African Encounters

September 2002 * Historically Speaking African Encounters David Northrup . si rode in a crowded jitney bus in A ruralNigeriain 1966, theoldwoman sitting next to me wet her fingertip, rubbed it gendy on my arm, and dien scrutinized it to see if any color had come offmy pale skin. That memory came rushing back years later as I read an account of some Africans' reactions to the first European visitor to the Senegal River in 1455: "some . . . rubbed me with their spittle to discover whether my whiteness was dye or flesh." A Ugandan colleague who studied in Switzerland tells die story of a bold little girl in diat countrywho performed die same experiment on him and reported to her schoolmates mat he was "black but not sooty." History is a dialogue between die present and die past, as well as an exercise in cross-cultural understanding. Whatwe bringto die inquiryinfluences whatwe discover, and whatwe discover may reshape our understanding ofour own time and place. Sometimes, as in die case ofdie wet-finger test, we find a common humanity that transcends time and culture, butoften itis a struggle to bridge the gap between our expectations and die historical evidence we uncover. My decision to become a historian ofAfrica was very much a product of my own Ufe and times. I had gone to newly-independent Nigeria as a Peace Corps volunteer, and my many fascinating experiences there moved me to study it when I returned. I was not alone. The field ofAfrican history itselfhad arisen in tandem widi die independence movements inAfrican colonies in the late 1950s and early 1960s and in sympadiywidi dieir aspirations. Like odier Africanists ofmy generation, I wanted to discover die "real" Africa that lay beyond older narratives' focus on Europeanexplorers, merchants , missionaries, and empire builders. The term "Afrocentric" didn't yet exist, but it describes our interest in bringing to light the historic antecedents of the proud African achievers ofthe present. Ourenthusiasm may have led to exaggerations, but our desire to dislodge old paradigms forced us to base our studies on solid research and to pursue the implications ofAfrica-centered historytonew levels. Despite blind spots and biases, recent scholars have made solid advances in understanding die African past. The new African history has influenced scholars reexamining Atlantic history and added die names of African states and rulers to die textbooks, but ithas also had to contend widi odier revisions ofAfrican history coming from historians ofEurope and die Americas . Especiallyinversions intended forpopular audiences, these accounts sometimes seemed to turn the old Eurocentric narrative ofAfrica on its head. In place of European heroes savingAfrica, a new generation ofanti- . . . thepresence offree, literate Africans—even advancedstudents andprofessors —in 18th-century Europe brings into question the common assumption that racialprejudices there were monolithic. colonial historianspresented Europeanvillains bringingexploitation,underdevelopment, conquest , and cultural imperialism. Even though these new narratives were a much needed corrective , theirEurocentrismtended to relegate Africans to beinglargelysilent, generallyhaplessvictims ofthe all-powerfulWesternworld. Was it possible to construct a more balanced narrative? I struggled widi diese issues while reexamining the encounters between Africans and Europeans during die four centuries before die imperial conquests ofthe late 19th century. Abetternarrative needed to use the new Africanist scholarship to show how Africans understood and shapeddiese encounters . To make African perspectives vital and valid, I combed die records forhistoricalvoices thatmightbe included. AsÁfricasDiscoveryof Europe, 1450-1850moved toward completion, diesevoices from the pastreshaped die narrative in unexpected ways. For one dung, diere proved to be a lot of African voices. One effect of the encounter with Europe was diat many Africans learned European languages well enough to voice opinions that were recorded by Europeans, and some Africans wrote down their own views. Though it was not in my initial plan, the longest chapter in the book came to be about the many Africans in 18th- and early 19di-centuryEurope. Butdie mostsignificant impact ofdiese African voices was to broaden and deepen the exploration ofmany topics. African voices took the narrative to places diataudiorial caution, discretion , and concern for die sensibilities ofreaders and reviewers might have feared to go on dieirown. Amongthese were religion, slavery, and racism, often blended in intriguingways. For example, a letter from King Afonso I ofthe kingdom...