Africa

a powerful influence in Egypt. To Alexander the Great the city of

Alexandria owes its foundation (332 B.C.), and under the Hellenistic

dynasty of the Ptolemies attempts were made to penetrate southward, and in

this way was obtained some knowledge of Abyssinia. Neither Cyrenaica nor

Egypt was a serious rival to the Carthaginians, but all three powers were

eventually supplanted by the Romans. After centuries of rivalry for

supremacy1 the struggle was ended by the fall of Carthage in 146 B.C.

Within little more than a century from that date Egypt and Cyrene had

become incorporated in the Roman empire. Under Rome the settled portions of

the country were very prosperous, and a Latin strain was introduced into

the land. Though Fezzan was occupied by them, the Romans elsewhere found

the Sahara an impassable barrier. Nubia and Abyssinia were reached, but an

expedition sent by the emperor Nero to discover the source of the Nile

ended in failure. The utmost extent of geographical knowledge of the

continent is shown in the writings of Ptolemy (2nd century A.D.), who knew

of or guessed the existence of the great lake reservoirs of the Nile and

had heard of the river Niger. Still Africa for the civilized world remained

simply the countries bordering the Mediterranean. The continual struggle

between Rome and the Berber tribes; the introduction of Christianity and

the glories and sufferings of the Egyptian and African Churches; the

invasion and conquest of the African provinces by the Vandals in the 5th

century; the passing of the supreme power in the following century to the

Byzantine empire—all these events are told fully elsewhere.

In the 7th century of the Christian era occurred an event destined to

have a permanent influence on the whole continent.

North Africa conquered by the Arabs.

Invading first Egypt, an Arab host, fanatical believers in the new faith

of Mahomet, conquered the whole country from the Red Sea to the Atlantic

and carried the Crescent into Spain. Throughout North Africa Christianity

well-nigh disappeared, save in Egypt (where the Coptic Church was suffered

to exist), and Upper Nubia and Abyssinia, which were not subdued by the

Moslems. In the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries the Arabs in Africa were

numerically weak; they held the countries they had conquered by the sword

only, but in the 11th century there was a great Arab immigration, resulting

in a large absorption of Berber blood. Even before this the Berbers had

very generally adopted the speech and religion of their conquerors. Arab

influence and the Mahommedan religion thus became indelibly stamped on

northern Africa. Together they spread southward across the Sahara. They

also became firmly established along the eastern sea-board, where Arabs,

Persians and Indians planted flourishing colonies, such as Mombasa, Malindi

and Sofala, playing a role, maritime and commercial, analogous to that

filled in earlier centuries by the Carthaginians on the northern sea-board.

Of these eastern cities and states both Europe and the Arabs of North

Africa were long ignorant.

The first Arab invaders had recognized the authority of the caliphs of

Bagdad, and the Aghlabite dynasty—founded by Aghlab, one of Haroun al

Raschid's generals, at the close of the 8th century—ruled as vassals of the

caliphate. However, early in the 10th century the Fatimite dynasty

established itself in Egypt, where Cairo had been founded A.D. 968, and

from there ruled as far west as the Atlantic. Later still arose other

dynasties

Appearance of the Turks.

such as the Almoravides and Almohades. Eventually the Turks, who had

conquered Constantinople in 1453, and had seized Egypt in 1517, established

the regencies of Algeria, Tunisia and Tripoli (between 1519 and 1551),

Morocco remaining an independent Arabized Berber state under the Sharifan

dynasty, which had its beginnings at the end of the 13th century. Under the

earlier dynasties Arabian or Moorish culture had attained a high degree of

excellence, while the spirit of adventure and the proselytizing zeal of the

followers of Islam led to a considerable extension of the knowledge of the

continent. This was rendered more easy by their use of the camel (first

introduced into Africa by the Persian conquerors of Egypt), which enabled

the Arabs to traverse the desert. In this way Senegambia and the middle

Niger regions fell under the influence of the Arabs and Berbers, but it was

not until 1591 that Timbuktu—a city founded in the 11th century—became

Moslem. That city had been reached in 1352 by the great Arab traveller Ibn

Batuta, to whose journey to Mombasa and Quiloa (Kilwa) was due the first

accurate knowledge of those flourishing Moslem cities on the east African

sea-boards. Except along this sea-board, which was colonized directly from

Asia, Arab progress southward was stopped by the broad belt of dense forest

which, stretching almost across the continent somewhat south of 10 deg. N.,

barred their advance as effectually as had the Sahara that of their

predecessors, and cut them off from knowledge of the Guinea coast and of

all Africa beyond. One of the regions which came latest under Arab control

was that of Nubia, where a Christian civilization and state existed up to

the 14th century.

For a time the Moslem conquests in South Europe had virtually made of the

Mediterranean an Arab lake, but the expulsion in the 11th century of the

Saracens from Sicily and southern Italy by the Normans was followed by

descents of the conquerors on Tunisia and Tripoli. Somewhat later a busy

trade with the African coast-lands, and especially with Egypt, was

developed by Venice, Pisa, Genoa and other cities of North Italy. By the

end of the 15th century Spain had completely thrown off the Moslem yoke,

but even while the Moors were still in Granada, Portugal was strong enough

to carry the war into Africa. In 1415 a Portuguese force captured the

citadel of Ceuta on the Moorish coast. From that time onward Portugal

repeatedly

Spain and Portugal invade the Barbary States.

interfered in the affairs of Morocco, while Spain acquired many ports in

Algeria and Tunisia. Portugal, however, suffered a crushing defeat in 1578

at al Kasr al Kebir, the Moors being led by Abd el Malek I. of the then

recently established Sharifan dynasty. By that time the Spaniards had lost

almost all their African possessions. The Barbary states, primarily from

the example of the Moors expelled from Spain, degenerated into mere

communities of pirates, and under Turkish influence civilization and

commerce declined. The story of these states from the beginning of the 16th

century to the third decade of the 19th century is largely made up of

piratical exploits on the one hand and of ineffectual reprisals on the

other. In Algiers, Tunis and other cities were thousands of Christian

slaves.

But with the battle of Ceuta Africa had ceased to belong solely to the

Mediterranean world. Among those who fought there was

Discovery of the Guinea coast—Rise of the slave trade.

one. Prince Henry ``the Navigator,'' son of King John I., who was fired

with the ambition to acquire for Portugal the unknown parts of Africa.

Under his inspiration and direction was begun that series of voyages of

exploration which resulted in the circumnavigation of Africa and the

establishment of Portuguese sovereignty over large areas of the coast-

lands. Cape Bojador was doubled in 1434, Cape Verde in 1445, and by 1480

the whole Guinea coast was known. In 1482 Diogo Cam or Cao discovered the

mouth of the Congo, the Cape of Good Hope was doubled by Bartholomew Diaz

in 1488, and in 1498 Vasco da Gama, after having rounded the Cape, sailed

up the east coast, touched at Sofala and Malindi, and went thence to India.

Over all the countries discovered by their navigators Portugal claimed

sovereign rights, but these were not exercised in the extreme south of the

continent. The Guinea coast, as the first discovered and the nearest to

Europe, was first exploited. Numerous forts and trading stations were

established, the earliest being Sao Jorge da Mina (Elmina), begun in 1482.

The chief commodities dealt in were slaves, gold, ivory and spices. The

discovery of America (1492) was followed by a great development of the

slave trade, which, before the Portuguese era, had been an overland trade

almost exclusively confined to Mahommedan Africa. The lucrative nature of

this trade and the large quantities of alluvial gold obtained by the

Portuguese drew other nations to the Guinea coast. English mariners went

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