African History in the United States

Extract

The growth of the study of the history of Africa south of the Sahara is an interesting example of contemporary intellectual developments. Until the mid-1950's African history was ignored by the historical profession in the United States even more completely than in Europe; and if an American historian had paused to consider why this was so, he would probably have anticipated Trevor-Roper's well-known verdict that the history of sub-Saharan Africa is undiscoverable (on the ground that it is not documented) and that, even if it were discoverable, it would be devoid of intellectual significance (on the ground that traditional African societies were barbarous and static). No professor with tenure at an American university was designated as a historian of sub-Saharan Africa; American publishers had produced very few books or articles dealing with African history, and Americans generally knew scarcely anything about it.

There were, however, several pioneer activities which were on the periphery of African history. At Howard University there were long-established courses on Negro history, inspired by W. E. B. DuBois and Carter Woodson, which included some West African material, but the American historical establishment paid little attention to this work. William L. Hansberry, who lectured on precolonial African history for some years, was never given tenure by the Howard authorities and was eventually excluded from the faculty. At Northwestern University, Melville Herskovits founded a program of African Studies in 1947. He invited historians to attend the seminars conducted under the program, and he himself published a book on the kingdom of Dahomey and was interested in questions of change as well as structure in African societies. Nevertheless, Herskovits was by training and status an anthropologist, and the history department at Northwestern did not provide lecture courses or seminars on African history before 1958.