A Time Of Colonization Of The African Continent By European Power

Between the years 1881 and 1914, African territory was being invaded by Europeans during the New Imperialism period. Before Europe’s invasion, Africa consisted of various tribes and had no central government due to this during the mid nineteenth century. Europe attempted to colonize Africa using harsh military force and resulted in the European Scramble for Africa. The European Scramble for Africa caused African leaders to have different reactions such as some wanting to have no conflicts, but peace, surrendering to the Europeans due to fear, and also attempting to fight back against the Europeans.

During the European Scramble for Africa, in the early 20th century, Africans had a peaceful reaction with anti-imperialistic sentiments (docs. 2, 3, 4, and 7), peaceful actions through the approach of diplomacy (docs.1, 2, and 3) and also a rebellious anti-imperialistic reaction (docs. 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9) towards the Scramble for Africa.

The Scramble for Africa can easily be defined as the forced invasion and division of African countries among European superpowers. Those powers included Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, and Belgium. Each superpower wanted control over a certain area on the continent and would do anything to ensure that their area remained in their best interest. To bring the conflicts to the forefront, the countries participated in the Berlin Africa Conference in 1884-1885. In this conference, the issues of Anglo-German relations and everybody’s control in Africa were discussed. As a result of the conference, European control began to overtake the African continent and imperialism became a giant part of the European mark. In his book, “Worlds of Color” W.E.B DuBois discusses the idea of whole colonial enterprise stating that the problem the world faces is the color line. This can easily be interpreted as Dr. DuBois giving the idea that if World, more specifically European superpowers stop viewing the color line and Africa’s color line as something less than them a lot of the world’s issues could be detected and fixed. But more importantly, Dr. DuBois is stating that without the Worlds of Color, European industrialization would not exist.

The first chapter in Boahen’s book is titled “Eve of Colonial Conquest” and this section gives the readers a background of the colonialism in Africa through a look at the fundamental economic, political, and social changes that occurred just a few decades before colonialism took root. Boahen states that the trade of “natural products” is the most significant economic change in Africa by 1880. Just before the trading of “natural products” slave trades were abolished.

Africa has had a long and tumultuous road of colonization and decolonization the rush to colonize Africa started in the 17th century with the discovery of the vast amounts of gold, diamonds, and rubber with colonization hitting a fever pitch during World War I. However, the repercussions of colonization have left deep wounds that still remain unhealed in the 21st century. Early on, European nations such as Britain, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany and Belgium scrambled for territories. Countries wanted land so they could harvest the resources, increase trade, and gain power. The European colonization of Africa brought racism, civil unrest, and insatiable greed; all of which have had lasting impacts on Africa.

For centuries Africa has been sought after and colonized by European powers for political, social and economic gain. Europeans needed Africa’s rich resources to fund their industrial revolution. European countries were strategically trying to one up another for the best resources so that their country would come out on top, while completely disregarding African people. Many European countries came to the conclusion that it was well within their rights to colonize Africa in order to protect their commercial interests. They simply decided to lay claim to territories in Africa, treating the continent as if it was theirs to take. In this essay I will argue that to the Europeans, Africa was just a commodity to be fought over and colonized and I

​Most Europeans had the perception that people from the African continent were inferior. This is because they thought that their traditions were backward and lacked civilization. They used this notion as a justification for subjecting the African people to slavery. However, this is not the case since civilization is said to have originated from Africa. The most organized and advanced people in terms of technology are said to be the Africans even before the European slavers discovered Africa (Chivallon and Alou, 2011). Egypt had tremendous accomplishments in mathematics, science, arts, and medicine even before the transatlantic trade. Civilization in this country had lasted for over two thousand years prior to the development of Rome.

Before the 18,00’s not much was known about Africa due to the many diseases and land boundaries that prevented exploration. This was all changed however when a man named David Livingstone opened the eyes of all Europeans. With this newfound knowledge many countries were coming to Africa mostly due to economical reasons. This is because many countries saw Africa as a wonderful place for trade and to gain resources. The Jungles in Africa offered rare wood and rubber. Africa also hosted wonderful for trading. With all these resources Europeans would be able to build their economical empire and have more power in general. The economical resources Africa Held is why many European countries started their bid for land in Africa.

In the late 1800’s Europe began its quest to gain more land and control over Africa. Not only does Europe want to grow economically, but it also wanted to gain more resources. They believed that Africa would be simple to acquire, since it had a weak economical structure. The Scramble for Africa occurred in 1884, where European countries met at the Berlin Conference. Here, fourteen major ambassadors of Europe met and developed rules for who would receive which parts of Africa. However, the most important European countries that were present here were France, The U.S, Germany, and Britain. They wanted to gain money, raw materials, markets, and access to trade routes. Some of the raw materials that they wanted were oil, rubber, iron, gold, diamonds, ivory, and most importantly cheap labor. All of Africa was divided between Europe, except for one part which was the Congo.

For a long time, the presence of Europeans and their activities have been encountered in the African continent. Before the 19th Century, European operations in Africa were strictly confined to the coastal regions. During this period, slave trade and other forms of transactions were facilitated by local middle-men who were familiar with the local trade routes and markets (Osborne and Susan, 93). After the abolishment of the slave trade, there was a need to shift towards legitimate trade. As such, the Europeans who had already made contact with the African continent found it fit to scramble and partition the continent among themselves for economic, political and social reasons (Pakenham, 5). Also, the political rivalry between the European nations such as Germany, France, and Britain contributed to the sudden scramble for the African continent. Another critical factor that drove European countries to scramble for Africa was the need to acquire raw materials for their industrial sectors.

Thus it was the interplay of these economic, political, and social factors and forces that led to the scramble for Africa and the frenzied attempts by European commercial, military, and political agents to declare and establish a stake in different parts of the continent through inter-imperialist commercial competition, the declaration of exclusive claims to particular territories for trade, the imposition of tariffs against other European

The Scramble for Africa had a massive impact on the lives of the citizens that lived there. In the 1870’s when Germany became the new leader in the European industry with chemicals and electrical products. This time was known as the second industrial revolution when transportation in the country came about it effected routes of trade became easily available thus making. The growth of European colonization of Africa which was unique because they started to colonized later than everyone else. For many years, African tribes had freedom, being able to expansion without worrying about other tribes. The reason for the lack of interest in Africa because they only used a select few of Africa’s ports, and didn’t see any other interests for the

“The Scramble for Africa” was a large land grab that many countries participated in, including the British (Iweriebor). Between the 1890s and 1900, Africa was faced with European imperialist aggression, diplomatic pressure, military invasions, and eventual conquest and

Geographical influences prevailed throughout Africa with many different European powers claiming her. In the early days of European colonization Africa was seen as a purely territorial and prestigious land to settle. The idea was to take her before anyone else did. This gave way to much geographical reasoning for colonization. In the words of historian George N. Sanderson, “Until the 1870’s, Africa as a whole had been a purely geographical concept, of no practical relevance to the European politicians and merchants concerned with the continent.” (2008,

The impact of European Colonialism is still largely visible on the African continent today. For most Africans, European rule ended around the 1960s, leaving behind a legacy of arbitrary political boundaries, ineffective governance, corruption, and nonviable economic practices.