The_Dark_Continent

They tried to spread their ideas of how Africa was historically backward by labeling it “The Dark Continent.” The meaning of the name was not just to describe the dark people that live there but also how the continent was in a dark ages like the Europeans had in their civilization centuries before. Their theory actually convinced so many that Africa was a backward country in a standstill of growth that it was even carried over to the United States. The United States actually increased the magnitude of this thought by publishing this scientific racism in much of the media. With so many people believing that Africa was as the Europeans said it was, it became more difficult to say otherwise especially coming from the fact that Africa lacked any written records. This made it very easy for the Europeans to say that the history of the continent had only begun once they arrived and it was only based on the Europeans. The Europeans called this time period the colonial period where wrote their own versions of African history. While the Europeans were making up the history of Africa, African scholars were doing the same except they were writing their history to establish the fact that African societies were developed before the Europeans had invaded and they had many achievements in their history. These Historians were much differently educated then the Europeans as to how they could decipher history. As europeans used the method of finding some evidence that supports their hypothesis about something and come to a conclusion, African historians were trained to see history through songs, dances and paintings. The Europeans saw this as unbelievable and could not consider it a credible way of recording history. Although it took some time, eventually it showed that the African historians had actually laid the base for the true history of Africa. When European historians compared the history of the Europeans to that of the local African historians, they were amazed to see that both came to the same conclusions about certain instances in history. This led to the sources for African history to be considered credible. To this day, historians argue against Afrocentrism as a legitimate idea. Much of the disbelief has to do with the scientific racism that is ongoing to this day. Regardless, it has been proven that Africa's history, recorded from the historians that are native to Africa, is not only true but very thorough and detailed. It is amazing to see how reliable oral sources can be especially after being passed through dozens of generations. Although so much has been learned about the Great Continent of Africa there is still much to discover and understand. Someday hopefully there will be an even more in depth understanding of Africa and Ancient Egypt's history that will give people a great deal of knowledge and insight on how to live in the future. Although we have learned so much about the Great Continent of Africa there is still much to discover and understand. Someday hopefully we will have an even more in depth understanding of Africa and Ancient Egypt's history. It will give us a great deal of knowledge that may even give us insight on how we live our lives in the Future. Sources 1.http://digital.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx'c=nwen;cc=nwen;rgn=full%20text;idno=nwen0005-4;didno=nwen0005-4;view=image;seq=00281;node=nwen0005-4%3A1 2.Trafton, Scott (2004). Egypt Land: Race and Nineteenth-century American Egyptomania. Duke University Press. ISBN 0822333627. http://books.google.com/books'id=YHgv011kWIAC&printsec=frontcover#PPP1,M1. 3.Epic encounters: culture, media, and U.S. interests in the Middle East – 1945-2000 by Melani McAlister