Europe, Europeans and Africa in the 19 th century

1. Europe, Europeansand Africain the 19th century January 11-13

2. Maps in the Making of Africa European ‘Imaginings’ of Africa Western map-making: - reinforced growing belief in Europe that rest of world was to be situated and understood relative to Europe and its peoples.

3. North Africa: Catalan Atlas 1375

4. Medieval Mapamundi (c.1485-1500)

5. Genoa Chart of North Africa (c.1490)

6. The Mercator Projection (originated with Mercator’s Atlas, 1595)

7. The Peters’ Projection Map (1974) [USA superimposed across central Africa][see also discussion in “Where is Africa?”, Additional Rdgs.]

8. Europe’s Africa c.1808 • Brookes, R., The General Gazetteer; or Compendious Geographical Dictionary. 8th Edition. Dublin, 1808.

9. Africa Conceptualized by Religion c.1900 • “Mohammedans”:Muslims who followed the Islamic Faith. • “Heathens”:Animists who followedrange of polytheistic belief systems.By end 19th century, many Africans had absorbed both [European] Christian and Islamic beliefs into their own cultures.

10. Missionaries Attractions of Saving Civilizations for Christianity: Large populations of ‘Heathens’ main targets for European Christian Missionaries • Missionary activity West, Southern Africa since 1500s-1600s • Abolitionists (1700s): Africa-centered Evangelism • 1800s, ending Slave Trade from Africa: escalated missionary activity

11. Video Excerpt: • The Bible and the Gun(0:00 – 15:00 min)[from Basil Davidson’s Series “AFRICA”]See Additional Readings

12. Missionaries • Post-Abolition ‘Projects’ (West Africa): Sierra Leone: - Capital: ‘Monrovia’ (after American President) - newly liberated slaves to join communities of Christian farmers Liberia: -Capital: ‘Freetown’ - Christian Missionary Society established Fourah Bay College in 1827 -1876 affiliated with British university (British degrees conferred in Liberia)

13. Missionaries • Freed-slaves ‘targeted’ for education • Creation of ‘black’ , indigenous missionaries from:- returning slaves (many ‘Christianized’ while in captivity)- newly educated freed slaves (e.g. Samuel Crowther) Samuel Crowther,Southern Nigeria

14. Missionaries “Missionaries were at the moral frontiers of empire in the 19th century – but they were difficult and lonely ones” • (paraphrased from Reid, Modern History 1st ed., p.119)

15. Missionaries Challenges: • Competing ‘powers’: - local chiefs, healers, spirit mediums… How to undermine and/or replace them? • Conflicting Values: • - polygamy, polytheism • How to replace them with monogamy, monotheism?

16. Missionaries What did Christianity Offer?Why Convert?- access to literacy (education) - access to protection/sanctuary (poor, women, marginalized, former slaves) - access to freedom (mission stations gave sanctuary to fleeing slaves) [see Things Fall Apart, chs.16-18 – add’l rdgs.]

17. Missionaries • Interest in Christianity not always easy to access (for historian):- to what degree genuinely ‘spiritual’ ? - to what degree socially ‘helpful’? Both challenges and ‘ambiguities’ of Christian conversion continued to characterize the Colonial Experience.

18. Missionaries On the ground:missionaries drawn into local problems/politics • Vulnerable position: - friend of the new Christian? Or… - agent of the European power? • Two-edged sword : returns us to Reid’s ‘Moral Frontier’

19. Video Excerpt: The Bible and the Gun(25:00 – 37:00 min)[from Basil Davidson’s Series “AFRICA”]See Additional Readings

20. Missionaries Christianity (Missionaries) also tied to Commerce (Merchants): - Missionaries/mission stations places of trade, market activity - Provided access to European commerce and commodities - also constituted ‘social context’ in which commodities were to be used

21. Missionaries “The Imperial Project”: • - in addition to commerce, Imperialism was about ‘civilization’ and European beliefs about race - who was capable of being civilized? - answer determined by race! - as being ‘civilized’ was associated with being Christian (European): Missionaries unavoidably entered service of Imperial interests!!

