in understanding black africa geography
is more important than history
fernandel
in a strictly geographical sense all the
peoples on the continent of africa are
africans from the whites of south africa
to the arabs of the mediterranean states
but the term has in practice come to
refer primarily to the indigenous
peoples of africa below the sahara to
black africans the basis for this focus
is not simply racial but historic
cultural and geographic as well
as with the british the slavs and others
the influence of geography in africa has
not been simply in its effects primarily
on things natural resources or economic
prosperity for example
but on people
more specifically the effect of
geography in making cultural
interactions more difficult has been
particularly striking as between the
peoples of sub-saharan africa and the
outside world as well as among
themselves
to their north is a desert more vast
than the continental united states and
to the east west and south are the
indian atlantic and antarctic oceans
moreover the smooth coastline of
sub-saharan africa has offered few
harbors which ocean-going ships could
enter and in many places the shallow
coastal waterways have meant that large
ships could not get near the shores
ironically for centuries much of the
world's international trade was carried
in ships that sailed past west africa on
their way between europe and asia around
the southern tip of the continent
seldom did they stop
partly this was a result of wind and
ocean currents that made return trips
between europe and sub-saharan africa
difficult or not economically feasible
in the era of wind-driven ships
at least until far greater knowledge of
those currents and of alternative routes
developed
relatively little of africa's trade
entered international commerce
in the era before the modern
transportation revolution of railroads
automobiles and planes which is to say
throughout most of human history the
geographical barriers surrounding
tropical africa have been formidable
though not absolutely impenetrable
the consequences have been not only
economic but cultural
as the eminent french historian
fernandel put it
external influence filtered only very
slowly drop by drop into the vast
african continent south of the sahara
the geographic barriers to economic and
cultural exchanges within various
regions of sub-saharan africa have been
formidable as well the most striking of
these barriers has been a dearth of
navigable rivers or streams though the
land itself also presents difficult
terrain in many places in the form of
escarpments and rift valleys
the net effect has been that the peoples
of sub-saharan africa have historically
been insulated not only from the peoples
and cultures of the outside world but
also from one another
among the cultural consequences has been
a linguistic fragmentation of tropical
africa which has made african languages
one-third of all the languages in the
world even though african peoples are
only about 10 percent of the world's
population
this linguistic fragmentation has been
only one aspect of cultural
fragmentation in general including
tribalism and many religious differences
in much of sub-saharan africa a
combination of geographic features has
had unfavorable if not devastating
consequences for economic and cultural
development and tragic consequences for
the vulnerability of black africans to
outside conquerors
you