The Impact Of Imperialism In Africa

As early as the 1650’s European power such as the Dutch, British and the French began to buy and sell land along the African coast. These European powers competed for the upper-hand in resources, markets and the slave trade. The race to Africa led to the Berlin Conference in 1884. The aim of the Berlin Conference was to regulate European colonization within Africa during imperialism. Imperialism played a vital role in changing Africa’s culture. Imperialism within Africa specifically the Gold Coast, had massive impacts on gender roles and class. Woman in Africa were extremely empowered compared to many other societies throughout history and during the colonial time period. Woman were known to own land and even own slaves, “in our grandfather’s

Under the patriarchal society of Britain, the children belonged to the males, because the male was the absolute head of the household. Impregnating a slave wife would increase the slave labor pool and the amount of slaves one owned. The slave wives did not have many of the advantages traditional wives did, such as the ability to demand resources that husbands typically provided, the ability to leave if being abused and the worst of all, had no jurisdiction over their own children. For enslaved wives, the disadvantages of their marriages runs much deeper through the fabric of Akan society than just the previously mentioned ones. In Akan society, a “woman’s glory is her marriage and if a woman has no man, then we beat her and swagger” (Proverbs of the Akan 2007: 170). Before Afona awadie marriages, woman had a spiritual component in marriages that were very important. A free married woman was bound to have more protection from her husband, and respect within the community. For a woman in Akan society, the most important days of her life were the day she would get married and the day she would give birth to her children. The abolition of slavery and rising number of Afona awadie marriages played major roles in robbing women of two of the biggest honors in her lifetime in Akan