Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 January 2017
There is a “black legend” about the climate of tropical countries, that lives on in spite of the knowledge geographers, meteorologists, and specialists in tropical medicine have gained over the past half century. With all the recent publicity given to West Africa, most people in the Western world carry a half-conscious image of “The White Man's Grave”. It is usually elaborated with such elements as “primitive tribes”, burning heat, fever-laden swamps, swarming insects, and miles of trackless jungle. Above all, West Africa is thought of as a place where white men cannot work. Only Africans can work there, and Europeans “go out” for brief periods at a considerable risk to their lives. Most of this image is, of course, quite false. Maximum temperatures on the West African coast would be moderate summer heat in the American mid-West. Insects are generally less annoying than they are in the United States. The forest is by no means trackless, but the home of sedentary agricultural people who have for centuries periodically cut it down to burn a place for their farms. Neither physical capacity for work nor immunity to disease is significantly different between Europeans and Africans on racial grounds.
Still, the image was not made up from imagination alone. In its British version, it was based on facts — facts misunderstood in Africa, reported “at home”, and repeated over several generations. Both the facts and the image have a part in shaping West African relations with Great Britain, and both the facts and the image have changed through time in significant ways. The early nineteenth century represents a crucial phase in these changes. British traders had been on the Guinea coast for two centuries before 1783, but the loss of the American War and the thirteen colonies brought a new phase in Anglo-African relations.
1. The possibility of some degree of racial immunity is not yet completely out of the question, but recent investigations make it appear to be unlikely or insignificant. Recent studies show that certain haemoglobin characteristics in human blood improve the individual's chance of successfully resisting certain diseases. This appears to be the case especially with the sickle-cell trait, which seems to improve childhood resistence to Plasmodium falciparum and is common among African negroes. [Raper, A.B., “Malaria and the Sickling Trait”, British Medical Journal, II (1955), pp. 1186–1189 (24 May 1955)CrossRefGoogle Scholar]. This trait, however, is not strictly parallel to racial type. Some West African peoples have a very large incidence of it, while others have a relatively low one. The ultimate answer must wait for further studies, not only of sickle-cell trait but of other blood characteristics as well. For the time being the answer seems to be sufficiently clear for historical purposes: the really striking immunities of Africans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were overwealmingly acquired in childhood and not inherited.
2. Colbourne, M. J. and Wright, F. N., “Malaria in the Gold Coast”, West African Medical Journal, IV, 3-17, 161–174 (1955)Google Scholar, and works there cited. I should also like to express my thanks to Dr. Colbourne for answering many layman's questions about malariology. Any errors that have crept in are, of course, my sole responsibility.
3. Scott, H. H., A History of Tropical Medicine, 2 vols. (London, 1939), pp. 322–23Google Scholar; Ashburn, P. M., The Ranks of Death (New York, 1947), pp. 135–136 Google Scholar.
4. Shryock, R. H., “Nineteenth Century Medicine: Scientific Aspects”, Journal of World History, III, 881–908 (1957)Google Scholar; Trotter, Thomas, Medica Nautica, 3 vols. (London, 1797–1803), I, 334–344 Google Scholar.
5. Rouppe, L., Observations on Diseases Incidental to Seamen (London, 1772), p. 382 Google Scholar; Hillary, William, Observations on the Changes of the Air and the Concomitant Epidemical Diseases in the Island of Barbados, 2nd ed. (London, 1766), p. vii Google Scholar; Huxham, John, An Essay on Fevers (London, 1750), pp. 2–4 Google Scholar.
6. Schotte, J. P., A Treatise on Synochus Atrabiliosa, A Contagious Fever which raged in Senegal in the Year 1778 (London, 1782)Google Scholar.
7. Fermin, Philippe, Traité des maladies les plus frequent à Surinam (Maastricht, 1764), pp. 4–5 Google Scholar; Bisset, Charles, Medical Essays and Observations (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1766), p. 11 Google Scholar; Lind, James, Essay on the Diseases Incidental to Europeans in Hot Climates (London, 1768), pp. 51-52, 127-28, 159-63, 191–96Google Scholar; Long, Edward, History of Jamaica, 3 vols. (London, 1774), II, 506 Google Scholar. For slightly later, but more detailed works on medical topography see Stormont, Charles, Essai sur la topographie médicale de la côte occidentale d'Afrique (Paris, 1822)Google Scholar and Boyle, James, A Practical Medico-Historical Account of the Western Coast of Africa (London, 1831)Google Scholar.
8. Chisholm, Colin, An Essay on Malignant Pestilential Fever, 2 vols., 2nd ed. (London, 1801), I, 365–68Google Scholar, (first published 1795); Clutterbuck, Henry, An Inquiry into the Seat and Nature of Fever, 2nd ed. (London, 1825), pp. 404–05Google Scholar; Johnson, James, The Influence of Tropical Climates on European Constitutions, 2 vols., new ed. (Philadelphia, 1821), I, 53, (first published London, 1813)Google Scholar.
9. See Kuczynski, R. R., Demographic Survey of the British Colonial Empire (London, 1948), I, 286–300, for some representative estimatesGoogle Scholar.
10. Doughty, E., Observations and Inquiries into the Nature of Yellow Fever (London, 1816), pp. 11–12 Google Scholar; Dickinson, Nodes, Observations on the Inflammatory Endemic … Commonly called Yellow Fever (London, 1819), pp. 121–168 Google Scholar; Bryson, Alexander, Report on the Climate and Principal Diseases of the African Station (London, 1847), pp. 240–247 Google Scholar.
