EUROPEAN CONTACT AND TECHNOLOGICAL STAGNATION IN WEST AFRICA UP TO THE 20TH CENTURY

Abstract

Africa houses most of the world’s oldest record of human technological achievements: the oldest stone tools in the world have been found in Eastern Africa, and later evidence for tool production by homini ancestors has been found across Sub-Saharan Africa. The history of science and technology in Africa has since then, however, received relatively little attention using comparative standards. This paper interrogates West Africa’s relationship with the industrial West from the period of the first contact through slave trade with a view to establishing that Africa’s relationship with Europe has been based on her exploitation. It also argues that Europe’s technological advancement undermines technological development in West Africa. This work outlines the nature of the development that African kingdoms and empires had achieved in clothing, textile, metallurgy, architecture, education, astronomy among others before contact with the Europeans especially from the 15th century. The paper argues that the slave trade and colonization in the late 19th century undermined industrial development in Africa and further entrenched European economic dominance in the continent. The paper reveals that West Africa’s economic relations with Europe from the 15th century up to the 20th century was characterized by the dumping of cheap and inferior European manufactured goods in the region. And finally, the paper submits that West Africa’s relationship with Europe since independence has been characterized by neocolonialism and underdevelopment which contribute to economic and technological stagnation in the continent.