ABSTRACT
The fact that nineteenth-century British women travellers committed their ideas to paper and were published is of importance, since their narratives formed part of a much bigger literature on west Africa. Travel and exploration narratives were exceedingly popular with many sections of British society during this period, and travel narratives by women thus had potentially large readerships. The refusal to acknowledge the richness of African history, philosophy and society can be traced back to the eighteenth century and the works of such ‘authorities’ as David Hume and Thomas Carlyle. As the reputation of west Africans grew ever darker, so the popular fascination in certain sections of British society with tales of cannibalism also grew. Gender was particularly important in organising ideas about ‘race’ and ‘civilization’, and women were involved in many different ways in the expansion and maintenance of the empire. The chapter also presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book.
