A discussion of the development of lighthouses in Africa inevitably involves a study of the history the continent, which is, sadly, a depressing task. Excluding Egypt, which has a long and illustrious history of civilisation, the development of Africa has always lagged behind the rest of the world and it has greatly suffered as a result. Naturally, the history of those African countries bordering the Mediterranean is different from the rest, influenced by the great civilisations of the Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans. Later, large parts of north and east Africa were affected by the Muslim expansion from the seventh century onwards, although much of this involved only the coastal areas. Then came the European invaders – again, mostly from the sea. These peoples were involved in a great act of world discovery and Africa was just one region to be affected by this sea-borne revolution that exploited lands and their native peoples and involved great cruelty and greed. Africa suffered from numerous major wars during the period of European Imperialism and was badly affected by both World Wars, a fact that is often forgotten. Then, from the middle of the twentieth century, just as independence allowed the fledgling nations to breathe freely, released from their Imperial chains they fell victim one by one to their own despotic dictators wielding one-party axes. Through these men, the Soviet Union tried to restore a new kind of Empire, but the attempt failed with the break-up of the Soviet Bloc in the 1990s. With a few exceptions where a good measure of stability has been achieved, these devastating winds of revolutionary change have produced much uncertainty for the future of the rest of the continent.

Nevertheless, Africa contains many fine examples of lighthouses, all of them built in the European Imperial period. In other articles we present the thesis that the British pioneered lighthouse development in Asia. This took place only when the extensive British Empire offered sufficient stability. The same arguments apply to Africa, a continent whose inhabitants have been unable to contribute to their own destinies for centuries. With the unique exception of the Egyptian Pharos, the history of lighthouses in Africa is almost exclusively associated with the relevant European nations that claimed ownership over a given country. A study of each country and its recent history shows a familiar pattern.

We have discussed how the Phoenicians are considered to have been the first to circumnavigate the great continent, but this was, as far as we know, a one-off event. Although mythology confidently asserted that the event had indeed occurred, there was no transfer of knowledge, no maps or records of any kind from those early times that enabled later seafarers to capitalise on it. Discoveries had to be made anew and it was necessary to relearn the ways of coping with unfavourable sailing conditions in ships of limited capability.

The Portuguese were the earliest Atlantic seafarers in the period since the fourteenth century. Fishing was their main reason for venturing into the Atlantic and in this quest they got as far as Iceland, which had been discovered by the Vikings some six or seven centuries earlier and then virtually forgotten. Fishing was their earliest reason for exploring the waters of the Atlantic coast of northeast Africa and it was not long before we could describe them as early colonialists. After first taking Ceuta in Morocco in 1415, they occupied Madeira in 1419. Led by Prince Henry (the Navigator), the ‘Age of Discovery’ had begun. Soon the simple quest for fish had grown into something altogether different. A new route was needed to the east where the adventurous believed they would find plentiful supplies of gold and spices. But the design of their ships imposed major limitations on what could be achieved. At first, seamen were reluctant to go farther south than Cape Bojador, just south of the Canary Islands in what is more recently called Spanish Sahara. Difficult conditions occurred here and it was hard to sail back north against the prevailing winds. Then in 1434, one of Prince Henry’s ships rounded this Cape whose dangerous reefs stretch far out to sea. This opened the way for further exploration to the south. In 1442, Nuno Tristao sighted Cape Blanco in the north of what is now Mauretania and discovered fabulous fishing grounds off the coast around this point. Just beyond the Cape, Tristao landed at Arguim in 1444 where, a year later, the first Portuguese factory, or trading post to tap the trans-Saharan trade of Western Sudan was established. It was also to become the first outlet for slaves [1, 2]. The point of land on the continent called Cape Verde was discovered in 1444, but the island group remained hidden until 1455 when the Venetian Cadamosto probably was the first to land there.

Further discovery and territorial claims in Africa was speedy throughout the rest of the fifteenth century. They reached Sierra Leone in 1460. Soon after this, they crossed the equator for the first time. It is hard for us today to understand the seriousness of something as simple as crossing the equator. The seamen of these time relied heavily upon the stars, especially Polaris, the pole star, for their guide, but the constellations are different in the southern hemisphere. Polaris is below the horizon and new ways of astronavigation were needed.

In 1482, the Portuguese navigator Diego Cao sailed into the mouth of the River Zaire. A key event occurred in 1487 when Bartolomeu Dias discovered the southernmost point on Africa, Cape Agulhas, which was to be the key to the East Indies routes. Vasco da Gama used the southern cape route for his voyage to Calicut in India in 1497 and various anchorages along the shore were subsequently used during the voyages of discovery. However, the region was not actually settled until the arrival of the Dutch in 1652, when their East India Company was expanding its trade routes between Europe and the East Indies and began to use the Cape as a base for rest and recuperation of both men and ships.

The Portuguese concentrated their presence in the western Indian Ocean throughout the 16th and seventeenth centuries and maintained a regular presence in the lands that presently constitute Mozambique in preference to the Cape of Good Hope. However, by this time, they had become leading exponents of the cruel slave trade, shipping millions across the Atlantic to Brazil. The other European nations joined what was to become arguably the darkest part of European history. These were truly uncivilised times in which the European nations behaved disgracefully, not only towards Africans, Arabs, and Asians, but also towards each other. These were not times of civilisation and civility and certainly not times conducive to the creation of lighthouses. Indeed, even in their own countries, most European nations had yet to develop actual networks of navigational aids, although they certainly had good examples of individual lighthouses.

