page_title: History of Africa
section_title: European trade, exploration and conquest
hierarchical_section_title: History of Africa / 19th century / European trade, exploration and conquest
caption_attribution_description: English: Identifier: journeytoashango01duch (find matches) Title: A journey to Ashango-Land, and further penetration into equatorial Africa Year: 1874 (1870s) Authors: Du Chaillu, Paul B. (Paul Belloni), 1835-1903 Owen, Richard, 1804-1892 Subjects: Natural history Ethnology Publisher: New York, Harper &amp; brothers Contributing Library: The Library of Congress Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book. Text Appearing Before Image: inmates, myAshango guides holding up a bunch of beads in afriendly way; but all our care was fruitless, for themen, at least, were gone when we came up. Theirflight was very hurried. We hastened to the huts,and luckily found three old women and one youngman, who had not had time to run away, besidesseveral children, the latter hidden in one of the huts. The little holes which serve as doors to the hutswere closed by fresh-gathered branches of trees, withtheir foliage, stuck in the ground. My Ashangoguides tried all they could to calm the fears of thetrembling creatures; telling them that I had come todo them no harm, but had brought some beads togive them. I finally succeeded in approaching them,for fear seemed to have paralysed their powers ofmoving. I gave them some beads, and then mademy Ashango guides tell them that we should comeback the next day with more beads, to givq some toall the women; so they must all be there. One ofthe old women, in the course of a short time, lost all Text Appearing After Image: Chap. XVI. THE DWARF RACE. 317 her shyness and began to ridicule the men for havingrun away from us. She said they were as timid asthe nchende (squirrel), who cried Que, que, andin squeaking she twisted her little body into oddcontortions, with such droll effect that we all laughed. When I brought out my tape to measure her, herfears returned&#160;; thinking perhaps that it was a kindof snake that I was uncoiling out of its case, shetrembled all over; I told her I was not going tokill her, but it required another present to quiet heragain. I accomplished my task at last. I alsomeasured the young man, who was adult, and pro-bably a fair sample of the male portion of his race. We then returned to Niembouai. I had waited anhour, in the vain hope that the men might comeback to their huts. By the way, the Obongo womenseem to know how to tell lies as well as their country-women of larger growth; for when I inquired wherethe rest of the people were, they at once replied thatthey were gone into th Note About Images Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.
context_page_description: The history of Africa begins with the emergence of hominids, archaic humans and—at least 200,000 years ago—anatomically modern humans, in East Africa, and continues unbroken into the present as a patchwork of diverse and politically developing nation states.The earliest known recorded history arose in Ancient Egypt, and later in Nubia, the Sahel, the Maghreb and the Horn of Africa.
  Following the desertification of the Sahara, North African history became entwined with the Middle East and Southern Europe while the Bantu expansion swept from modern day Cameroon across much of the sub-Saharan continent in waves between around 1000 BC and 1 AD, creating a linguistic commonality across much of the central and Southern continent.
  During the Middle Ages, Islam spread west from Arabia to Egypt, crossing the Maghreb and the Sahel.
context_section_description: Between 1878 and 1898, European states partitioned and conquered most of Africa. For 400 years, European nations had mainly limited their involvement to trading stations on the African coast. Few dared venture inland from the coast; those that did, like the Portuguese, often met defeats and had to retreat to the coast. Several technological innovations helped to overcome this 400-year pattern. One was the development of repeating rifles, which were easier and quicker to load than muskets. Artillery was being used increasingly. In 1885, Hiram S. Maxim developed the maxim gun, the model of the modern-day machine gun. European states kept these weapons largely among themselves by refusing to sell these weapons to African leaders.
  African germs took numerous European lives and deterred permanent settlements. Diseases such as yellow fever, sleeping sickness, yaws, and leprosy made Africa a very inhospitable place for Europeans. The deadliest disease was malaria, endemic throughout Tropical Africa. In 1854, the discovery of quinine and other medical innovations helped to make conquest and colonization in Africa possible.
  Strong motives for conquest of Africa were at play. Raw materials were needed for European factories. Europe in the early part of the 19th century was undergoing its Industrial Revolution. Nationalist rivalries and prestige were at play. Acquiring African colonies would show rivals that a nation was powerful and significant. These factors culminated in the Scramble for Africa.
  Knowledge of Africa increased. Numerous European explorers began to explore the continent. Mungo Park traversed the Niger River. James Bruce travelled through Ethiopia and located the source of the Blue Nile. Richard Francis Burton was the first European at Lake Tanganyika. Samuel White Baker explored the Upper Nile. John Hanning Speke located a source of the Nile at Lake Victoria. Other significant European explorers included Heinrich Barth, Henry Morton Stanley (coiner of the term "Dark Continent" for Africa in an 1878 book), Silva Porto, Alexandre de Serpa Pinto, Rene Caille, Friedrich Gerhard Rohlfs, Gustav Nachtigal, George Schweinfurth, and Joseph Thomson. The most famous of the explorers was David Livingstone, who explored southern Africa and traversed the continent from the Atlantic at Luanda to the Indian Ocean at Quelimane. European explorers made use of African guides and servants, and established long-distance trading routes.
  Missionaries attempting to spread Christianity also increased European knowledge of Africa. Between 1884 and 1885, European nations met at the Berlin West Africa Conference to discuss the partitioning of Africa. It was agreed that European claims to parts of Africa would only be recognised if Europeans provided effective occupation. In a series of treaties in 1890–1891, colonial boundaries were completely drawn. All of Sub-Saharan Africa was claimed by European powers, except for Ethiopia (Abyssinia) and Liberia.
  The European powers set up a variety of different administrations in Africa, reflecting different ambitions and degrees of power. In some areas, such as parts of British West Africa, colonial control was tenuous and intended for simple economic extraction, strategic power, or as part of a long-term development plan. In other areas, Europeans were encouraged to settle, creating settler states in which a European minority dominated. Settlers only came to a few colonies in sufficient numbers to have a strong impact. British settler colonies included British East Africa (now Kenya), Northern and Southern Rhodesia, (Zambia and Zimbabwe, respectively), and South Africa, which already had a significant population of European settlers, the Boers. France planned to settle Algeria and eventually incorporate it into the French state on an equal basis with the European provinces. Algeria's proximity across the Mediterranean allowed plans of this scale.
  In most areas colonial administrations did not have the manpower or resources to fully administer the territory and had to rely on local power structures to 
caption: French explorer Paul Du Chaillu confirmed the existence of Pygmy peoples of central Africa
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