The very idea of Africa people have always known. Literally this is true, after all we came from there, and then dispersed to every corner of the index.
However, an unfriendly climate and local diseases hindered its rediscovery for centuries. Moreover, the northern part of Africa that directly adjoins Europe is a vast and imposing desert. It became an obstacle to discovery.
Hence, America, belatedly and disproportionately further away, was settled first. Real expansion into Africa began only with the appearance of technologies in the late XIX century, but to this the day enough ‘white spots’ − places where modern man has not yet stepped.
African mapping
Some of the first maps we have are thus showing a very interesting picture of unknown lands. The lines of continents or islands were drawn more or less accurately, but distant and unreachable lands were often sketched based on gossip and myth. That was true in South America, where Spanish colonists sought lost cities, and the tale was repeated in Africa.
It took until 1554 for the first complete map to appear, despite Europeans discovering the African Continent centuries earlier. The German scholar Sebastian Munster spoke to sailors, traders and settlers.
He occasionally acquired maps of the relevant areas, but more often than not had to accept their word for it. Whether it was ultimately fair or unfair, after collecting a mountain of information Munster knitted together the disparate accounts into a unified theory.
In the midland region of the continent, where you find the Sahara Desert, there was also a massive forest massif on the map. And to the south, in what is now Nigeria, resides a cyclops, representing the mythical tribe of Monoculi.
They are humanoid beings with one leg and an enormous foot. In times of scorching heat, they might shelter in the shade of their own raised foot. Everything starts with a lake on the Moon Mountains, so that is my Nile.
The kingdom of Presbyter John extends in the valley of rivers flowing full. There were later several expeditions that would search for it. There are quite a few large islands scattered throughout Africa that aren’t actually there. Some details, such as the contours of rivers, are reasonably accurate, though this would only be verified in the 19th century.
The Pygmies
Paul Du Chaillu grew up on the West African coast, where he learned the local culture and languages. He is thought to be the first European to have seen a gorilla. Before then, this species of primate was somewhat mythical. Their description struck me as too outrageous. But an even more astonishing find awaited.
‘Dancing dwarfs from the land of spirits’ make it into Egyptian records of the third millennium B.C. That’s what the Egyptians referred to the Pygmies as. Positive Perhaps one of Small men or people Port classification, people of the Americas which were discovered by Scandinavians Paul du Chaillu.
The ethnographer marvelled at what he witnessed, using the word pygmies to describe people who were able to traverse the forest with lightning speed, elegance and in utter silence.
Add to that, their heights ranging from 120 to 150 centimetres, and it added a whole new level of unrealistic to the grand scheme of things.
The adventurer, fortunately, had local guides, who both took him to undiscovered corners of the African equatorial forests, but also told him how to conduct himself. The small stature of the pygmies had no effect on shooting arrows with deadly accuracy, but a guest with honest intentions could expect to be greeted with a fairly good nature.
A few years later — many other researchers and not only — followed in Pauls footsteps. Luckily for the ethnographer, she did not survive until 1904, when the first pygmies exported from Africa arrived in European and American zoos as exotic animals.
The rationale for slavery
The discovery of Africa was inseparable from its colonisation and enslavement of millions of its native inhabitants. At some point, the phenomenon got so huge that it needed somehow to be justified to all the moralists and other humanists why slavery was OK. European scholars came up with “Hamitic Hypothesis” to the rescue of planters.
In biblical tradition, Ham, one of Noah’s sons, gazed at his naked, drunken father, and then made fun of him. For this he was cursed and ordered to leave the holy places, and all his children would become a slave to Ham’s brothers. This, he thought, was where it all came together. All men are brothers; but in Africa were those exiled descendants of Ham who were to be enslaved.
It is the will of our Lord himself, who would be foolish enough to contend with his will? (Sure, there were naysayers, but slavery turned out to be so profitable, especially in the New World, that the ‘Ham Hypothesis’ caught on.
That normalised forced labour, but the implications went much deeper. Gay is the offspring of Ham, the sinner, so it could, by definition, produce nothing good or bright, much less majestic. Advanced civilisations in Africa were therefore presumed to be the handiwork of whites who had set foot on the continent at some point in the past.
In 1867, a 15-year-old by the name of Erasmus Jacobs was playing with some stones on his family’s farm. One of the stones he picked up glimmered oddly in the sun and drew the neighbours attention. Before long the find was in the hands of the British minister for the colonies. The Eureka Diamond was South Africa’s first gemstone discovery. The discovery would soon transform the face of the nation, and a new wave of settlers would flood the continent.
The Man Behind Diamonds and the Architect of Apartheid
Perhaps one of the most loathed British statesmen in history, Cecil Rhodes. He is hailed as the architect of apartheid and its stamp of further colonial expansion. Through trickery or intimidation, Rhodes compelled miners to leave mines he had bought for little more than a pittance. Many former owners thought they were selling quarries or coal deposits.
In fact, they were showering Rhodes DeBeers Consolidated Mines with tons of money — in diamonds. Cecil Rhodes once had 90 per cent of all diamond mines in the world. According to a statement, it is important to note here that the entrepreneur did not only think of his own profit but also remembered his dream It was the ultimate British supremacy of the world, and the dominance of the British race over all others.
After Rhodes died, thousands of relatives splintered his huge fortune. Nations were devastated and entire regions plunged into chaos. Even today, blood runs for African diamonds and they are blood diamonds.
The Forbidden City of Timbuktu
On the fringe of the Sahara, the city of Timbuktu was one of the capitals of the Islamic world. Only Muslims could go there for a long time. So, there were lots of gossip about Timbuktu in Europe, and there were folks who wished to come into town, despite all the cautions. The first to breach the walls was a Briton named Gordon Laing who, in 1826, undertook a five-week-long odyssey and perished on his exit. Four years later, the son of René Caillié, his baker, decided to repeat the feat.
Unlike explorers of the past, René was far better prepared, but he had neither the funds nor the usual host of servants. Instead, he read the Quran, learned Arabic and embraced local ways. Also, René Caillié arrived at the gate in native dress, creating a credible legend.
His accent explained why he had pretended to be an Egyptian Arab. Finally, the Frenchman strolled through the city’s streets, and this was his biggest disappointment. No solid-gold walls, no numinous beasts or magical people.
But that golden age had finished over two hundred years before, and now Timbuktu was fading. An emptied-out city with trash-strewn streets and naked poverty. This was nothing like the picture he had in mind so René rushed back to France.
Some disappointment mixed with the 10,000 franc prize promised by the French crown to anyone who succeeded in getting to Timbuktu and back. Sceptics were sure that René Caillié had invented the story of his journey. Maybe they could not stop refusing to see that the forbidden city was all but destroyed and, as such, uninteresting as a place of great profit.
