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EARLY BELGIAN COLONIAL EFFORTS - The University of Texas at ...

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Sahara Desert was simply the “Dark Continent” 47 both due to the color <strong>of</strong> its people and<br />

the fact th<strong>at</strong> th<strong>at</strong> Europeans simply did not have any real knowledge <strong>of</strong> wh<strong>at</strong> lay more<br />

than twenty miles inland from any coast. <strong>The</strong> wider presumption, prior to 1800, was<br />

th<strong>at</strong> since there were no external symbols <strong>of</strong> civiliz<strong>at</strong>ion 48 evident on the coast, other<br />

than those rel<strong>at</strong>ed to the now illegal slave trade, there was nothing <strong>of</strong> value; otherwise,<br />

someone would have taken advantage <strong>of</strong> it and a civiliz<strong>at</strong>ion would have arisen as a<br />

result.<br />

Beginning in the 1800s the Scottish adventurer Mungo Park 49 (1771-1806)<br />

pursued some <strong>of</strong> the earliest explor<strong>at</strong>ion <strong>of</strong> the Niger, reaching Timbuktu. In the 1820s,<br />

the English adventurer Hugh Clapperton 50 (1788-1827) explored the area beginning <strong>at</strong><br />

the Bight <strong>of</strong> Benin and going inland to the Yoruba and Fula kingdoms <strong>of</strong> south central<br />

Africa. Additionally, the Landers brothers, Richard (1804-1834) and John (1807-<br />

1839), 51 with Clapperton, and on their own, navig<strong>at</strong>ed the Niger and Bengue Rivers and<br />

reached the inland Niger Delta. <strong>The</strong> Frenchman René Caillié 52 (1799-1838) explored<br />

46 <strong>The</strong> use <strong>of</strong> the Maxim machine gun <strong>at</strong> Omdurman in the Sudan in 1898 resulted in 10,000<br />

Ansar killed and 13,000 wounded. British losses were 48 killed and 382 wounded.<br />

47 <strong>The</strong> use <strong>of</strong> the term seems to have become common in the early part <strong>of</strong> the seventeenth<br />

century. 48<strong>The</strong> very meaning <strong>of</strong> the L<strong>at</strong>in root civis, “citizen” takes for granted group membership around<br />

a central authority th<strong>at</strong> Western history has always identified with city. To the Western mind, the<br />

minimum requirement for civiliz<strong>at</strong>ion has always been the city.<br />

49 Peter Ludwig Brent, Black Nile: Mungo Park and the Search for the Niger (London: Gordon<br />

Cremonesi, 1977).<br />

50 Richard Lander, Records <strong>of</strong> Captain Clapperton's Last Expedition to Africa (London: Cass<br />

Library <strong>of</strong> African Studies. Travels and Narr<strong>at</strong>ives; reprint, London: Cass, 1967).<br />

51 Richard Allen and A. R. Lander ed., Richard Lander's Journey to Sokoto (London: Oxford<br />

<strong>University</strong> Press, 1964).<br />

52 Galbraith Welch, <strong>The</strong> Unveiling <strong>of</strong> Timbuctoo: <strong>The</strong> Astounding Adventures <strong>of</strong> Caillié (New<br />

York: W.Morrow & Co., 1939).<br />

32

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