Africa through the Windshield: Seeing Like a Motorist in the Age of Empire

Whether viewed as a land of adventure or as a “Dark Continent” in need of civilization, Africa possessed an allure for Europe’s middle classes in the age of empire that has been well documented by historians. As the automobile became more widely available in the early twentieth century, the massive, forbidding continent became a tempting target for feats of human endurance and a measure of the technological power of the automobile alike. In the early decades of the twentieth century, three independent schemes emerged to traverse Africa by automobile: a former German colonial officer drove from Dar-es-Salaam (Tanzania) to Swakopmund (Namibia) between 1907 and 1909; the French car manufacturer Citroën sponsored the Croisière noire (“Black Crossing”) expedition from 1924-25, which saw a convoy of automobiles depart Algeria in a southeasterly direction for destinations in South Africa, Madagascar, Tanganyika, and Mozambique; and a British couple organized a “Cape to Cairo” expedition from 1924-26.

These expeditions have received some attention from historians of empire, but they appear largely as curiosities. This poster unites approaches from mobility studies, environmental history, the history of technology, and the history of empire to explore how Europeans perceived Africa and its inhabitants at speed, from behind the wheel. As I argue, the African environment alternately enraptured and exasperated European motorists, as the immense power of the tropical climate and the vast expanses of arid deserts inspired appreciations for the sublime power of African nature, whereas the climate and landscape possessed a vexing propensity to sabotage human endeavors. African peoples appear as anonymous, blurred figures—premodern pedestrians to be overtaken and left behind—and yet, these expeditions depended on the invisible labor and vernacular environmental knowledge of countless Africans for their success.

To examine these paradoxes, I pair analysis with fascinating, rich images taken from the widely popular published travelogues of each expedition, inviting my colleagues to “see like a motorist” and engage in a collaborative interpretation of visual evidence. In the process, we will explore African empire as a mediated experience for Europe’s middle classes. First, the automobile mediated European interactions with Africa and Africans, and Europeans perceived each from the imperious heights of the driver’s seat. Second, photographs, newspaper reports, films, and published travelogues mediated the experience of African empire by automobile for millions of vicarious adventurers at home, disseminating the mobile, imperial gaze that travelers formulated through the windshield to a rapturous public with a taste for imperial spectacle. Together, we will explore how these forms of mediation shaped the common European perception of African landscapes and peoples as wild, powerful, and in need of civilization through mobilization.