Page 130 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

africa 15

We are not guardians of the earth for our
children. It is our children’s land which they are
lending to us. • Kenyan Proverb

are themselves European. Particularly during the Enlight- pean racial superiority. Born of the achievements of the
enment, European philosopher-scholars were trying to scientific revolution and the creation of a new plantation
make sense of a world that was to them very new. Euro- economy that demanded a brutal system of slave labor,
pean voyages of exploration and colonial expansion had most European scholars of the time embraced the notion
resulted in a great deluge of information about the wider that nonwhite peoples were intrinsically inferior.Witness
world, and these early scholars struggled to pull the infor- the following excerpt from David Hume’s essay “Of
mation together into a whole that explained the world as National Characters” (1748):
they were experiencing it.Thus, just as new cartographic
I am apt to suspect the negroes and in general all other
skills were creating an increasingly detailed picture of
species of men to be naturally inferior to the whites.There
physical Africa, these scholars sought to create an expla-
never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than
nation of Africa’s place in world history.
white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or
Notably, prior to the modern era, Africa was not seen
speculation. No ingenious manufactures amongst them, no
as a terribly different part of the world. Given the long arts, no sciences.
interaction among Europe, Africa, and the Middle East,
all had previously been seen as part of a single world, as G.W. F. Hegel’s “Geographical Basis of World History”
is evident from premodern maps. Indeed, trade, the (1820s) reflected similar themes. Hegel divided Africa up
Roman empire, and then Christianity had helped create into three regions: North Africa, Egypt, and “Africa
a high degree of shared culture and identity in the circum- proper.” Hegel describes the region thus:
Mediterranean region,such that Africa was probably seen
Africa proper is the characteristic part of the whole conti-
as more a part of the Roman Christian world than were
nent as such...It has no historical interest of its own, for
many parts of northern and eastern Europe. This legacy
we find its inhabitants living in barbarism and savagery in
survived even the collapse of Rome and the rise of Islam,
a land which has not furnished them with any integral ingre-
for example in the myth of Prester John,a supposed Chris-
dient of culture.From the earliest historical times,Africa has
tian king sometimes placed in distant parts of Asia and
remained cut off from all contacts with the rest of the world;
sometimes in Africa.For a very long time,then,Europeans it is the land of gold,forever pressing in upon itself,and the
often saw Africans in terms of similarity and affinity, not land of childhood,removed from the light of self-conscious
difference. Early Islamic travelers and scholars, too, while history and wrapped in the dark mantle of night.
initially seeing the Dar al-Sudan (land of the blacks) as a
very different place,increasingly came to accept regions of Hegel’s characterization of Africa in world history
it as part of the Dar al-Islam (land of peace). includes several key elements that continued to be used
to define Africa (and Africans) in world history for more
Racial and Civilizational than a hundred years. First is the racial division of Africa.
Views of Africa North Africa and Egypt, where people were “less black,”
However, in their efforts to place Africa in world history, were judged to possess history, while black Africans were
most Enlightenment historians were deeply influenced devalued as uncivilized, living in barbarism, and devoid
by two issues. First, they tended to think of historical evi- of culture. Second,“Africa proper” was described as being
dence only in terms of written documents.Thus, because isolated from other parts of the world and thus peripheral
they were either unable to translate (as in the case of to world history.Third,Africans were defined as childlike
ancient Egyptian) or unaware of written documents of —not fully mature (as opposed to Europeans). Such a
African origin, these scholars decided that Africans were characterization was a critical element in the paternalis-
without history. Second, and perhaps more importantly, tic justification of European authority, first in the context
they were deeply influenced by growing notions of Euro- of slavery and later in the imposition of colonial rule.