Discovery history of Africa

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The story of the discovery of Africa is essentially the story of the reception and increasing influence of Arabs and Europeans .

While European knowledge of Africa in antiquity was largely based on stories of conquering armies and seafarers, knowledge of the continent during the Middle Ages was mainly due to the Arabs , Italians and Portuguese . Later commercial interests led European states to equip expeditions to explore the country and establish contacts with the regional rulers. Since the end of the 18th century there has been an increasing thirst for knowledge, which was expressed in the founding of the African Association in London in 1788 .

Particularly desirable goals were

  • knowledge of the Niger Current , exploring north and north-west Africa
  • exploring the Nile and the Central African lakes
  • the discovery of the sources of the Congo
  • the equatorial west and east coast
  • exploring South Africa

History of discovery in antiquity

Until the end of the 2nd century, one was essentially dependent on reports from merchants, soldiers and conquerors if one wanted to find out more about the conditions in Africa. Shortly after 2500 BC. BC, under Sahure , Egyptian sailors sailed the Red Sea and reached the Frankincense Land of Punt in South Arabia . The Egyptians subjugated Nubia , while the Phoenicians later drove along the north coast of the continent - "through the Pillars of Hercules to the mouth of the Draa ".

At one point, as Herodotus reports, they even circumnavigated all of Africa. Since this was ordered by the Egyptian pharaoh Necho II around 600 BC. It should have been known about it in Egyptian archives, but the two greatest Egyptian geographers of that time, Eratosthenes and Ptolemy , have declared against it. Ptolemy, on the other hand, already knew that the Nile is fed by large lakes. The Carthaginian Hanno invaded around 470 BC. In the west of the continent, according to one researcher (Müller 1855) to Sierra Leone , after the others to Cameroon and Gabon to the Cameroon Mountain. In Nero's time an expedition went through Sudan to the Bahr al-Ghazal . The Roman Septimius Flaccus had entered the Sahara , which Iulius Maternus is said to have crossed to Lake Chad at the end of the 1st century . The evidence of a Roman presence south of Garamanten Land is purely literary, and the place and river names given in Roman sources may very well be based on hearsay. The localization of the places mentioned is hardly possible today either.

Exploring Africa in the Middle Ages

In the Middle Ages it was mainly Arabs, Italians and Portuguese who made a contribution to further knowledge of the continent.

Since the 10th century the Arabs went in the east to Ethiopia ( Abyssinia ), along the coast to Sofala and Madagascar , in the west to Senegal and in the interior to the upper Niger and Lake Chad . The geographical reports of that time contain interesting news. Sofala is already known and describes the "Negro realms" south of the great desert. Ibn Battuta (1304–1377) from Tangier traveled all over North Africa from Morocco to Egypt , the east coast to Mombasa and Kilwa and moved through the desert to Timbuktu and Kuka .

Leo Africanus (1492–1556), one of the most outstanding travelers of the late Middle Ages, had traveled as envoy from Morocco to Timbuktu and Bornu . Famous cartographers such as Angelino Dalorto (1325 and 1339) and Fra Mauro (1459) received valuable material through the diplomatic and commercial relations between Venice and Genoa with the barbarian states and Ethiopia, although this was limited to North Africa. They brought the Nile into contact with Senegal and Niger. Marco Polo (1256–1323) provided fabulous reports on the islands of Socotra , Madagascar and Zanzibar . At the end of the 13th century, the Genoese discovered the Canary Islands , and in 1351 the Azores appear on an Italian nautical chart, the Medicean Portolan map.

In 1441 Antão Gonçalves reached Cape Branco , in 1445 Dinis Dias reached Senegal. Soon after, Antonio da Noli and Alvise Cadamosto saw the Cape Verde Islands. In 1462 Pedro da Cintra penetrated to Cape Mesurado and in 1471 José de Santarem to over the equator ( Cape Santa Catarina ). Between 1482 and 1486 Diogo Cão made two trips. On the second he was accompanied by Martin Behaim and came to the Cape Cross at 21 ° 50 ' south Br.

The greatest progress in recognizing the true shape of the entire continent is due to the Portuguese discoveries of the 15th century , which since the time of Prince Henry the Navigator (1394–1460) systematically along the coast in search of the sea ​​route to India Advanced south. In 1487, Bartolomeo Diaz , dispatched by John II , pushed as far as the Cape , was driven back to the ocean by the upcoming storm and only reached the country beyond the Cape of Good Hope , which he only discovered on his way back. Thereupon Vasco da Gama undertook his decisive voyage to the East Indies in 1497 . After António de Saldanha had come to Cape Guardafui in 1503 , he finally managed to reach Massaua in the Red Sea in 1520 and even to reach Suez in 1541 .

Africa research in modern times until 1788

The trade between Europe and America, after its discovery in 1492, brought a certain standstill in the further exploration of Africa in the 16th century. In the 17th century there was more effort to use resources and capital for the permanent colonization of the discovered areas or to spread Christianity through missions. The other European states now also took part in these undertakings.

