The International Position of Africa Today

FRICA'S role in world history has been a changing one, from that of relative insignificance to one of critical importance in the past thirty years. During the era of geographic exploration five centuries ago Africa attracted nothing like the attention that the Americas and the Far East enjoyed. The lack of good harbors, the failure of rivers to invite explorers into an unknown interior, the unfriendliness of peoples in alliance with depressing climates, tropical fevers, and lands rendered impenetrable by jungle and desert postponed the attention of explorers for three centuries. The other continents of the world were far more attractive and to them Europeans gave their time and devoted their attention. Adventurers in Europe interested in getting at the wealth of the Far East found themselves almost barred from getting there. In the western Atlantic they discovered two great continents holding hands in Central America to keep the curious from reaching Asia through the Pacific. The rivers, the climate, and the wealth of the Americas proved inviting and attractive. The one shortcoming was the unfitness of native populations for the kind of work Europeans needed to extract America's wealth; cheap labor had to be found elsewhere. Africa had such labor and became the supplier of slaves for an America that was to suffer from a shortage of manpower until the twentieth century. In this respect Africa's role was large, but subordinated to that of America

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