Various Africa Maps from the collection of Ken Habeeb
5/28/2023 Ken Habeeb: "Some years back while I was reading about slave trading out of the African continent, I ran across the phrase 'The White Man's Grave.' What could that mean? After I joined the California Map Society, I saw that pre-1800 maps showed the vast African Interior as being largely "unknown," and I wrote an article about that for the Society's magazine, Calafia. But I was still unclear about African history. Why was so little of it recorded by anyone outside of its own indigenous peoples? Hadn't its interior been explored and developed by the advanced nations? The Spanish, English, and French, after all, had already been colonizing the Americas for four hundred years! Well, the fact is, Africa was the last continent to be explored by anybody - by a lot, and Central Africa, in particular wasn't penetrated by the otherwise curious and pecuniary Europeans until the late 19th century. Really. But why?! So, more digging, and some amazing exploration stories were revealed as I dug in. The Scot, Mungo Park, various Englishmen (and later women) all had a go exploring the central African interior around the turn of the eighteenth century. Later, Germans, the French, and Americans took their turns as well. The exploration of Africa had been delayed for hundreds of years because the African interior was extremely dangerous -- and for a number or reasons. Disease (multiple), the hardship of travel into and around dense jungle and desert, extreme weather, inhospitable indigenous tribes - any or all could conspire to ruin one's foray inland from the coast. Over time, the continent had indeed earned the sobriquet of The White Man's Grave, and all business for centuries, including slavery was conducted only from forts and towns along the coastline. Today, African countries are determiing their own fate by trading and realizing mineral and floral riches, but only after the sacrifice of a hundred intrepid explorers alongside the sad fate of millions of Africans sold into slavery. I look at African maps now, be they 15th century or later, as graphic records of a rich continent mostly unknown, with an amazing variety of peoples only guessed at, and redolent of some fascinating exploration stories." Ken Habeeb @kenhabeeb 5/28/2023keywords: khabeeb, printsforsale
