European Colonization Dbq

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Land is a precious resource; it is one of the most finite in the world. If someone has land, they can produce things like food or clothes, mine for precious metals, or raise, feed, and house an army. The uses for this resource are the keys to power. It only makes sense then, that for as long as humans have traded with each other they have also fought over this resource. The majority of wars have been fought over rights to control rights to land. The European approach to this was to take over land by force and force the native population into labor. One of the most famous examples of this is during European Expansion in Africa. During this period, Europe attempted to conquer Africa with almost complete success. They made resistance look like an inconvenience; it was a failure. This is clear when one evaluates the amount of time that Europe controlled Africa, the military of the Europeans powers, or the number of Africans killed or maimed. …show more content…

Europeans had centuries of experience and powerful firearms to aid them in battle, the Africans had neither. Document D, a curriculum-planning book, explains how Europe took advantage of this, “European powers had agreed not to sell advanced weaponry to Africans.” This left Africans with no way to fight back against Europeans, making resistance a dangerous and futile exercise. In addition, to this the Europeans decided to work together to fracture the continent, “after the Berlin Conference, Europeans countries were united.” Fighting them would be like trying to put out a forest fire with a garden

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