22. Imperial Project & Racism Fascination with ‘the other’: - accelerated by Napoleon in Egypt (c.1800): learning or looting? - exoticism attractive: general public, scientific community, ‘world fairs’, museum exhibits, art & culture of ‘orient’

23. Plate from Francois le Vaillant’s Voyage de Francois le Vaillant dans l’interieur de l’Afrique, Paris 1798.

24. French satirical cartoon of the English obsession with the tour of the ‘Hottentot Venus’, a South African woman who was displayed in many cities in Europe from 1810 to 1815.

25. Ota Benga In 1906, the Bronx Zoo put Ota Benga, a (Belgian) Congolese pygmy, on display in a cage in its Monkey House. Protests by a group of African-American ministers soon put an end to the exhibit. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5787947

27. “African Woman” (above)“Zulu Warrior” (right)

28. Scientific Racism 1824Virey’s 1824 text on the natural history of humans 1868Nott and Gliddon’s scale of human evolution 1864Vogt’s anatomy text

29. ‘Scientific Racism’ Chart comparing intelligence of racial groups, from Adolphe Louis Cureau (translated by E Andrews) Savage Man in Central Africa: A Study of Primitive Races in the French Congo, London, 1915.

30. Illustration: R. Shufeldt [an anthropologist’s 1915 tract, America’s Greatest Problem.] The original caption read: “Negro Boy and Apes.On the left side of the figure there is a young Chimpanzee, and on theright a young Orang-utang. This is a wonderfully interesting comparison.”

31. Exploration and Enlightenment • The “Dark Continent” beckoned others: • - state-sponsored explorers: some had largely ‘scientific’ motives • - others more overtly political, commercial - when necessary to accomplish these goals, also military in aim

32. Exploring Africa • Exploration from the Cape to the Nile http://www.sc.edu/library/spcoll/sccoll/africa/africa3.html • West Africa, the Niger, and the Quest for Timbuktu http://www.sc.edu/library/spcoll/sccoll/africa/africa4.html • Central and East Africa, and the Legacy of Exploration http://www.sc.edu/library/spcoll/sccoll/africa/africa5.html Dr. Livingstone. I presume? Stanley finds Livingstone, 1871 [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Stanley_and_Livingstone.jpg]

33. Victorian Images • http://www.pbs.org/empires/victoria/history/scramble.html

34. Mapping Human Culture Accumulation of knowledge was form of assumed ‘power’ over Africans:“control over their [Africans’] destinies could be eroded as surely by map co-ordinates and museum specimens as by steamships, bullets and treaties of concession [and commerce…]’ [Reid, Modern Africa 1st ed., p.132] [see also Mazrui “Where is Africa?” Add’l. Rdgs.]

35. The White Man’s Burden • Take up the White Man's burden— Send forth the best ye breed– Go, bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need; • To wait, in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild– • Your new-caught sullen peoples, Half devil and half child. • By Rudyard Kipling • McClure's Magazine 12 (Feb.1899). • [for full poem, see ‘White Man’s Burden’, Resources]

36. “Africa” is Born The essential point:- growing 19th century interest in Africa by artists, poets, politicians • - and especially merchants, missionaries and explorers – was producing a • European entity • called Africa.

37. “Africa” is Born This “Africa” conjured up images: - of romance and mystery - of infinite natural resources - of an ‘other’ who might one day be civilized and Christianized - of uncountable labourers who would exploit the continent’s resources and consumethe Europe’s manufactured goods

38. Europe’s ‘Real Foot’ in Africa

39. From Cape Town to Cairo: the Rhodes’ Dream • “… it was in the colonial context that for the first time ‘Africa’ as an entity, from the Cape to Cairo, from the Coastal lagoons of the West to the Horn of the East, could be conceived.” • Bill Freund The Making of Contemporary Africa