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Imperialism and colonialism in africa 19th
Imperialism and colonialism in africa 19th
Imperialism and colonialism in africa 19th
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During the 1800’s imperialist European powers such as England invaded Africa and captured slaves. They took the slaves and traded them to the Americas and other countries in return for various goods. African tribes were not equipped with the proper materials and resources to be able to fight back, in result they were taken. Some of the Africans helped the English and other European imperialists to capture their own people. European countries were far superior than African tribes and when the Europeans came to get the slaves there was never a lot of fighting. Europeans had weapons, like muskets and cannons, that were overpowering and seemed very intimidating to the Africans. On the other hand Africans, had extremely inferior bows, arrows, and spears. Some of the African tribes didn’t even attempt to put up a fight. The Europeans did not directly get the slaves, they had a middle man. They used this middle man to get the slaves and eventually to take over the villages and people of Africa. After the Europeans captured the slaves they used them as trading exports. The British traded the …show more content…
The living conditions on the ships were awful. Slaves were crammed into a small area overflowing with other slaves all crowded together. Slaves battled dehydration, being given little to no water, and malnourishment, being given small amounts of food, and no place to use the bathroom. Viruses like scurvy and fly disease spread rapidly throughout the ship. Slaves also battled dehydration and malnourishment. The long time on the ships is another condition the slaves had to go through for months at a time. Many slaves died before getting to their destination. European imperialists took over Africa in some frightening ways. Slaves were physically removed from their home country and were brought to places where they would be forced to work countless hours without pay and sometimes working themselves to
They were packed into ships so tight you could barely turn yourself around. On top of that, many people were dying of disease because they were forced to live among their own filth, and the dead and diseased. It was all just on continuous circle of death and suffering and disease. They were all oxygen deprived and the air below deck was so incredibly rank it was basically impossible to breathe. They were beaten mercilessly, and tortured with the prospect of food and water, but hardly received any of either. As Olaudah said, the white men aboard the ship once caught too many fish for themselves, and instead of feeding them to the Africans, they just tossed them over board. Most of them died along the way, mainly the sick, young, and very old. Those people aboard the ships had to endure the hardships that today, people only read
During the imperialism of Africa, many of the same things occurred. The English took control of the African countries in different ways, but they still took control. With the Africans, the English just went to war with the countries or tribes. They would either defeat them or force them to give up partial or all control of the government. Either way, the English gained control and power because of their strength politically and militarily.
The first aspects we can analyze is the level of difference between the slavery of Africa compared to the European form of slavery. As these sources illustrate traditional African slavery was quite different on several levels compared to the European form of slavery many are familiar with. Slavery in Africa as stated before can be more closely associated with indentured servitude where the slaves were often treated as a member of the family rather than treated with brutality. According to the multiple sources discussed earlier, a prominent aspect of European slavery in Africa was to the harsh treatment and dehumanizing of its slave it order to keep them subordinate to their European captures. Historians might beg the question why was European slavery different than traditional African
The trans-Atlantic trade of African slaves contributed to maintaining progression of labor systems as well as promoting change in the British North American colonies. The slaves provided labor and helped produce the cash crops that were then exported to Europe where they traded the goods to trade with Africans for more slaves. The Africans enslaved each other and sold more slaves to be sent to the colonies in
Europe, in the late 1800’s, was starting for a land grab in 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 economical, political, and socio–cultural, and there were countless attitudes towards this expansion into Africa, some of approval and some of condemnation.
Though the Atlantic Slave Trade began in 1441, it wasn’t until nearly a century later that Europeans actually became interested in slave trading on the West African coast. “With no interest in conquering the interior, they concentrated their efforts to obtain human cargo along the West African coast. During the 1590s, the Dutch challenged the Portuguese monopoly to become the main slave trading nation (“Africa and the Atlantic Slave Trade”, NA). Besides the trading of slaves, it was also during this time that political changes were being made. The Europe...
