Europeans did not just discover the Americas — they discovered Africa and mapped the continent, including the entire interior of this “dark” continent. Before the Portuguese rounding of this continent in 1488, no one knew its southernmost point. The Portuguese gradually mapped the west coast of Africa from the mid-1400s on. Africans had NO idea where they were. Even as late as 1868, much of the interior of Africa remained unknown. Joseph Conrad recalls as a child (about his novel Heart of Darkness) pointing to “the region of Stanley Falls which in 1868 was the blankest of blank spaces on the earth’s figured surface”. Soon after, the entire continent was mapped, primarily by the British: all the rivers, mountains, lakes — everything was named by White men.
