2017-01-02 Mon

The birthplace of mankind, Africa, has always been an intriguing place for explorers. European exploration of Africa began with the Greeks and Romans, who explored and settled in North Africa. And in the medieval and the modern times it was the Portuguese who explored and navigated further into the West African coast.

Now whether these explorations fostered the needs of scientific knowledge or not, we don’t know, but they surely destroyed the cultural identity of Africa and brought about a massive geographical and climatic change.

For "better or for worse," the European exploration of Africa helped integrate Africa "into a general system of knowledge and a world system of economics", and it also linked the continent and its peoples with the rest of the global community.

The Bank of Angola depicts this meet of the Europeans and Africans on their 100 Angolares banknote of 1946. The obverse of the note portrays Francisco Inocencio de Sousa Coutinho, a military man, diplomat, and administrator of Colonial Portugal. He was the Governor and the captain-general in the Captaincy General of the Kingdom of Angola between 1764 and 1772.

The reverse shows the European explorers and the Africans. The note is printed by Thomas de la Rue, London England.