11. “Sketch or a Plan for Erecting a Colony in the Territory belonging to the River Gambia in Africa,” enclosed in Edward Morse to Lord Sydney, 26 April 1784, CO. 267/8. (Here and below, CO. refers to Colonial Office series in the Public Record Office, London.)
12. See Wadstrom, C. B., An Essay on Colonialization, Particularly Applied to the Western Coast of Africa …, 2 vols. (London, 1794–1795)Google Scholar.
13. Beaver, Philip, African Memoranda (London, 1805)Google Scholar, is a full account of this effort.
14. Sierra Leone Company, Account of the Colony of Sierra Leone … (London, 1795), pp. 47–49 Google Scholar.
15. Commissioner's Report, Parliamentary Papers (cited hereafter as P.P.), 1826-27, vii (312); Report of the Select Committee on Sierra Leone and Fernando Po, P.P., 1832, x (661); Sir George Murray, Commons, 15 July 1830, 2 H 25, pp. 402-405.
16. For representative opinions in this discussion see: Long, History of Jamaica; White, Charles, An Account of the Regular Gradations in Man (London, 1799)Google Scholar; Hunter, John, “An Inaugural Disputation on the Varieties on Man” in Bendyshe, T., (Ed.), Anthropological Treatises of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (London, 1865), pp. 360–394 (first published 1775)Google Scholar; SirLawrence, William, Lectures on Physiology, Zoology and the Natural History of Man (London, 1819)Google Scholar; Prichard, J. C., Researches into the Physical History of Man, 2 vols. (London, 1826)Google Scholar; Knox, Robert, Races of Man: a Fragment (London, 1850)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
17. See the forthcoming work of R. Robinson and J. Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians, and Ifemesia, C. C., “British Enterprise on the Niger, 1830-1869” (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, London, 1959)Google Scholar for recent authoritative treatments of the expedition and its aftermath.
18. MacWilliam, J. M., Medical History of the Expedition to the Niger during the Years 1841-42 … (London, 1843)Google Scholar; Buxton, T. F., The Remedy: Being a Sequel to the African Slave Trade (London, 1840), p. 67 Google Scholar.
19. Colbourne, and Wright, , “Malaria in the Gold Coast”, p. 167 Google ScholarPubMed.
20. P.P., 1843, xxxi (83), p. 1.
21. An earlier, private expedition by steamer to the Niger in 1832-34 had lost 83 per cent of its European staff without causing notable comment in the British press.
22. Bryson, , Principal Diseases, pp. 178, 212-218, 220–228 Google Scholar.
23. Boyle, , Medico-Historical Account, pp. 84–137 Google Scholar; Dr. R. R. Madden, Commissioner‘s Report, P.P., 1842, xii (551), pp. 424-25; MacWilliam, , Medical History, 194–98Google Scholar; Bryson, , Principal Diseases, especially pp. 232 ff.Google Scholar
24. Instructions for Surgeons of the Royal Navy (London, 1814)Google Scholar.
25. Bryson, A., “The Prophylactic Influence of Quinine”, Medical Times and Gazette, VIII (new series), 6-7 (7 January 1854)Google Scholar.
26. Russell, P. F., Man's Mastery of Malaria (London, 1955), pp. 105–6Google Scholar.
27. Thomson, T. R. H., “On the Value of Quinine in African Remittent Fever,” The Lancet, I (1846), pp. 244–45 (28 February 1846)Google Scholar.
28. Bryson, , Principal Diseases, pp. 218–19Google Scholar.
29. Fitzpatrick to Grey, 10 March 1850, P.P., 1850, xxxvi [C. 1232], p. 95; “Reminiscences of the Gold Coast”, Colburn's United Service Magazine, III (1850), 584 Google Scholar.
30. A. Bryson, Memorandum for the Chadda Expedition, Nigerian National Archives, Ibadan, Calprof 1/9; Dr.Baikie, W. B., in Reports of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, XXVI, 106–7 (1856)Google Scholar.
31. The annual average mortality from all causes was still 58 per thousand during the three years 1840-42. By 1846-48 it had already dropped to 27 per thousand. ( Bryson, , Principal Diseases, pp. 177–78Google Scholar; P.P., 1850, xxiv (35), appendix, p. 211; P.P., 1867-68, lxiv (158), p. 7).
32. [Melville, Elizabeth], A Residence in Sierra Leone (London, 1849), p. 77 Google Scholar; Benjamin Pine, Annual Report for Sierra Leone, 1847, P.P., 1847-48, xlvi [C. 1005], p. 196; N. W. Macdonald, Evidence to Lords' Slave Trade Committee, 14 May 1849, P.P., 1849, (Lords) xxxviii (32), p. 123; Bannerman to Grey, 7 April 1851, P.P., 1851, xxxiv [C. 1421], p. 198; Stephen J. Hill, Annual Report for the Gold Coast, 1851, P.P., 1852, xxxi [C. 1539], p. 186; and three opinions from the Gambia, quoted in Kuczynski, , Demographic Survey, I, 386 Google Scholar.
33. P.P., 1840, xxx [C. 228], pp. 7, 24; Kuczynski, , Demographic Survey, I, 535–536 Google Scholar.
You have
Access
