The last of the equatorial regions of the world to be placed
under European colonial rule was the continent of Africa.
European navigators had first established contacts with
Africans south of the Sahara during the late fifteenth century,
when Portuguese fleets sailed down the Atlantic
coast on their way to the Indian Ocean. During the next
three centuries, Europeans established port facilities
along the coasts of East andWest Africa to facilitate their
trade with areas farther to the east and to engage in limited
commercial relations with African societies. Eventually,
the slave trade took on predominant importance, and
several million unfortunate Africans were loaded onto
slave ships destined for the New World. For a variety of
reasons, however, Europeans made little effort to pene-
trate the vast continent and were generally content to
deal with African intermediaries along the coast to maintain
their trading relationship. Deeply ingrained in the
Western psyche, there developed an image of “darkest Africa”—
a continent without a history, its people living out
their days bereft of any cultural contact with the outside
world.
As with most generalizations, there was a glimmer of
truth in the Western image of sub-Saharan Africa as a region
outside the mainstream of civilization on the Eurasian
landmass. Although Africa was the original seedbed
of humankind and the site of much of its early evolutionary
experience, the desiccation of the Sahara during
the fourth and third millennia b.c.e. had erected a major
obstacle to communications between the peoples south
of the desert and societies elsewhere in the world. The
barrier was never total, however. From ancient times, caravans
crossed the Sahara from the Niger River basin to
the shores of the Mediterranean carrying gold and other
tropical products in exchange for salt, textile goods, and
other manufactured articles from the north. By the seventh
century c.e., several prosperous trading societies,
whose renown reached as far as medieval Europe and
the Middle East, had begun to arise in the savanna belt
in West Africa. In the baggage of merchants came not
only commercial goods but also the religion and culture
of Islam.
Farther to the east, the Sahara posed no obstacle to
communication beyond the seas. The long eastern coast
of the African continent had played a role in the trade
network of the Indian Ocean since the time of the
pharaohs along the Nile. Ships from India, the Persian
Gulf, and as far away as China made regular visits to the
East African ports of Kilwa, Malindi, and Sofala, bringing
textiles, metal goods, and luxury articles in return for
gold, ivory, and various tropical products from Africa.
With the settlement of Arab traders along the eastern
coast, the entire region developed a new synthetic culture
(known as Swahili) combining elements of Arabic
and indigenous cultures. Although the Portuguese briefly
seized or destroyed most of the trading ports along the
eastern coast, by the eighteenth century the Europeans
had been driven out and local authority was restored.
World History
