Imperialism
By the late 19th and early 20th century, Europe was expanding its borders. In an attempt to grow its economy and culture, Europe’s superpowers began to search for new soil. Africa was an easy target; it wasn’t politically secure and it wasn’t modernized. In addition, it had reliable soil which would enable Europe to produce cash crops. European nations began to pour into Africa, called the Scramble for Africa. Soon, Europe took control of Africa, taking raw materials and destroyed African culture. Imperialism is the one to blame for exploitation of people and materials, the destruction of traditional culture, and unnaturally dividing up the land which causes a bunch of problems down the road. There is no doubt that imperialism has negatively affected the world.
European superpowers exploited Africans and their raw materials. In the 19th century Europe began to industrialize. Europe’s new industry demanded for raw materials. Africa is relatively close and had the resources they needed. In 1882, “The British next seized control of the government as a whole and forcibly reshaped the Egyptian economy from a system based on multiple crops that maintained the country’s self-sufficiency to one that emphasized the production of a few crops.”i Perhaps Great Britain’s invasion of Egypt is the perfect example of the exploitation of raw materials. Before the takeover, Egyptians had crops which would keep them self-sufficient. By the time the British forcibly changed the economy and the agriculture, the Egyptians were no longer self-sufficient. The British only wanted the land and already implemented agricultural infrastructure to grow cash crops for Europe. The production of cash crops mainly focused on “cotton, raw silk, whea...
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...Africans for taxes, making them work on the colonies projects and this diminished the self-sufficient families. In addition, the unnatural division of land caused a great amount of problems. Tribes and different ethnic groups had lived separate for hundreds of years. When the colonies came in, they imposed new laws which forced the different tribes to live close together; war was inevitable. The colonies which forced the different tribes and ethic to live together would cost the Africans an estimated 800,000 lives, just in Rwanda. All in all, European imperialism had no benefit to the country which was being exploited. In conclusion, European imperialism in Africa caused a great deal of problems and overall had a negative impact on African culture, there is no doubt that any kind of imperialism was good, for it always boiled down to one country exploiting the other.
Europe, in the late 1800’s, was starting a land grab on the African continent. Around 1878, most of Africa was unexplored, but by 1914, most of Africa, with the lucky exception of Liberia and Ethiopia, was carved up between European powers. There were countless motivations that spurred the European powers to carve Africa, like economic, political, and socio–cultural, and there were countless attitudes towards this expansion into Africa, some of approval and some of condemnation. Europe in this period was a world of competing countries. Britain had a global empire to lead, France had competition with Britain for wealth and so did other nations like Germany and Russia.
When the Age of Imperialism began in 1875, it effected Africa in many ways. Nowhere was the competition for colonies more intense than in Africa. Europeans went after North and South Africa splitting up the continent. Egypt and Sudan were taken over by Britain to obtain the Suez Canal. Imperialism helped to develop Africa’s economy and turned it into a continent of colonies.
Conquest and colonization has always played a role in the history of European powers. Throughout the centuries many different European empires have attempted to make their mark on multiple different continents. Some have found success, while others have failed. One case in particular, in which European nations could not quite find stability, was in North America. Factors such as the American Revolution, U.S. westward expansion, and the Monroe Doctrine pushed European nations out of North America. Afterwards, the late 19th century marked the beginning of New Imperialism. As New Imperialism began, Africa became important to European nations in their “Scramble for Africa”.
Throughout the 19th century, European Imperialism had a major effect on Africa. As countries expanded in terms of wealth, resources, and innovation, more territory and workers were needed. The first solution to solve these problems was to begin colonizing in Africa. The driving force for imperialism in Europe and Africa was mainly economical. This economical approach was established through many ways including cultural and nationalistic ideas.
Egypt appealed to Great Britain for several reasons and was imperialized in 1882. Egypt was rich in ivory, gold, and spices (Berard). Great Britain was in...
Although imperialism helped the colonized people by improving the economy and the lives of the people, for the most part imperialism hurt the colonized people because the people were forced to grow cash crops which led to death by starvation.
