Colonialism In Africa

The current state of African countries are totally connected to the colonization of Africa by European powers. The Europeans that dissected and formulated the country lines in Africa, believed that they were providing a needed and great service to Africa. Once they divided Africa up, assigned the each region to a European power, they installed ideologies and policies to establish and justify their subjugation of Africa. In his speech Why Africa is Not Free, Malcolm X commented “You have to realize that up until about 1959, Africa was dominated by the colonial powers. And by the colonial powers of Europe having complete control over Africa, they projected Africa always in a negative light-jungles, savages, cannibals, nothing civilized” (1965). Once African countries gained independence, the ideologies emplaced by the Europeans still had effect. To fully understand the effects of colonialism on Africa, one must understand that the entire continent was divided and given to different European powers.

Only the empire of Ethiopia and the territory of Liberia (a country established for freed slaves) escaped this partition. France favoured North, West and Central Africa; Britain claimed great chunks of West, East, and Southern Africa, Portugal took the territories of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau; King Léopold of Belgium was awarded the Congo; Italy established control in Libya, Eritrea, and part of Somalia; Spain did likewise in north Morocco, the Spanish Sahara and Spanish Guinea; while Germany gained areas in the south-west and east of the continent, as well as the Cameroons and Togoland” (Thomson 2010,