The Shadow of the Sun

by Ryszard Kapuściński

Officially, but only officially, colonialism reigned in Africa from the time of the Berlin West Africa Conference (1884­85), during which several European states (mainly England and France, but also Belgium, Germany, and Portugal) divided the whole continent among themselves, a status that persisted until Africa won independence in the second half of the twentieth century. In reality, however, colonial penetration began much earlier, as long ago as the fifteenth century, and flourished over the next five hundred years. The most shameful and brutal phase of this conquest was the trade in African slaves, which went on for more than three hundred years. Three hundred years of raids, roundups, pursuits, and ambushes, organized, often with the help of African and Arab partners, by white men. Millions of young Africans were deported across the Atlantic in horrific conditions, stuffed down the hatches of ships; those lucky to emerge alive would with their sweat build the riches and might of the New World. Africa—persecuted and defenseless—was depopulated, destroyed, and ruined. Whole stretches of the continent were deserted; barren bush supplanted what had been sunny flowering lands. But the most painful and lasting imprints of this epoch were left upon the memory and consciousness of the Africans: centuries of disdain, humiliation, and suffering gave them an inferiority complex, and a conviction, deep in their hearts, of having been wronged.