Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/159

 POLITICAL AND SOCIAL RELATIONS. 127 numerous Nigritian tribes, while more or less mixed Berber groups roam over the tracts to the north of the Senegal. Intercourse with the European traders has created new centres of attraction for these various peoples, thus modifying their social aggregates and alliances. The West European States, influenced by the interests of their respective subjects, have moreover forcibly occupied or secured by treaty and purchase the districts bordering on the central markets. Thus Portugal, the first to arrive as a conqueror, possesses the Bissagos archipelago and' a part of the adjacent coast, a mere fragment of a domain which once stretched away to the boundless regions of Sudan. England has established her trading stations at the mouth of the Gambia, and in several other places in that basin. But France has annexed a far more extensive territory, embracing all the coast from Cape Blanco to the river Sulum, a stretch of 450 miles, and the fluvial zone extending for 150 miles between the Nunez and the Mallecory rivers. Between these two great coast regions the basin of the Casamanza forms an enclave also assigned to France, while in the interior the possessions of the same power stretch from Cape Verd in a straight line for over 600 miles eastwards beyond the sources of the Senegal right away to the Niger. Lastl}^, in virtue of a treaty recently concluded with Portugal, the Futa-Jallon highlands have been, if not annexed at least declared a French protectorate. In the same way, by agreement with Great Britain the L^pper Joliba basin has been reserved as a field for the future expansion of French political influences. But these are mere outward political changes, and although many writers still regard the Negroes as an immovable race incapable of progress or improvement, great revolutions have already taken place, profoundly modifying their social condition. The gradual spread of the conquering races from east to west has been continued, the Mendingoes encroaching on the coast populations, while the Fulahs have already reached the marine estuaries. The Mussulman propaganda accompanies and even precedes these ethnical displacements, and many indepen- dent black communities have already adopted Islam, which however in most cases acquires a mystic character more vague, less dogmatic and less rigid than amongst the Arabs. Usages and industries also become modified through the disj^lacements, inter- minglings of races, fresh political combinations and religious conversions. And while these great changes are progressing in the interior, the foreign traders established on the seaboard act as a counterpoise to the westward movement of the Mandingoes and Fulahs, and constantly acquire greater influence through their expanding commercial relations. The object of their traffic has also changed. They no longer purchase man himself, as they had done for nearly four hundred years, but rather the fruits of his industry ; and with the suppression of the slave trade the incessant intertribal wars caused by it are gradually coming to an end. Thus this great event is of vast importance in the renovation of Africa. But although whites and blacks no longer mutually consider each other as anthropo- phagists, the responsibility for the horrors committed remains uneffaced. If men