In the Mid-1800s the Europeans Imperialised Africa for three main reasons. Those reasons being Cultural, Political, and Economic. The Europeans were encouraged by all the resources, and a way to find a peaceful way to divide Africa up. What motive did the Europeans have about taking over Africa? The best motive for the Europeans was economic because they needed the natural resources for the benefits. The Cultural driving force is the idea of racial superiority. The Europeans believed they were better than the Africans and it was their duty to colonize. “The Europeans were more advanced than the Africans both in technology and science” (Doc.C). This statement from Doc. C explains how the driving force was cultural, meaning they thought they
King Leopold II ruled the Congo Free State and he mistreated his slaves for years before European leaders became aware of the forced labor. This was the beginning of European imperialism in Africa. The motivation behind Europeans imperializing Africa was the economic gain, competition between nations, and the technology and resources.
Prior to the movement of European Imperialism in Africa, a major law was passed. In 1807, the British government banned the Transatlantic slave trade. As a result, in 1833, slavery as a whole was completely demolished. Slavery was a very profitable trade for not only Britain, but many other European powers. Without the slave trade, many European nations were looking for a new way to expand their power of others. Therefore, many European nations switched their focus and claimed their share of the African continent, in order to continue their economic and social dominance (Document A).
The main reason for European imperialism in Africa was for political reasons. According to Document A, the purpose of the colonization of African countries was for political competition between European countries (Doc. A). The partition of Africa in 1884 through 1885 showed that France and Britain were the biggest winners in seizing Africa. The British took most of north and south Africa, when the French took most of western Africa. According to Document B, John Ruskin said,” This is what England must either do or
European Imperialism heavily impacted the African continent through culturally, economic, and political ideas. This era of history is heavily drenched in the aspect of ethnocentrism, which is the belief that one’s own culture is superior that of another. The Europeans colonized Africa believing that they could bring civilization, but they were often ignorant of Africa’s very complex societies. The European powers divided up the continent of Africa among themselves, without any consent from the people who actually lived there. The tribal stratification was changed to a caste system where racial, ethnic, and religious differences were of utmost importance, as delegated by European rule. The structure and business of the African economy was
Before the Europeans began to explore Africa, little was known about the continent. However, after some initial exploration of Africa, the Europeans soon realized how economically important this area was, and how much they could profit from it. At the time, European countries had only small colonies in Africa, but after they realized that they could make money from the resources in the inner regions of Africa, they wanted to invade the African regions and assume control. This led to “ the race” and ultimately, the partition of Africa. There were many motives for the Europeans to imperialize Africa. There were humanitarian and religious goals, political goals, military goals, and most importantly, there were economic interests. During the Berlin conference, The European powers decided that they were going to spread the three C’s (Christianity, Commerce, and Civilization) in Africa. To do this, the conference had three aims “ Ensure free trade for all nations throughout the Congo, to ensure free navigation for all countries on the Niger River of West Africa, and agree to set rules by which the Europeans could proceed to divide the rest of the continent.” (Part II: The European Conquest, Pg 11). Later in the document it states that not one African representative was present at the Berlin Conference to discuss Africa's future. The European people tricked themselves into thinking that what they were doing
In the game Battleship, the winner sinks as many ships as it can in order to be seen as the powerful leader. In the beginning, countries such as Britain were trading with Africa simple things such as spices. Later, they decided to take the country to get all of Africa’s resources. What was the driving force behind Europeans imperialism in Africa? The driving force to take over these lands and the people was political competition, cultural attitudes and economics.
There were all types of reasons that allowed the Europeans to come to Africa and colonize and be successful. They were not successful for very long though only about fifty or a few more years. This was highly due to the advancements in their technology before a lot of the other countries. So Europeans did not actually conquer Africa, but they did have a superiority over them for a number of years. Soon everyone would catch up in the technological advances, and colonialism would come to an
There are many factors that played an important role in the process of taking over Africa for various European countries. Between 1870-1890 European powers such as Great Britain, France, Germany,
What was the driving force behind European imperialism in Africa? The main reason was for profit. King Leopold ll was really the first person to industrialize Africa. Leopold really just abused Africa, when he was done with it, he was worth 500 million dollars. Proving that the only reason European nations went into Africa is because they wanted the raw material that came from it, so that they can profit and make money.
One such justification was that they were actually helping the Africans (Rhodes 178). Kipling considered it their duty to rescue "sullen peoples" who were "half devil and half child" (146). When described in that manner, it is hard to imagine a decent person who would not want to reach out to the wretched souls. The Europeans brought new wonders of technology to Africa to try to bring it up to par with Europe (Lugard 380-1). They did bring a "material improvement" to the lives of the Africans in this manner (Chamberlain 181). The Europeans built schools, improved communications and transportation, and also brought new medicines (Greenberger 93). Still,
What urged the Europeans to dominate African nations? Before the 19th century, Europeans feared entering Africa due to disease, such as malaria, until they invented a cure in 1820. Improved technology allowed them to venture into the country and investigate. An abundant of factors promoted the extensive endeavor. Politics, cultural attitudes, and economics drove the European forces to invade Africa.
The Europeans in Africa had two simple goals: impose their language, religion, and culture on the native peoples of Africa, and gain a financial advantage over their competitors by stealing Africa's natural resources. Every nation on the African continent was plundered in the name of either God, Imperialism, or money, except for two: Liberia (colonized by African Americans) and Ethiopia (briefly occupied by the Italians). These are the only African nations that neither experienced colonialism or imperialism under the Europeans during
The reason for British Imperialisation of Africa was for wealth, minerals, hold of authority, trade of gold and other resources and agricultural advancement. The British occupations of Africa were met with serious resentment by the native Africans. These resulted in wars and other violent conflicts. Imperialism by definition is were a nation or empire extends its power by the colonization of territories. This may include exploitation of these territories. Many empires throughout history have imperialized many territories; one of those being The British Empire. The British Empire was one of the largest and most successful empires the world has ever seen. At its peak, this empire covered about 412 million people, which was 23% of the world’s
Many critics today find it easy to label historical novels and other pieces of literature as products of discrimination. They often think that the novels written one to two centuries ago explicitly discriminate minorities, women, and people espousing radical views on society. One critic that accused a twentieth century novel of discrimination was Chinua Achebe. In his essay “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’, Achebe describes Conrad as being racist towards Africans and argues that European civilization was essentially below that of the African natives. The author of Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, explores the colonization of Africa by the Europeans and argues that imperializing Africa will incur more collateral damage towards both the Africans and the Europeans than what was originally expected. Based on a through
Africans owned land, farmed, made good money, and had happy families. C2(Perkins, “Africa”). The Europeans quest for more land and power led them to pursue Africa and colonize it. Europeans felt the need to colonize Africa because of three main reasons; political, social, and economic. Economically Africa was making good money because of their resources and because of trade. When Europeans colonized Africa they established trade ports and started making money off of trade. Socially and politically the Europeans were gaining more land and becoming more powerful. A1 (“Iweriebor,The Colonization of Africa”). The motivations for the colonization of Africa was for their natural resources, the opposition to slave trade, and also again for political, social, and economic reasons. The Europeans were inspired to colonize Africa by trying to utilize the potential amount of wealth they could make with Africa’s resources. Africa natural resources were and still are gold, copper, iron, diamonds, salt, etc. With the many resources that Africa has and how much money people could make off of these resources Europe took control of a way of get more money from natural resources. Europeans opposed slave trade and going to Africa they could abolish it and also repopulate areas in Africa because the population has decreased with African people being