Dr. David Livingstone donated thirty years of his life to the people and wilds of the African interior; in doing so Livingstone inspired such love and affection in the hearts closest to him upon his death, Chuma and Susi embarked on a thousand mile journey to deliver his earthly remains and his final journal to the coast of Africa, where his remains were transported to Britain for burial; even though he portrayed the typical English worldview of the Colonial period: Africans needed English guidance and purpose to be a civilized people. Dr. Livingstone saw the need for trade, Christianity, British control and abolishment of slavery without recognizing the existence of cosmopolitan societies; while Professor Trevor Getz’s book COMOSPOLITAN AFRICA c. 1700-1875 explained the existence of cosmopolitan societies thriving and growing in Africa before and without the influx of Europeans and the onslaught of worldwide slavery from the African continent providing proof of Dr. Livingstone’s narrow worldview as stated in the scope of the assignment.
According to the quote provided: “The promotion of commerce ought to be specially attended to, as this, more speedily than anything else, demolishes the sense of isolation which heathenism engenders…for by that means we may…introduce the Negro family into the body corporate of nations” (Livingstone). For several centuries prior to the sojourn of Dr. Livingstone the African people had been trading in minerals and slaves with the influx of ideas, technology, and contact with the outside world howbeit the majority of the contact was via the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian Ocean until the fifteenth century. Typical ‘English’ worldview plagued Dr. Livingstone and many other Europeans during the Col...
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...gems, living arrangements, and political hierarchy. Professor Trevor Getz has proven without a doubt Dr. David Livingstone provided his listeners and readers with a narrowed view regarding the African people in general during his thirty years living and working them. Anthropologists, sociologists, archaeologists, and historians working under the umbrella of a greater worldview have the advantage over missionaries and explorers from the days of European dominance and colonialism involving the myriad cultures and people of the African continent. Livingstone with all of his contributions to understanding of the African people he encountered could not see the forest for the trees when he stated; “…introduce the Negro family into the body corporate of nations.”
Works Cited
Getz, Trevor R. Cosmopolitan Africa c. 1700-1875. Oxford University Press. Oxford. 2013. Print.
Mazrui, Ali A. "The Re-Invention of Africa: Edward Said, V. Y. Mudimbe, and Beyond." Research in African Literatures 36, no. 3 (Autumn 2005): 68-82.
Over time concepts of ‘Race’, defined as a distinct group with a common linage, and ‘Primitive’ which pertains to the beginning or origin, , have been inextricably linked with the perception of Africa. The confusion of the two in the minds of people at the end of the 19th centaury, and some of the 20th, caused a sense of superiority amongst the ‘White Races’ that affected every aspect of their interaction with ‘the Black’. The ‘Civilisation’ of Africa by conquest and force was justified by these views.
Johnson, Charles, Patricia Smith, and WGBH Series Research Team. Africans in America. New York: Harcourt, Inc. 1998.
The historiography of Africa is very important. It is the only factual way we can understand the history of Africa as a continent. Archeology, art, linguistics, genetics, and indigenous written sources are all great pieces of works needed to start to understand the history of Africa. Although they all come from departments in history, together they reveal and answer the questions we have had for many years. As we learn more about the different works, it opens more questions to be answered. The questions are to help reconstruct Africa’s past and respect the existence of the continent.
In the first segment of his film series, Different but Equal, Basil Davidson sets out to disprove the fictitious and degrading assumptions about African civilization made by various Western scholars and explorers. Whether it is the notion that Africans are “savage and crude in nature” or the presumed inability of Africans to advance technologically, these stereotypes are damaging to the image and history of Africa. Although European Renaissance art depicts the races of white and black in equal dignity, there was a drastic shift of European attitudes toward Africa that placed Africans in a much lower standing than people of any other culture. The continent of Africa quickly became ravished by the inhuman slave trade and any traditional civilization
Those who 'discovered' Ugandan and the source of the Nile which the first explorers were seeking - men such as Speke and Stanley - and the soldiers and administrators who came after them undoubtedly believed in the superiority of European culture in a way which we today would consider unacceptably racist. Although they were impressed by the sophistication of Bugandan society, they implicitly assumed that Africa was more backward than Europe, that Africans would benefit from exposure to Western standards and practises, and of course from Christianity. To a degree this allowed them either to justify or even to suppress what now looks to be the crude reality that their underlying agenda was the extension of British influence, the promotion of British commerce, and the expansion of the British Empire, all without reference to the actual wishes of the Ugandan people. But then, even in Britain at thattime, democracy was a new idea and many people, including women, still did not have the vote.
Khapoya, Vincent B. The African Experience: An Introduction. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998. Print.
Achebe opens his lecture, "An Image of Africa," with the story of a student who sent him a letter saying how he was "particularly happy to learn about the customs and superstitions of an African tribe," not realizing that "the life of his own tribesmen in Yonkers, New York, is full of odd customs and superstitions" as well (1784). Western thou...
"Africa Before Transatlantic Slavery: The Abolition of Slavery Project." Africa Before Transatlantic Slavery: The Abolition of Slavery Project. E2BN, 2009. Web. 08 Apr. 2014. .
There are a lot of causes of the scramble for Africa, and one of them was to ‘liberate’ the slaves in Africa after the slave trade ended. The slave trade was a time during the age of colonization when the Europeans, American and African traded with each oth...
David Livingstone was one of Africa’s most important explorer. He lived from 1813 to 1873. He was originally a Scottish doctor and missionary.