In 1626 the French settled in Senegal, in 1650 the Dutch in the Cape of Good Hope, in 1682 a German society at the suggestion of the Great Elector on the Gold Coast . In 1672 an Anglo-African trading company was formed. The Portuguese expanded their holdings in Angola and Mozambique . Only the French André Brue undertook significant trips in Senegambia to Timbuktu, the Portuguese Pedro Páez and Jerónimo Lobo , who reached the sources of the Blue Nile . Charles Jacques Poncet toured Ethiopia.

In the 18th century, attempts were made from North Africa and Senegambia to penetrate deeper into the interior on the Guinea coast and in the Cape Country. In 1716 Pierre Compagnon came to the gold-rich Bambuk in Upper Senegal , from 1749 to 1754 the naturalist Michel Adanson was the first scientific traveler in Senegambia, between 1750 and 1754 de Lacaille on the Cape and on Mauritius ( Isle-de-France ). From 1769 to 1772 Bruce explored Nubia, Ethiopia and the upper reaches of the Blue Nile, from 1772 to 1776 Sparrman and Thunberg explored the countries of the " Hottentots " at the Cape, whose route Levaillant continued northwards from 1780 to 1785. In 1777 Gordon discovered the orange . Carsten Niebuhr , the founder of the world shipping route via Suez to India, came to Egypt in 1761 and designed the first correct map of the Red Sea. The first critical map of Africa was made by Johann Matthias Hase in 1737, followed by Bourguignon d'Anville in 1749 .

Research trips since 1788

More and more, the thirst for scientific research came into question as a trigger for expeditions to Africa. The first scientific society for research was the African Association founded in London in 1788 . Their example was later followed not only by other associations, but also by European governments, which either sought to utilize the scientific results in a practical way or paved the way for researchers through political interventions in the continent. The closest problem was the Niger and the Nile. The solution to this question later led to the exploration of the Central African lakes and finally the Congo river basin.

Exploring the Nile

Starting with the travel reports of Johann Ludwig Burckhardt , Nubia and Sudan were gradually explored from the first third of the 19th century . After extensive travels on the Obernil, Alfred Brehm wrote his travel sketches from North Africa in 1855 . From 1868 to 1871 Georg Schweinfurth undertook a trip to the area of ​​the western Nile tributaries and discovered the pygmies . In 1874 his two-volume work In the Heart of Africa was published , which made the author famous not least because of its lively presentation. A decisive event was the Mahdi uprising from 1881 to 1899, on which numerous European authors reported.

In the course of the 19th century, the mystery of the sources of the Nile, which had repeatedly preoccupied geographers, was gradually solved. John Hanning Speke , Samuel White Baker , James Augustus Grant and Richard Kandt played a major role in this .

Exploring the Niger River

The course of the Niger near Timbuktu was known , but neither its origin nor its direction further downstream. Mungo Park (1795 to 1797 and 1805/06 ), which advanced from Senegambia , was able to determine that a mountain range separates the Niger from Senegal and the west coast and that the river is directed to the east. Friedrich Konrad Hornemann came from Cairo through the northern oases to Mursuk in 1798 and from there to Nupe on the Niger. The expeditions of Clappertons , Denham and Oudney between 1822 and 1824 then came closer to solving the great riddle . Clapperton was sent a second time in 1825 and also reached Sokoto from the Bay of Benin up the Niger River , where he died in 1827. His servant Lander , who traveled from the Joruba to the house states on behalf of the British government in 1830 and discovered the great tributary Binue , succeeded in completing Clapperton's work. On the way back he drove down the Niger to its mouth in the Bay of Benin. Reichard had already stated in 1802 that the Niger must flow into the Gulf of Guinea , but his notes had been lost as a result of the death of Mungo Park.

A particularly desirable destination in the Niger area was Timbuktu. The Englishman Laing came to this city from Tripoli in 1825 , but his murder made this trip unsuccessful. From Sierra Leone , Caillié reached the upper Niger and Timbuktu on his memorable journey from 1827 to 1828, crossed the entire desert, crossed the High Atlas and came back to the coast near Tangier . The subsequent trips combine with the clarification of the Niger problem mostly crossings of the Sahara and the exploration of Chad . Following the proposal of James Richardson , who had come to Mursuk, Ghadames and Ghat in 1845/46, the British government sent a large expedition through the Sahara to Bornu , the most famous participants of which were Barth and Overweg . Between 1850 and 1855 Barth developed the new desert route via Aïr to Bornu, the countries on Lake Chad and south up to the 10th parallel, crossed the mountains and was the first European to visit Adamaua . He sailed the Binue and explored the river basin of the Niger between Say and Timbuktu, where he was able to research the history of the Songhai Empire and the culture of the Tuareg with the help of the spiritual and political head of the city, Sidi Ahmad al-Baqqai .

