ABSTRACT
Europeans were interested in Africa long before they occupied it. In the century after the death of the Prophet Mahomet North Africa mounted the greatest threat to European Christendom which it ever faced, and although that threat was parried by Frank Charles Martel and the Byzantine emperor Leo the Isaurian, Spain remained for centuries partly under an alien rule buttressed on occasions by fresh support from Berber Africa. When the Christians finally drove the Muslims out of the Iberian peninsula, their momentum carried Spanish and Portuguese adventurers into and around Africa and made Cape Horn a station on a new route to the east. In more modern times Africa became a place where Europeans got things: slaves for plantations in the west, food for industrialized countries whose peoples were leaving the land for the factory, precious minerals like gold and copper and diamonds and uranium. At first only the coastal areas were exploited, but later the rumoured wealth of the interior tempted organized expeditions to follow in the footsteps of adventurers and missionaries. Although checked at first by the unexpected strength of African kingdoms, white power eventually prevailed – especially when curiosity and enrichment were reinforced by inter-white competition. So, in a final phase of European penetration, Africa was partitioned by official emissaries, part soldiers, part administrators, making territorial claims and fighting for them because traders demanded protection and each European state was afraid that others would take what it did not annex for itself.
