Africa

Europeans of the Renaissance had some knowledge of northern Africa, part of the Islamic world. Spain had been closely involved with the region since the A.D. 700s. However, the relationship between the Spanish and the North Africans included considerable warfare, and during the Renaissance the Spanish attempted to cut all ties. By contrast, before the 1300s Europeans knew little of sub-Saharan Africa (the region south of the Sahara desert). Contact with this area really began in the Renaissance when Europeans explored the coastal areas of Africa.

Northern Africa. During the Middle Ages, Muslim invaders from North Africa had conquered most of the Iberian Peninsula*. Under their rule, people from many different cultures—Islamic, Christian, and Jewish—met and exchanged ideas, and a rich blend of civilizations resulted.

However, the Christian monarchs of Iberian lands struggled to regain control of their lost territory. Between the 700s and the 1400s, they gradually recaptured these lands from the Muslims. The last section of Spain returned to Christian control in 1492. The new rulers forced everyone within their realms to convert to Christianity or leave. The remaining Muslims and Jews were forced out of the region in the 1600s.

These events created a barrier between the Muslim and Christian worlds. After the 1400s, there was little interaction between the Spanish and Portuguese and the peoples of North Africa. As a result, the cultural and technological developments of the European Renaissance did not extend into North Africa. European thinkers were challenging established ideas about politics, religion, and society. The Islamic cultures of northern Africa, however, remained committed to their old ways of thinking.

While Europeans were exploring Asia and the Americas, the rulers of the Muslim world concentrated on expanding their power in the Middle East and Africa. During the 1500s, the OTTOMAN EMPIRE gained control of all of North Africa except Morocco. In 1580 the Ottoman Turks and the Spanish established a truce, agreeing not to attack each other's lands. But the two civilizations had little contact. Even in the early 1600s, when European sailors and merchants arrived in North Africa with the latest ships and weapons, the Ottomans showed little interest in copying the new technologies.

The Renaissance marked the beginning of a dramatic shift in power between Europe and the Islamic world. Europe was expanding in many ways—developing new colonies, trade routes, scientific theories, and cultural viewpoints. For the most part, Muslims did not share in these discoveries because of limited communication with Europeans and because they did not welcome new ideas. Europe came to dominate the globe, and the power of Muslim empires diminished.

Sub-Saharan Africa. Until the 1300s, Europeans knew little about Africa south of the Sahara. When the king of Ethiopia sent messengers to Spain in 1306, the Spanish believed the message had come from "Prester John"—a legendary Christian monarch thought to control distant kingdoms. For many years afterward, most Europeans assumed that Prester John was the ruler of Ethiopia. Christian nations sought alliances with Ethiopia as a way of controlling the Muslim empires in Africa.

Ethiopia remained in contact with Europe. Monks of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which had split off from the Roman Catholic Church many centuries earlier, traveled to Italy and the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. In 1414 Ethiopian monks attended the Council of Florence, a meeting to discuss the possibility of reuniting the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church. Europeans studied the language of Ethiopia, and merchants from Italy and the Catalan region of Spain explored the region. During the Renaissance, European maps of Ethiopia became progressively more accurate.

Meanwhile, European mariners were exploring the islands off Africa's Atlantic shores. In 1312 a sailor from GENOA discovered a sea route to the Canary Islands, just off the northwest coast of Africa. Merchants and raiders from several western European countries visited the Canaries throughout the 1300s. In 1405 the Spanish established a colony there. European sailors also discovered and colonized the islands of the Azores and Madeira to the northwest. These new colonies helped them solve a navigational problem. Ocean currents made sailing to west Africa easy, but returning was difficult. By stopping at Madeira and the Azores on the way home, sailors could avoid the troublesome currents.

Europeans had a special interest in Senegal, a region on Africa's west coast known for gold. By the mid-1400s Portuguese sailors had become regular visitors there. Traveling farther south along the African coast, Portuguese merchants reached present-day Ghana in the late 1400s. They called it the Gold Coast because of its rich gold deposits. The merchants also entered the Kingdom of Benin in what is now Nigeria.

The Portuguese who visited Benin met ambassadors from an unknown land carrying items marked with a cross-shaped symbol. They assumed that these ambassadors came from Prester John's kingdom. In 1482 the Portuguese sent two explorers to seek out Prester John's lands. The first, Diogo Cão, traveled by sea. He found no signs of the mythical Christian kingdom, but he did discover that the African coast stretched southward much farther than Europeans had realized. The second explorer, Pero da Covilhã, traveled by land and eventually reached Ethiopia. In 1488 explorer Bartholomeu Dias became the first European to sail around the southern tip of Africa.

When the Portuguese first visited west Africa, they raided the area for slaves. However, after a series of attacks by African ships, the Portuguese negotiated a truce with the west African nations in 1462. This opened up the area to trade in such valuable goods as gold, pepper, ivory—and slaves, mostly prisoners of African wars. The Portuguese also entertained visitors from many African countries. Several African monarchs considered converting to Christianity, and the king of Kongo actually became a Christian. The Portuguese also established relations with Ethiopia through the explorer Pero da Covilhã, who helped the two kingdoms form an alliance in 1520.

Africa

West African Kingdoms