The arrival of the British in South Africa in 1795, along with the might of the Royal Navy, resulted in the formal annexation of the Cape by Britain in 1814. By this time, Britain was pretty much able to do whatever she wished. With such an early development of western civilisation occurring here, it is not surprising that we find the oldest lighthouse in Africa at Green Point (1826) in Cape Town. A lighthouse on Cape Agulhas followed in 1846. No other lighthouses existed in Africa at this time and lighthouses in Asia were just beginning to develop.

The British made the trading of slaves illegal in 1807 and spent the remainder of the nineteenth century trying to repair the damage they had caused over the preceding centuries. The fight against slavery was continued in a number of ways, not least by having a squadron of Royal Navy ships based in Freetown, Sierra Leone, to patrol the West African coast, intercept ships that might be carrying slaves, and repatriate them to Africa. The Americans tried similar experiments in the lands that were to be called Liberia. Despite this, the European capitalists and politicians continued to treat Africa as a tabletop game, its lands available to win or lose almost by the throw of dice.

In the latter part of the century Germany and Italy joined the competition, with the former becoming increasingly powerful under the leadership of Otto von Bismarck. So powerful were the European nations and so weak were the native African peoples that they could only be spectators as their lands were carved up according to the whims of people who had never set foot on their shores.

The 1880s heralded a short period of great change during which the European nations literally raced each other to mop up as much territory in Africa as they could. Historians dubbed this period “The Scramble for Africa”, although Ferguson prefers to call it “The Scramble of Africa” [3]. In 1885, Bismarck called a conference in Berlin to discuss the future of Africa. Ostensibly, the conference would discuss such things as free trade and navigation along the Congo and Niger rivers. The moral and material well being of the people was to be debated and support for action against slavery continued. However, it was clear that sovereignty issues were the main item on the agenda. Effective occupation of the lands appeared to be the only criterion for ownership by European imperialists. Not a single African was invited to the conference.

In 1885, Germany annexed Zanzibar, the island region of present-day Tanzania. In the 16th century it had been seized by Portugal as a base for raids on the mainland of Africa and in the 17th century came under the rule of Omani Arabs who developed it into a commercial trading centre for the West Indian Ocean. Its Sultan introduced Indonesian cloves to its fertile soils and by the time of his death in 1856, it had captured three-quarters of the world market. In 1890, Germany traded Zanzibar with Britain in exchange for the island of Heligoland, located just off its North Sea shore. The British made Zanzibar a protectorate and it achieved full independence in 1964, but almost immediately became part of Tanzania.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the British had acquired almost all of the land in the line stretching from the Cape to Cairo. They ‘owned’ Cape Colony, Natal, Bechuanaland (Botswana), Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), Nyasaland (Malawi), Sudan, Uganda and Kenya, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Gold Coast (Ghana), Nigeria and much of Somaliland (Somalia). Germany had parts of East Africa, Southwest Africa (Namibia) Cameroon and Togo. France governed Tunisia, Algeria, Mauritania, Senegal, French Sudan, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Upper Volta, Dahomey, Niger, Chad, French Congo, Gabon and Madagascar. Portugal governed Mozambique and Angola, and retained a small enclave in Guinea, later to be called Guinea Bissau. Italy was in charge of Libya, Eritrea, and most of Somaliland, whilst the Belgian King (no less) personally owned the huge lands of the Belgian Congo. Even Spain held an interest in southern Morocco, lands known as the Rio de Oro.

Of course, it was inevitable that World War I would have a major impact on this land ownership. Those lands that had been claimed by Italy and Germany were invaded by British and French troops and both liberated and annexed. These actions were followed up by the League of Nations conference in 1922, which provided the model for the United Nations of post WWII. The 1922 agreements saw Egypt and Abyssinia as the only fully independent African nations and confirmed the remaining countries under their existing landlords.

The 1960s were a time of great change for the whole of Africa. It was a time when most of the countries had been able to establish clear identities and through a variety of means, some peaceful, others violent, had persuaded their European masters to release them from the yokes of imperialism. Of the 33 countries that have a coastline, no less than 13 achieved independence in 1960 alone, with a further six by 1968. By 1965, Britain has given independence to all of her African possessions, but Spain and Portugal were less willing holing on to their lands until much later – Mozambique and Angola to 1975 under Portugal and Morocco to 1979 under Spain.

In summary, then, we find that (excluding the Egyptian Pharos) the British in South Africa built the first lighthouses in Africa. Much of the impetus to develop a network of major lighthouses around the West African coast was lost because of the development of the Suez Canal, which resulted in a marked reduction of sea traffic after 1867. Little of significance was built until the twentieth century when the development by European nations had reached full speed.

References

1. C R Boxer, “The Portuguese Seaborne Empire 1415-1825”, Carcanet, 1991.

2. J. H. Parry, “The Age of Reconnaissance: Discovery, Exploration and Settlement 1450 to 1650”, University of California Press, 1981.

3. Niall Ferguson, “Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World”, 2003, Penguin.