The Dark Continent Africa

 

The most common answer to the question, "Why was Africa called the Black Continent?" that Europe did not know much about Africa until the 19th century. But that answer is misleading and deceptive. Europeans knew a lot about Africa for at least 2,000 years, but European leaders deliberately turned to previous sources of information to justify colonialism and fight Blackness.

At the same time, the anti-slavery campaign and the missionary work of the fathers in Africa strengthened Europe's racist views against Africans in the 1800's. Whites called Africa a black continent because they wanted to legitimize black slavery and the exploitation of African resources.

It is true that by the 19th century, Europeans had little knowledge of Africa beyond the coast, but their maps were already full of continental details. African power has been trading in the Middle East and Asia for more than two thousand years. Initially, Europeans drew maps and reports created by ancient merchants and explorers such as the famous Moroccan explorer Ibn Battuta, who crossed the Sahara and the northeast coast of Africa in the 1300s.

During the Enlightenment, however, Europeans developed new standards and tools for mapping, and since they were not sure where the lakes, mountains, and cities of Africa were, they began to remove them from popular maps. Many scholarly maps still have more details, but because of these new standards, European explorers - Burton, Livingstone, Speke, and Stanley - are said to have (recently) discovered the African mountains, rivers, and empires that African peoples traveled to. he guided them.

The maps created by these explorers add to the general, but also help create the myth of the Black Continent. The name itself came to prominence to British explorer Henry M. Stanley, who imagined business development calling one of his subjects the “Dark Land,” and the other, “The Darkest Africa.” However, Stanley recalled that before leaving his job, he had read more than 130 books about Africa.

Imperialism and Two

Imperialism was widespread in the hearts of western businessmen in the 19th century, but there was a subtle difference between the imperialist need for African resources compared to other parts of the world. That did not make him cruel.

Most empire building begins with trade recognition and commercial profits that can be collected. In the case of Africa, the continent as a whole was connected with three goals: the spirit of entertainment (and the white supremacy they had for Africa and its people and the resources they could seek and exploit), the desire to help "develop indigenous peoples". in Africa) and the hope of ending the slave trade. Authors such as H. Ryder Haggard, Joseph Conrad, and Rudyard Kipling are immersed in the image of love and racism that must have been preserved by the strong (and white) men of the journey.

Two distinct divisions were established in this victory: darkness against light and Africa against the West. Europeans have concluded that African climate invites stress and physical disability. They thought the forests were normal and full of animals; when crocodiles lurk in the valleys, they float viciously along great rivers. Europeans believed that accidents, diseases, and death were part of an unknown reality and a strange dream created in the minds of armchair inspectors. The concept of a hostile environment and a place full of disease as it is full of evil is made up of stories written by Joseph Conrad and W. Somerset Maugham.

18th-Century Black Activists and Missionaries

In the late 1700's, 18th-century British black destroyers campaigned vigorously against slavery in England. They published tracts describing horrific acts of cruelty and cruelty in the fields. One of the most famous portraits shows a black man in chains asking “Am I not a man and my brother?”

When the British Empire ended its enslavement in 1833, black activists withdrew their efforts to suppress the practice in Africa. In the colonies, the English were also frustrated that the enslaved people did not want to continue working in the fields to earn the lowest wages. In retaliation, the British portrayed African men not as men, but as lazy, criminals, or traffickers.

At the same time, the missionaries began traveling to Africa. Their goal: to convert as many Africans as possible to Christianity - by losing the existing African religion, culture, and culture. The people of Africa had built their own culture, traditions, and knowledge, especially of their country and nature. The cultural abolition perpetrated by the Christian missionaries in Europe caused great damage for generations, while also trying to distance Africans from their countries - leaving them at great risk of injury and exploitation of imperialist interests.

When decades later the missionaries still had few converts in many places, they began to realize that the hearts of the African people were inaccessible, “locked up in darkness.” Instead of acknowledging why Africans might not allow their history, culture, and religion to be taken lightly, the missionaries pursued a more radical approach: revenge. They portrayed Africans as “very different” in the West and trapped in the “saving light” of Christianity, continuing to spread vague and deep-seated ideologies and prejudice against Africa and its people.