Book contents
- Frontmatter
- CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
- CHAPTER II ECONOMIC CHANGE IN ENGLAND AND EUROPE, 1780–1830
- CHAPTER III ARMED FORCES AND THE ART OF WAR
- CHAPTER IV REVOLUTIONARY INFLUENCES AND CONSERVATISM IN LITERATURE AND THOUGHT
- CHAPTER V SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
- CHAPTER VI RELIGION: CHURCH AND STATE IN EUROPE AND THE AMERICAS
- CHAPTER VII EDUCATION, AND PUBLIC OPINION
- CHAPTER VIII SOME ASPECTS OF THE ARTS IN EUROPE
- CHAPTER IX THE BALANCE OF POWER DURING THE WARS, 1793–1814
- CHAPTER X THE INTERNAL HISTORY OF FRANCE DURING THE WARS, 1793–1814
- CHAPTER XI THE NAPOLEONIC ADVENTURE
- CHAPTER XII FRENCH POLITICS, 1814–471
- CHAPTER XIII GERMAN CONSTITUTIONAL AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT, 1795–1830
- CHAPTER XIV THE AUSTRIAN MONARCHY, 1792–1847
- CHAPTER XV ITALY, 1793–1830
- CHAPTER XVI SPAIN AND PORTUGAL, 1793 TO c. 1840
- CHAPTER XVII LOW COUNTRIES AND SCANDINAVIA
- CHAPTER XVIII RUSSIA, 1798–1825
- CHAPTER XIX THE NEAR EAST AND THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE, 1798–1830
- CHAPTER XX EUROPE'S RELATIONS WITH SOUTH AND SOUTH-EAST Asia
- CHAPTER XXI EUROPE'S ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH TROPICAL AFRICA
- CHAPTER XXII THE UNITED STATES AND THE OLD WORLD, 1794–1828
- CHAPTER XXIII THE EMANCIPATION OF LATIN AMERICA
- CHAPTER XXIV THE FINAL COALITION AND THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA, 1813–15
- CHAPTER XXV INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, 1815–30
- APPENDIX Note on the French Republican Calendar
- References
CHAPTER XXI - EUROPE'S ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH TROPICAL AFRICA
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
- Frontmatter
- CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
- CHAPTER II ECONOMIC CHANGE IN ENGLAND AND EUROPE, 1780–1830
- CHAPTER III ARMED FORCES AND THE ART OF WAR
- CHAPTER IV REVOLUTIONARY INFLUENCES AND CONSERVATISM IN LITERATURE AND THOUGHT
- CHAPTER V SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
- CHAPTER VI RELIGION: CHURCH AND STATE IN EUROPE AND THE AMERICAS
- CHAPTER VII EDUCATION, AND PUBLIC OPINION
- CHAPTER VIII SOME ASPECTS OF THE ARTS IN EUROPE
- CHAPTER IX THE BALANCE OF POWER DURING THE WARS, 1793–1814
- CHAPTER X THE INTERNAL HISTORY OF FRANCE DURING THE WARS, 1793–1814
- CHAPTER XI THE NAPOLEONIC ADVENTURE
- CHAPTER XII FRENCH POLITICS, 1814–471
- CHAPTER XIII GERMAN CONSTITUTIONAL AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT, 1795–1830
- CHAPTER XIV THE AUSTRIAN MONARCHY, 1792–1847
- CHAPTER XV ITALY, 1793–1830
- CHAPTER XVI SPAIN AND PORTUGAL, 1793 TO c. 1840
- CHAPTER XVII LOW COUNTRIES AND SCANDINAVIA
- CHAPTER XVIII RUSSIA, 1798–1825
- CHAPTER XIX THE NEAR EAST AND THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE, 1798–1830
- CHAPTER XX EUROPE'S RELATIONS WITH SOUTH AND SOUTH-EAST Asia
- CHAPTER XXI EUROPE'S ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH TROPICAL AFRICA
- CHAPTER XXII THE UNITED STATES AND THE OLD WORLD, 1794–1828
- CHAPTER XXIII THE EMANCIPATION OF LATIN AMERICA
- CHAPTER XXIV THE FINAL COALITION AND THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA, 1813–15
- CHAPTER XXV INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, 1815–30
- APPENDIX Note on the French Republican Calendar
- References
Summary
Currents of European expansion had lapped the shores of Africa since the fifteenth century. But at the end of the eighteenth century the continent and its peoples were still little known. If anything, European knowledge of and interest in Africa had declined since the heyday of Portuguese discovery and expansion in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The coastline was tolerably well known, even if its scientific survey was to be mainly the work of the early nineteenth century, and if the east coast was now little frequented by European mariners. But what knowledge of the interior the Portuguese had once gained had been but indifferently passed on to, or remembered by, the other Europeans who had now surpassed them as builders of empires overseas. Following courses set by forgotten Portuguese embassies, French merchant-explorers had sought to make the Senegal river a highway to the empires and gold-mines of the western Sudan that were known partially through some (though not always the most accurate) of the medieval Arab writers. But their ambitions had been frustrated, in part by lack of consistent commercial backing in France, in part by the hostility both of the Sudanese peoples and of British sea power. In Guinea, Europeans had been content with their trade in Negro slaves for the Americas. Slaves were readily purchasable from African merchants and rulers at the coast. Thus Europeans lacked any incentive to penetrate inland, while at the same time established African interests existed to block any such penetration. Further south, the African kingdoms of the lower Congo and Angola, and the protectorates which Portugal had once sought to establish over them, had both been largely destroyed by the concentration of Portuguese merchants on this same trade.
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- The New Cambridge Modern History , pp. 572 - 590Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1965