History of Africa

The American heritage dictionary defines Africa as “The Second Largest Continent in the Eastern Hemisphere” south of Europe and between the Atlantic and the Indian oceans.” Africa is about 11,500,000 square miles and has a population of more than 500,000,000.

This definition is merely geographical. It is not possible to discuss Africa without due references to the Africans in America, the Caribbean and other parts of the world. I should therefore not hesitate to state that while the main focus of my presentation will be on the African continent, there will be occasions when my emphasis will be on black people generally.

Africa and its indigenes were always misinterpreted until the later half of the nineteenth century. The Europeans knew little about the interior of Africa. By then much had been learned about America, Asia and Australia. The Europeans knew little about Africa. This was why the Stanley River is named after the British man who explored the Congo basin.

Most of the inhabitants of Africa are black in complexion and perhaps this was the second reason why the words “dark continent” were applied to Africa. One may ask why the inland part of Africa was unknown until about one hundred years ago. Many are of the opinion that this was because the natives of Africa were not friendly towards Europeans. Until then, Arab slave raiders had been enslaving Africans. This made many Negroes look upon all white people as slave dealers.

But we must not forget the difficulties in exploring Africa. The Sahara desert, the rapids on rivers and thick forests made traveling very difficult. The damp, heat, mosquitoes and flies caused illness to European explorers at the onset of African nationalism; the primary goal was the attainment of political independence. This objective was self-evident in the now famous statement of the president of Ghana.

Dr. Kwame Nkrumah said that we should “seek first the political kingdom and all else will be added unto.” I would now like to suggest to you that we will not be smug when we question this approach with wisdom of more than 30 years hindsight. It was, I would insist, perfectly normal and equally predictable that a people, any people, would first attack the aspect of an oppressive system that was perfectly felt. The very personal pain and humiliation of racial segregation, the calculated denial of status and consequents of self- esteem, the usually insulting and often brutal rejection of reasonable aspiration of our people and their disenfranchisement more or less directed the course of our struggle, resulting in the singular pursuit of political independence and civil rights and the assumption that economic progress will follow automatically. With the benefit of hind sight, we should have been more aware of the superficiality of political power which leaves the economy in the hands of old masters.