Africa, Its Geography, People and Products and Africa-Its Place in Modern History THE OXFORD W. E. B. DU BOIS Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Editor The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America: 1638-1870 Introduction: Saidiya Hartman The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study Introduction: Lawrence Bobo The Souls of Black Folk Introduction: Arnold Rampersad John Brown Introduction: Paul Finkelman Africa, Its Geography, People and Products Africa-Its Place in Modern History Introductions: Emmanuel Akyeampong Black Reconstruction in America Introduction: David Levering Lewis Black Folk: Then and Now Introduction: Wilson f. Moses Dusk of Dawn Introduction: Kwame Anthony Appiah The World and Africa Color and Democracy: Colonies and Peace Introductions: Mahmood Mamdani and Gerald Horne In Battle for Peace: The Story of My Eighty-third Birthday Introduction: Manning Marable The Black Flame Trilogy: Book One The Ordeal of Mansart Introduction: Irrent Edwards Afterword: Mark Sanders The Black Flame Trilogy: Book Two Mansart Builds a School Introduction: Brent Edwards Afterword: Mark Sanders The Black Flame Trilogy: Book Three Worlds of Color Introduction: Brent Edwards Afterword: Mark Sanders Autobiography of W. E. B. Du Bois Introduction: Werner Sollars The Quest of the Silver Fleece Introduction: William L. Andrews The Negro Introduction: John K. Thornton Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil Introduction: Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham Gift of Black Folk: The Negroes in the Making of America Introduction: Glenda Carpio Dark Princess: A Romance Introduction: Homi K. Bhabha AFRICA, ITS GEOGRAPHY, PEOPLE AND PRODUCTS and AFRICA-ITS PLACE IN MODERN HISTORY W. E. B. DuBois Series Editor, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Introduction by Emmanuel Akyeampong OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS For Cornel West OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dares Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright© 2007 by Oxford University Press Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available. ISBN: 978-0-19-531180-8(Series) ISBN: 978-0-19-532580-5(Volume) Contents SERIES INTRODUCTION: THE BLACK LETTERS ON THE SIGN ix INTRODUCTION xxiii AFRICA, ITS GEOGRAPHY, PEOPLE AND PRODUCTS The Geography of Africa 1 The People 7 The Languages 12 The Products 12 Political Divisions of Africa 13 Independent Africa 16 Partially Independent Africa 18 British Protectorates in South Africa 23 Mandated Territories 27 Belgian Africa 27 French Africa 28 Portuguese Africa 31 Spanish Africa 31 Italian Africa 31 AFRICA-ITS PLACE IN MODERN HISTORY 35 INDEX 61 WILLIAM EDWARD BURGHARDT DUBOIS: A CHRONOLOGY 63 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 71 vii The Black Letters on the Sign: W. E. B. DuBois and the Canon " ... the slave master had a direct interest in discrediting the personality of those he held as property. Every man who had a thousand dollars so invested had a thousand reasons for painting the black man as fit only for slavery. Having made him the com panion of horses and mules, he naturally sought to justify himself by assmning that the negro was not much better than a mule. The holders of twenty hundred million dollars' worth of property in human chattels procured the means of influencing press, pulpit, and politician, and through these instrumentalities they belittled our virtues and magnified our vices, and have made us odious in the eyes of the world. Slavery had the power at one time to make and unmake Presidents, to construe the law, and dictate the policy, set the fashion in national manners and customs, inter pret the Bible, and control the church; and, naturally enough, the old masters set themselves up as much too high as they set the manhood of the negro too low. Out of the depths of slavery has come this prejudice and this color line. It is broad enough and black enough to explain all the malign influences which assail the newly emancipated millions to-day. ... The office of color in the color line is a very plair1 and subordinate one. It simply advertises the objects of oppression, insult, and persecution. It is not the maddening liquor, but the black letters on the sign telling the world where it may be had ... Slavery, stupidity, servility, poverty, dependence, are undesirable conditions. When these shall cease to be coupled with color, there will be no color line drawn." -FREDERICK DOUGLASS, "The Color Line," 1881. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963) was the most prolific and, arguably. the most influential African American writer of his generation. The nov elist and poet James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) once noted the no single work had informed the shape of the African American literary tradition, except perhaps Uncle Tom's Cabin, than had DuBois's seminal collection of essays The Souls ofB lack Folk (1903). While trained as a sociologist at Berlin and as a historian at Harvard, Du Bois was fearless in the face of genre--even when some of the genres that he sought to embrace did not fully embrace him in return. DuBois published twenty two single-author works, twenty-one in his lifetime (his Autobiography, edited by his friend and literary executor, Herbert Aptheker, would not be published until ix