"Consider Africa"

I recently found in the Oxfam book shop, a volume called "Consider Africa" by Basil Mathews, published 1935.    Some paragraphs have made me raise my eye-brows a little !!

Sometime ago I wrote about the Kakamega gold-field ... and in this book, read this:-

"A sensational turn has been given to the situation in Kenya by the discovery of a rich goldfield.  Some six thousand square miles are now thrown open to prospectors.  The land is that of the Kavirondo people, a fine, vigorous, agricultural Bantu folk [BANTU ??   No ! .... they are Nilotic !] ... with an advanced social organisation and a large population.  Now, right inside the native reserve [!!] at a place called Kakamega, a European mining camp and then a planned town have sprung up, with hotels, stores, garages."

Later, it goes on to predict "a struggle for political power which would precipitate catastrophe upon the white settler and the African alike".

I love these old books which often show a lack of understanding of local people, and assert the 'superior' power of the white man .... which 30 years after the publication of this book was no more.   


(Did I previously post this link from Old Africa magazine :-      http://oldafricamagazine.com/the-kakamega-goldfields/   )