Hussar
Legend
I often wonder why. They were clearly willing to try non-European settings--Planescape, Council of Wyrms, and a lot of the Realms shows that. Were they afraid they couldn't do it right, was it some sort of belief that gamers wouldn't want to play humans who weren't white, or was Africa just not cool in the same way that the popularity of kung fu movies and ninjas made Oriental Adventures cool?
Probably a bit of all of the above.