During World War II, the exigencies of America's national security caused the forging of new and more enduring relations between the African continent and the United States. What had hitherto been a “dark continent” to many Americans became something of significance to the United States during the war. Yet the history of interactions between the two entities dates back several centuries before the global war of 1939–45. The possibility of pre-Columbian American interaction with the region, particularly with West Africa, has been suggested in the literature, even if it has not been firmly established as fact. But the Atlantic slave trade and the establishment of an American colony, Liberia, on the West African coast, represented more significant epochs in the history of relations between the United States and West Africa. This chapter will situate in historical perspective the centuries of interactions between America and West Africa.

West Africa and Pre-Columbian America

The famed Christopher Columbus, the “discoverer” of America, first sailed to the New World in 1492 under the sponsorship of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, who had just established the Spanish nation-state through the union of their two independent kingdoms. The age of exploration in Europe was unfolding in the fifteenth century and enterprising adventurers embarked on voyages of discovery. One of the noted architects of European exploration was Prince Henry the Navigator, son of King John I of Portugal. Between 1444 and 1446, Henry, who was never an explorer himself, organized and sponsored a series of voyages along the coast of West Africa that ultimately led to the circumnavigation of Africa and the charting of an oceanic route to the Indies.