What would a modern political map of Africa look like without European imperialism? After recently sharing a map of North America without European colonization, Charles Ray, a fine author, reviewer, and sometime reader of this blog, asked if I could present a similar map of Africa. While I’ve received occasional likes, comments, and even corrections, this is my first request for a specific map. With that as background, I decided to give it a go.
To begin, I think it’s important to establish a baseline. While we can all trace our origins back to Africa, many different peoples have returned to exploit the continent’s riches. The Romans, Greeks, and Muslims all established a strong presence in North Africa. Muslim traders even established trading links across the Sahara desert. People from the Indian subcontinent also traded with and established outposts along the eastern coast of Africa. In the early 15th century Zheng He (often referred to as Cheng Ho) led seven treasure voyages from China. Three of them reached Africa. Zheng’s voyages were diplomatic in nature. He exchanged the riches of China (porcelain, silk, precious metals) for those he found. His African treasures included ostriches, ivory, and a giraffe.
Just a short while after Zheng’s voyages Europeans began exploring the western coast of Africa. Looking for a quicker route to the spice islands of southeast Asia and Indonesia, they were not interested in colonizing. Over the next centuries their interests changed. The most terrible aspect, the slave trade resulted in the enslavement and death of millions of Africans. After outlawing the slave trade, European interest in the continent took another turn. Driven by the logic of the industrial revolution – a need for raw materials and markets – the European powers carved out empires across the globe including Africa. The Belgian Congo, founded as a personal colony of King Leopold was more than 75 times larger than Belgium.
On the eve of World War 1 almost all of Africa was ruled by foreign powers. The only independent states were Liberia and Ethiopia.
Map of Africa in 1914 (Source included in image)
Within a single lifetime the vast majority of the European colonies gained their independence. Many of the boundaries that were established to suit the European rulers formed the basis of the newly independent countries. Unfortunately, these boundaries ignored linguistic, cultural, religious, and longer term historical ties. As a result many of the new states have struggled to realize their potential, while millions of their citizens suffer through man-made catastrophes.
Which brings us to our featured map. What would modern Africa look like without European colonization? As with any counterfactual, that’s hard to say with any certainty. Which is probably why people do it – it’s almost impossible to be wrong. With that in mind here’s one interpretation courtesy of Nikolaj Cyon. In his alternative world Islamic states dominate the north and traditional states fill the south. Nikolaj inverted the map to lessen the Eurocentric bias.
Featured Map
As always thanks for reading.
Armen
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Fascinating, as usual.
Very kind of you to say.