PREFACE

The time has not yet come for a complete history of the Negro peoples.  Archaeological research in Africa has just begun, and many sources of information in Arabian, Portuguese, and other tongues are not fully at our command; and, too, it must frankly be confessed, racial prejudice against darker peoples is still too strong in so-called civilized centers for judicial appraisement of the peoples of Africa.  Much intensive monographic work in history and science is needed to clear mooted points and quiet the controversialist who mistakes present personal desire for scientific proof.

Nevertheless, I have not been able to withstand the temptation to essay such short general statement of the main known facts and their fair interpretation as shall enable the general reader to know as men a sixth or more of the human race.  Manifestly so short a story must be mainly conclusions and generalizations with but meager indication of authorities and underlying arguments.  Possibly, if the Public will, a later and larger book may be more satisfactory on these points.

W.E.  Burghardt Du Bois.

New York City, Feb. 1, 1915.

[Illustration:  The Physical Geography of Africa]

I AFRICA

“Behold! 
The Sphinx is Africa.  The bond
Of Silence is upon her.  Old
And white with tombs, and rent and shorn;
With raiment wet with tears and torn,
And trampled on, yet all untamed.”

MILLER

Africa is at once the most romantic and the most tragic of continents.  Its very names reveal its mystery and wide-reaching influence.  It is the “Ethiopia” of the Greek, the “Kush” and “Punt” of the Egyptian, and the Arabian “Land of the Blacks.”  To modern Europe it is the “Dark Continent” and “Land of Contrasts”; in literature it is the seat of the Sphinx and the lotus eaters, the home of the dwarfs, gnomes, and pixies, and the refuge of the gods; in commerce it is the slave mart and the source of ivory, ebony, rubber, gold, and diamonds.  What other continent can rival in interest this Ancient of Days?

There are those, nevertheless, who would write universal history and leave out Africa.  But how, asks Ratzel, can one leave out the land of Egypt and Carthage? and Frobenius declares that in future Africa must more and more be regarded as an integral part of the great movement of world history.  Yet it is true that the history of Africa is unusual, and its strangeness is due in no small degree to the physical peculiarities of the continent.  With three times the area of Europe it has a coast line a fifth shorter.  Like Europe it is a peninsula of Asia, curving southwestward around the Indian Sea.  It has few gulfs, bays, capes, or islands.  Even the rivers, though large and long, are not means of communication with the outer world, because from the central high plateau they plunge in rapids and cataracts to the narrow coastlands and the sea.