Barth was followed by Vogel (1853 to 1856) who advanced to Wadai , where he was murdered on the orders of the Sultan. Von Beuermann suffered a similar fate at Kanem . From 1865 to 1867 Rohlfs crossed the whole of northwest Africa for the first time, from the Syrts to the Gulf of Guinea, breaking new ground through the Haussa states to the middle Binue and through Joruba to Lagos . Nachtigal set out from the Tripoli-Kuka base from 1869 to 1874, made three major voyages of discovery to Tibesti , Borkou and Wadai, from where he reached the Nile via Darfur and Kordofan . On two trips south, the first of which took him to Baguirmi up the Shari to over 10 ° north latitude, he gathered extensive information about the river system of the Shari. In the opposite direction, Matteucci and Massari crossed from Kordofan, Bornu, Niger to the Gulf of Guinea. The Englishman William Balfour Baikie (1854) and the German Robert Flegel (1879 to 1885), who brought the first reliable information from the sources of the Binue and from the highlands of Adamaua , carried out extensive research on the waterway of the Binue .

From the north went further:

  • Henri Duveyrier (1859 to 1861), the most important explorer of the northern Sahara
  • Paul Soleillet (1874 and 1878), adventurer and colonial propagandist
  • Gerhard Rohlfs (1861 to 1864)
  • Oskar Lenz (1880), who finally managed to reach Timbuktu from Morocco and from here to the west coast.

De Foucauld's journey across Morocco was groundbreaking for the cartographic representation of the three atlas chains.

The Foureau-Lamy mission, which lasted from 1898 to 1900, crossed the Sahara from Algeria and reached Lake Chad and the Congo via Zinder .

The efforts made from Senegal were fruitful. Mollien discovered the sources of Senegal and Gambia as early as 1818 . After Raffenel's advance to Kaarta (1847), a thorough exploration of Senegambia as far as the Niger began under the government of Governor Faidherbe (1855 to 1865). The expeditions penetrated the desert landscapes in the north as far as Adrar-Tmarr ( Vincent 1860) and as far as the vicinity of Timbuktu (1860 to 1861). Finally, in 1887, Lieutenant Caron drove down the Niger in a gunboat from Bamako to Kabara, the port of Timbuktu. In 1894, French troops under Colonel Bonnier occupied the actual city, but were killed a few days later by the Tuareg , the previous masters of Timbuktu. Only the later Marshal Joffre succeeded in finally occupying the city and driving out the Tuareg.

The 20th century

After the First World War, the time of great voyages of discovery was over, but travel reports continued to appear that addressed a broad audience. This included the expedition reports from Leo Frobenius and Paul Schebesta , who mediated the encounter with the pygmies in the 1930s . Walter Mittelholzer's pilot books and Martin Johnson's books on his travel and expedition films were very popular . The Viennese Colin Ross also processed travel and film adventures . The Sahara was still a particular challenge, and Hansjoachim von der Esch , Ladislaus Almásy , Heinrich Schiffers , Nikolaus Richter and Georges-Marie Haardt, among others, reported on its exploration in well-read books. In 1951 Herbert Kaufmann undertook a single crossing of Africa from north to south and told of it in his report on Africa. Travel through a changing continent . In a second travelogue, Riding through Iforas , he reported on his desert expedition. Bernhard Grzimek caused a sensation with his films No Place for Wild Animals (1956) and Serengeti Must Not Die (1959).

See also

literature

  • Maurice Barbier: Voyages et explorations au Sahara occidental au XIXe siècle . L'Harmattan, Paris 1985. ISBN 2-85802-520-4 .
  • Albert Adu Boahen : Britain, the Sahara and the Western Sudan 1788–1861 . Clarendon, Oxford 1964 (including dissertation, University of London 1959; most detailed account of the early history of the exploration of North and West Africa by a historian from sub-Saharan Africa).
  • Cornelia Essner: German travelers to Africa in the 19th century. On the social history of travel . Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-515-04543-0 (also dissertation, FU Berlin 1985).
  • Henri-Paul Eydoux: The exploration of the Sahara ("L'exploration du Sahara"). Schwarzwald-Verlag, Freudenstadt 1949.
  • Adam Jones (ed.): On the history of Africa research . Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1996 (= Paideuma, 42 ISSN  0078-7809 )
  • Paul Kainbacher : The exploration of Africa. The Africa literature on geography and travel before 1945 . Baden 1998–1999; 3rd expanded and corrected edition 2002; 4th revised and expanded edition 2016, ISBN 978-3-9501302-9-4 .
  • Peter Kremer: The black part of the world. Africa in the Mirror of Old Books 1484–1884 . USB, Cologne 1984 (catalog for the exhibition of the same name, Cologne City Library, January 9 to February 24, 1984; with bibliography on the history of German Africa research in the pre-colonial era).
  • Heinrich Pleticha, Siegried Augustin: Lexicon of adventure and travel literature from Africa to Winnetou , Edition Erdmann, Stuttgart, Vienna, Bern 1999, ISBN 3 522 60002 9