Africa's Discovery of Europe, 1450-1850

Northrup, David. Africa's Discovery of Europe, 1450-1850. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. 200 pp.

The classic narrative of European relations with Africa in the pre-colonial era tends to function with the eventual occupation and domination of the continent by European forces clearly in mind. As a result, most versions of this story try to explain pre-colonial relations as little more than a prelude to imperialism. Europeans "discovered" sub-Saharan Africa in the fifteenth century, set up shop on the coasts and proceeded to destroy the indigenous societies through the traffic of alcohol, tobacco, guns, and, of course, slaves. The relationship has historically been portrayed as the one-sided imposition of European ways and means on an ignorant African population.

With this as the typical backdrop for understanding the later colonization of Africa, David Northrup's Africa's Discovery of Europe comes as a refreshing surprise. Northrup attempts to view pre-colonial relations between Africa and Europe through an African lens, offering insights easily overshadowed by the looming specter of colonization that haunts most studies of precolonial Africa. The main focus of Northrup's book is to dispel the conception that Europeans have unilaterally dominated all encounters with Africa since the fifteenth century. On the contrary, he claims that Africans were quite savvy about their relations with Europe in the pre-colonial era, even going so far as to claim that "on the whole, the conclusion seems inescapable that Africans got what they wanted" (p. 102). His arguments range from the opportunistic use of Christianity by various African rulers, to the survival of African industries after the introduction of competing European goods, to a specious claim that racism was not nearly as prevalent a feature of European society in the pre-colonial era as it became in the nineteenth century. Unfortunately, despite my strong desire to agree with Northrup's thesis, several issues prevent total concurrence. While Africa's Discovery of Europe serves as an excellent tool for opening avenues of research and discussion, due to the incomplete deconstruction of sources and the paucity of examples given, I cannot accept many of the conclusions drawn in this work.

The sources that Northrup uses are mostly first-hand accounts of European relations with Africans: such as diaries, travelogues, memoirs, etc. Although in many cases such forms of evidence are the only record at a historian's disposal, they are severely biased at best and flagrantly deceptive at worst. Northrup attempts to exonerate the use of such texts in his preface when he states, "Possible untruths and exaggerations are noted... it is inevitable that some details of the past are altered when they are recounted, retold or translated. More important than the purest authenticity is the pattern; the melody can be heard despite a few false notes" (p. xiii). However, possible exaggerations are not always noted, and, since so few examples are provided in this short book, any suspect details detract from the thesis. For instance, in Chapter 1, on first encounters, Northrup chooses to quote Mungo Park's travelogue in order to explain the "typical" African first reaction to a white man. "My arrival was no sooner observed, than people who drew water at the wells threw down their buckets.. .1 soon found myself surrounded by such a crowd, that I could scarcely move..." (p. 13). Given that Park was not only a swashbuckler but also a best selling author, it seems that there may have been a tendency towards exaggeration in his writing in order to appeal to a European audience upon publication. Even if Park's representation in this passage is accurate, given the suspicious nature of the source, the passage deserves some consideration on the part of the author. However, Northrup allows such statements to pass without mention of the possible inaccuracies imbedded in them.

Northrup has a similar problem when dealing with African sources. Chapter 6 illustrates the condition of Africans living in Europe between 1650 and 1850. While Northrup does admit that these sources may not be perfectly accurate, he reiterates, "[a] single false note will not spoil the melody" (p. 143). However, there seems to be several false notes sounding in this chapter. I will expose two such cases, similar arguments against which can be made for others.

Northrup recounts at length the autobiographical narrative of Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, a former slave living freely in England in the eighteenth century. he makes special consideration of Gronniosaw's appreciation of white people and the lack of racial prejudice that he apparently experienced. The problem arises in that Gronniosaw's narrative was recounted to a white woman for the purpose of publication. It has been proven in similar situations that former slaves will not focus on the inhumanity of their condition when speaking to white compilers, but rather retell instances of racial tolerance, however sparse they may be. just because a white person was nice to Gronniosaw once in his life does not mean that the same person did not treat him horrendously at other times. However, Gronniosaw might not be willing to admit this to a white reporter. Thus, the stories that Gronniosaw retells in his narrative may be true, but not necessarily evidence of the predominantly tolerant society that Northrup wants them to be.