As the 20th century approached, more and more countries grew desperate for land, resulting in an imperialistic activity known as the Scramble for Africa. The European imperialists were motivated by three main factors; economic, political, and social. These factors made countries compete for power and eventually led to the scramble for African territory. Although economic expansion at times was a positive outcome of European imperialism in Africa, these positive effects are outweighed by negative outcomes such as loss of culture and independence.
The way countries, nations or states act and base their policies on many times reflect what their past was like. This is very true in the case of Africa. The only problem is that Africa is said to have no history. This just means that Africa’s many cultures did not affect the way imperialists and other influences acted towards the huge continent. Everything was based on their interests and consequently this meant that the way of dealing with Africa in every way was based on Western traditionalists. To this we must answer the question how has the Western World affected Africa’s present stage and what must be done to undo what is wrong and hopefully correct this situation.
One of the main reasons Europeans colonized Africa was for their useful resources. There are countless assets in the African landscape that were wanted by other nations. The European countries had access to some of the worlds most needed resources such as cotton, oils, coal, gold, and diamonds because they controlled Africa. This is shown on a chart of African colonies and their exports. ("Selected African Colonies and Their Exports" 269). This shows how the European countries carefully selected the land they did, to get certain resources they needed or wanted to use to benefit from. Another chart from a book by Trevor Lloyd, (Lloyd, The British Empire), displays the large jump of exports to Africa from 1854 to 1900. What that means is once Great Britain established complete control of South Saharan Africa, they began to export the resources they found that they could use. These charts are proof of how the European's wanted resources, and that is one of the main reasons for the imperialization of Africa. Not only did the European nations want the continent's resources, but they had an equal hunger for power.
Imperialism is the domination by one country of political, economic, or cultural life of another country or region and occurred during the 1800’s in Africa. Imperialism in Africa was caused by four factors in Europe: economy, politics/military, humanitarian/religion, and Social Darwinism (Ellis). The Industrial Revolution in Europe caused the need for oversea expansion because the manufacturers needed things like: rubber, petroleum, and palm oil all of which Africa had. Europe moving into Africa was also caused by nationalism, when France went into Africa so did Britain (Ellis). The difference between France and Britain was the way of rule they used. There are four different methods of imperialism: direct, indirect, protectorate, and sphere of influence. The most popular were direct and indirect. The French used direct, they sent officials and soldiers from France to administer their colonies and their purpose was to inflict French culture on their colonies and make them into French provinces (Ellis). The British, however, used indirect, they used chiefs to oversee their colonies and encouraged the children in the colonies to get education in Britain. The British “Westernized” their colonies and only used military force when threatened (Ellis).
Unfortunately, even though European imperialism in Africa was justified, many Africans are still suffering from the effects to this day.
During the 19th century, Europe found a way to use Africa for its own growth and power. Using Africa for their resources, the Europeans colonized Africa without a second thought. European imperialism in Africa had a negative impact because of social disarray, cultural loss, and death it caused. As the Europeans started to invade Africa and split up the land, they paid no attention to the already existing natural boundaries. Over time, villages with different cultures had set these boundaries.
Throughout history, imperialism by one nation on another has had many negative influences on the nation being colonized. The legacy of European imperialism in Africa in the 19th century was negative. Imperialism negatively affected Africa politically, economically, and culturally.
In the early 1880’s, the powers of Europe started to take control of regions in Africa and set up colonies there. In the beginning, colonization caused the Africans little harm, but before long, the Europeans started to take complete control of wherever they went. The Europeans used their advanced knowledge and technology to easily maneuver through the vast African landscape and used advanced weapons to take control of the African people and their land. The countries that claimed the most land and had the most significant effect on Africa were France, England, Belgium, and Germany. There were many reasons for the European countries to be competing against each other to gain colonies in Africa.
An overwhelming majority of African nations has reclaimed their independence from their European mother countries. This did not stop the Europeans from leaving a permanent mark on the continent however. European colonialism has shaped modern-day Africa, a considerable amount for the worse, but also some for the better. Including these positive and negative effects, colonialism has also touched much of Africa’s history and culture especially in recent years.