Transcribed Image Text: HISTORICAL
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25
Chapter 25 The Arrival of the Europeans
European imperialism in Africa brought about changes in the culture and daily life of many
Africans. The following selection is from the autobiography of Prince Modupe, who lived in
the Gold Coast, present-day Ghana. In it, Prince Modupe describes the arrival of a mission-
ary in his village during his boyhood. The prince came to the United States in 1922 and
chose to stay. Read his recollection and answer the questions that follow.
Everyone was abuzz about the expected arrival
of the white man with the powerful juju (magic). If
his magic was more powerful than ours, then we
must have it. That was Grandfather's decree.
Grandfather wanted our people to have the best
of everything. I doubt now that he had the slight-
est notion of the sweeping changes the new juju
would bring with it....
We believed in the existence of a demon who
The photographs which the man brought
showing bridges and cities, trains, boats, big
buildings, were not impressive to us.... Having
had no experience with the diminished scale of
things in a photograph, we gained no concept of
magnitude. But there were other pictures which
disturbed me deeply. They were bright depictions
of heaven and hell, which I later learned were
made expressly for mission use. In them, all the
was said to be white in color. But of course this bright angels hovering over the golden streets
had white faces. The tortured creatures in hell
man we were expecting could not be an ogre or
Grandfather would not receive him. There were a
few other white, or nearly white things in our
lives-cotton, white chickens, white cola, grubs
in rotten stumps, white ants. These seemed natu-
ral and everyday enough but a white human was
beyond simple imagining....
Finally, the white man arrived. My first sight of
him was a delightful relief. He did not appear to
have demon quality and was not really white as
milk is white, not the portion of him which
showed, at least; he was more the color of leather.
His wife and a little girl-child were with him....
The child had hair which hung to her shoulders
and was the color of gold. It was in ringlets like
shavings from the chisels of our wood carvers,
not springy and crisp like mine. The three were
led across the clearing to the royal stool where
my grandfather sat.... The white missionary
placed gifts at Grandfather's feet... a Bible, a
camera, a mirror, a kaleidoscope, shoes, a high
hat, cigarettes, matches, canned goods, shiny
trinkets, and yard goods [cloth]....
with the orange-red flames licking over agonized
contorted bodies all had black faces!...
Grandfather invited the white man to stay to
dinner and for the night. The invitation was
accepted.... For the first time in my life I felt
doubt about the desirability of a brown skin and
kinky hair. Why did gold grow above the faces of
little white girls, who according to the pictures
sprouted shining wings as soon as they went to
live in the glorious compound of worthy Deads, a
compound glowing with gold under their pale lit-
tle feet? ... Why did the horned demon who
fueled the fires of hell have a black face like us?
Perhaps the real reason why my limbs trem-
bled and my hands shook was that a little of the
pride and glory which I had felt in being a youth
of my tribe had gone out with the light of this
eventful day.
Adapted from The Epic of Modern Man, edited by L. S.
Stravrianos (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966).