On the second leg of this trade slaves were transported to the West Indies, this leg was called the middle passage. This part was horrible for the slaves. About 50% of all the slaves on one ship would not make it to the West Indies because of disease or brutal mistreatment. Hundreds of men, women and children were cramped together for most of the journey, occasionally able to move an almost decent amount. On the third leg of the journey slaves were traded for sugar, molasses and other products.
The colonization of Africa officially began in 1884 with the Berlin Conference. Western European powers began to split up the land and resources in Africa among themselves. This period of history became known as the Scramble for Africa. The Scramble for Africa occurred because as the slave trade ended, capitalists saw Africa as a continent that they could now exploit through legitimate trade. European capitalists found new ways to make money off of the continent. With greater exploration of the continent even more valuable resources were found. The encouragement of legitimate trade in Africa brought Europeans flocking to colonize Africa. Africa lost their independence, and along with it, their control over their natural resources. Europeans used the term the "White Man's Burden," a concept used by white colonizers in order to impose their way of life on Africans within their colonies, to ...
Slaves were not captured because of wars and enslavement of people by the Portuguese, but instead by fellow Africans. African rulers had been waging wars, taking over new territories, and capturing and enslaving people long before the Portuguese arrived. (McMillan 38) The Portuguese began to buy slaves, and within due time other explorers and countries began participating as well. Slaves became vital in the New World, especially to help grow new crops like sugar. Their journey the New World became known as the “Middle Passage”. (McMillan 53) African slaves were a vital part of the Columbian Exchange, along with history as a whole. Slaves were used to help mass produce crops, thus stimulating the economies for countries like Spain and Portugal. Slaves became a good being shipped to the New World from Africa, and would be for hundreds of years
Before Europeans got involved, slavery was very prominent in Africa. Often, one ruler would own multiple tribes of hereditary slaves, who were seized in raids. Slaves were also used in the trans-Saharan trade, many of whom would go on to be in domestic service or concubinage in North Africa, Egypt, and the Ottoman Empire. Europeans joined this practice when they discovered its immense value. They exploited and redirected the traditional slave trade already in place, creating trading posts where they could purchase both materials and people from African slave owners.
Beginning of the 15th and 16th centuries, Europeans began to explore in the Atlantic Coast of Africa. They were mainly lured into the excessive trade in gold, spices and other goods without knowing about slaves in Africa. Nonetheless, Europeans had no success of taking over these African states to achieve all of these goods but later they did take over various regions in other areas. Africans seems to be willing to sell as many as 11 million people to the Atlantic slave trade to the Europeans. Thus, this makes them the first people to have slaves not the Europeans that forced them into this trade. Furthermore, at the start the Africans seems to have full control of the slave trade, but the Europeans came in and slowly dominated the trade without the Africans knowing. Later on, the trade was overturned and everything went back orderly.
During the late 19th century and the early 20th century many of the European nations began their scramble for Africa which caused Many Africans to suffer from violence like wars, slavery and inequality. Although the Europeans felt power as though they were doing a great cause in the African continent during the Scramble for Africa; Africans had many reactions and actions including factors as rebellion for freedom, against the white settlers and violent resistance.
The European exploration and colonization resulted in commercial expansion of trade in agricultural products between Europe and America. In some time, colonization resulted in religious tolerance and representative government that have for several years encouraged similar developments in other countries. In addition, early European exploration led to redistribution of human populations as magnitude of people from Europe and Africa moved to America. Before the colonization and exploration period, the Native Americans had established a number of forms of social organization.
In the Western world European colonialism is hailed as an accomplishment. It is the time where Europeans flourished economically after finding and taking control of the lands of the New World. Because of European colonialism and the need for free labor, millions of Africans were forced from their homeland and were forced into slavery. Years later the Europeans came back to colonize and take the rich resources of Africa without any regard to the native people who lived there. Though colonialism ended in the United Stated in the 1700’s and other parts of the Americas in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, many of its racial and injustices are still an ingrained in society today There have been many instances where groups of people within African
There are a lot of causes of the scramble for Africa, and one of them was to ‘liberate’ the slaves in Africa after the slave trade ended. The slave trade was a time during the age of colonization when the Europeans, American and African traded with each oth...