
It never existed
Equestrian Oba and his attendants (1550-1680): detail of a brass plaque, one of many adorning the Court of Benin (in modern-day Nigeria), and plundered by the British Army c1892. Courtesy the Met Museum, New York The idea of a ‘precolonial’ Africa is theoretically vacuous, racist and plain wrong about the continent’s actual history by Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò is professor of Africana Studies at the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell University in New York. He is the author of How Colonialism Preempted Modernity in Africa (2010) and Africa Must Be Modern (2014). We should expunge, forever, the epithet ‘precolonial’ or any of its cognates from all … Continue reading It never existed