18th–19th Centuries: (Europe’s Modern Perceptions of Africa — The Slave Trade Generating the Image of a Savage Continent Crying Out for Redemption, Both Apol…

18th–19th Centuries: (Europe’s Modern Perceptions of Africa — The Slave Trade Generating the Image of a Savage Continent Crying Out for Redemption, Both Apologists and Abolitionists Sharing Racial Assumptions, Legitimate Commerce Requiring New Knowledge of the Interior, the Evangelical Revival Producing a Missionary Impulse, and Exploration and Mission as Intertwined Forerunners of Cultural Imperialism): Europe’s modern perceptions of Africa essentially dated from the era of the Atlantic slave trade, and particularly from the latter half of the eighteenth century, when both apologists and abolitionists developed the idea that Africa was a land of savagery and primitiveness. For defenders of the trade, Africa was doomed anyway and transportation offered slaves an escape; for abolitionists, Africa needed Europe to rescue it from itself and bring it into Christian civilization. Both views were based on racial concepts and pseudo-scientific theories popular from the eighteenth century onward. Legitimate commerce brought heightened European interest — the new commercial requirements aroused scientific interest in Africa’s potential resources, geography, and population centers, driving exploration from the early nineteenth century. The evangelical revival produced a powerful missionary impulse committed to preaching among heathen peoples, closely linked to abolitionism. Missionary activity and exploration were often intertwined — David Livingstone became the most celebrated exploring missionary. Missionaries and explorers created the political and moral framework within which conquest would take place, projecting imagery that influenced popular perceptions. Europeans in this context were forerunners of cultural imperialism, condemning African culture, religion, and society as the work of the devil or savage heathenism, their very presence meant to demonstrate African inferiority. Yet before about 1880, Europeans in the African interior were vulnerable, often insignificant individuals passing through with minimal impact — the European presence remained largely coastal, and no European power would have envisaged continental conquest.