Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Colonial West Africa
European Footholds
By the 13th century the financial stability of several major European powers depended
largely on the supply of West African gold. With gold and intriguing tales of limitless
wealth making their way across the Sahara and Mediterranean, European royalty became
obsessed with West Africa. Thus it was that, at the precise moment when West Africa's em-
pires went into decline and began to fragment, Europe began to turn its attention to the re-
gion.
Prince Henry of Portugal (Henry the Navigator, 1394-1460) was the first to act, encour-
aging explorers to sail down the coast of West Africa, which soon became known as
Guinea. In 1434, a Portuguese ship rounded the infamous Cape Bojador (in present-day
Morocco), the first seagoing vessel to do so since the Phoenicians in 613 BC. Prince Henry
convinced his reluctant seamen with the words: 'You cannot find a peril so great that the
hope of reward will not be greater'.
Some historians believe that the Gambia River's name (and indeed the name of the country) derives from
the Portuguese word
cambio,
meaning 'exchange' or 'trade'.
In 1443 Portuguese ships reached the mouth of the Senegal River. Later voyages reached
Sierra Leone (1462) and Fernando Po (now Bioko in Equatorial Guinea, off the coast of
Nigeria; 1472), while the first Portuguese settlers arrived on Cape Verde in 1462. As the
Portuguese made contact with local chiefs and began to trade for gold and ivory, West
Africa turned on its axis and the focus of its trade (and power) began shifting from the Sa-
hara to the coast.
In 1482 the Portuguese built a fortified trading post at Elmina, on today's Ghanaian
coast. It was the earliest European structure in sub- Saharan Africa. At around the same
time, Portuguese traders and emissaries made their first contact with the Kingdom of Benin
(in modern-day Nigeria), an advanced, stable state whose artisans had mastered highly
skilled bronze and brass casting as early as the 13th century. The cordial relations and res-
ulting trade between Portugal and Benin proved highly profitable.
By the early 16th century, with the Songhaï Empire still ruling much of the West African
interior, French, British and Dutch ships had joined the Portuguese in making regular visits
along the coast, building forts as they went. But with few large rivers that allowed access to
the interior, the European presence in West Africa was confined to the coast and its imme-
