi.

Although the Napoleonic wars distracted the attention of Europe from

exploratory work in Africa, those wars nevertheless

Effects of the Napoleonic wars—Britain seizes the Cape.

exercised great influence on the future of the continent, both in Egypt and

South Africa. The occupation of Egypt (1798-1803) first by France and then

by Great Britain resulted in an effort by Turkey to regain direct control

over that country,5 followed in 1811 by the establishment under Mehemet Ali

of an almost independent state, and the extension of Egyptian rule over the

eastern Sudan (from 1820 onward). In South Africa the struggle with

Napoleon caused Great Britain to take possession of the Dutch settlements

at the Cape, and in 1814 Cape Colony, which had been continuously occupied

by British troops since 1806, was formally ceded to the British crown.

The close of the European conflicts with the battle of Waterloo was

followed by vigorous efforts on the part of the British government to

become better acquainted with Africa, and to substitute colonization and

legitimate trade for the slave traffic, declared illegal for British

subjects in 1807 and abolished by all other European powers by 1836. To

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