For centuries, European nations had been trading slaves, gold, ivory, and more with the west coast of Africa. Throughout the early 1800s, Europeans barely knew anything about the rest of the country of Africa. This quickly changed as Europe grew a sudden interest in exploring the rest of the country and taking advantage of their many valuable resources. Many wonder what motivated Europeans to Imperialize Africa, or extend their country’s power throughout Africa. The driving forces behind European Imperialism in Africa were the strive for ultimate power in Africa between competing countries, the need for money and technological advancements in European civilizations, and the constant attempt for Europeans to spread their cultures throughout …show more content…
This can be shown in Document C, which features excerpts from one of John Ruskin’s novels. “(T)his is what [England] must either do or perish: she must found colonies as fast and as far as she is able, formed of her most energetic and worthiest men;—seizing every piece of fruitful waste ground she can set her foot on, and there teaching these her colonists … that their first aim is to be to advance the power of England by land and by sea” (Ruskin). From this, the reader can understand what European’s primary motives were. This excerpt illuminates the fact that European countries took over the country of Africa to harvest their own profits and succeed economically, and would take down other European countries for their own …show more content…
. . (Document F)
By reading this poem, the reader can understand the viewpoint of many Europeans, and how they viewed themselves as being significantly “more intellectual” than the Africans.
Although Europe may have encountered a series of obstacles along the way, European countries collectively imperialized the entire country of Africa for many reasons. European countries seized land by utilizing technological advancements to their advantage, to gain power and rise above competing other European countries, and to spread their own culture and religion throughout Africa. European countries did technically compete with each other to conquer African land, but altogether each country eventually came together to take over the entire country. All of these reasons share one common factor: they only benefit the Europeans. From the way Europeans treated Africans and forcefully took over their country, it is clear that Europeans would destroy any other countries without hesitation to gain as much power as
The motivation behind conquering colonies in Africa starts with the opportunity to thrive economically. In document 9 from the Resolution of the German Social Democratic Party Congress 1900, it states that acquiring new lands, “…corresponds…to the greedy desire of the bourgeoisie for new opportunities to invest… [in] new markets. This shows one of the motivations for colonization; to invest and open new markets in the new lands in hope to make a profit. The desire for new markets in Europe was getting bigger and bigger now that the population was rising and jobs were becoming scarce. Colonizing new areas in Africa would lead to more imports and exports leading to more jobs which seemed appealing to most people. Supporting the idea of creating a better economy is document 4, which is a speech in 1888 by Joseph Chamberlain. In his speech he says, “We have suffered much in this country from depression of trade. We know how many of our fellow-subjects are at this moment unemployed.” This quote shows that Britain’s trade is declining with other nations and many of the people are unemployed. This is motivation for the British to colonize in Africa because with new colonies in Africa, trade would
Between the period from 1880 to 1914, European powers went after overseas empires in Africa. The governments and political leaders of the European powers believed that this colonization of the African empires was necessary to maintain their global influence. A second group of people supposed that African colonization was the result of the greedy Capitalists who \only cared for new resources and markets. The third group of people claimed it to be their job to enlighten and educate the uncivilized people of Africa. Although the political leaders of European powers encouraged colonization of African empires to advance their nation’s global influence, others argued that it was only for the profiteering of the Capitalists who sought new
A very important motive for the colonization was industrialization. The more land, technology, and goods owned meant more power for that particular country. At the time, there was a large demand for that type of power and these countries were desperate for the land that was easy to seize and use some Africa’s raw materials like gold, ivory, copper, grain, palm oil, iron, silver, cotton, diamonds, tin, and cocoa. Basically, the different countries in Europe were in an unspoken competition for the most domination of Africa.
In the early 1880’s, the powers of Europe started to take control of regions in Africa and set up colonies there. In the beginning, colonization caused the Africans little harm, but before long, the Europeans started to take complete control of wherever they went. The Europeans used their advanced knowledge and technology to easily maneuver through the vast African landscape and used advanced weapons to take control of the African people and their land. The countries that claimed the most land and had the most significant effect on Africa were France, England, Belgium, and Germany. There were many reasons for the European countries to be competing against each other to gain colonies in Africa. One of the main reasons was that the
During the 1870’s Europe began a “Scramble for Africa” because they were afraid they were missing out on the raw materials there. The European countries were fighting for control of the African countries, and they took over with Imperialism. They eventually came to an agreement to avoid war within themselves without any African’s present. This began their Imperialism take over.
Between 1870 and 1914, European countries ceased about ninety percent of Africa. Native Africans faced political, military, and imperialism pressure from various European countries. After the end of the profitable slave trade in Africa, due to abolishing of slavery, Europeans explored for new guaranteed markets, and heavily profitable investments. In addition, European countries were under industrialization, the demand for raw materials heavily increased. Europeans as well faced power struggles with one another and competition for political influence in Africa. European power struggle ultimately lead to the “Scramble for Africa.” Europeans undertook the process of imperialism in Africa in the late 19th century by exercising political, economic, and military power on their African colonies. Some African leaders and societies welcomed Europeans in hopes to protect and develop their native land. Some African leaders and societies responded to European occupation by gathering resistance groups in attempt to fight off foreign imperialists.
The intention of imperialist prompted an economic exploitation of countries of the African continent, to the advantage of the imperial countries. As the europeans took control of
During the last thirty years of the nineteenth century, Europe's invented traditions arose through education, ecclesiastical, politics, military and monarchical. This period of time the European rush into Africa also took place. Europe was in the search of power and prestige and sought Africa as a prime target, therefore, colonies of white settlement emerged throughout Africa. The essence of the idea of the Empire the Europeans had as a background aided them in recreating that tradition in Africa as they had in their homeland and in Asia. However, the Empire tradition in Africa took on an odd character, distinguishing it from past imperial forms. This occurred because African empires came late in the day and were influenced by the established
Before the 19th century, Europeans knew very little about the interior of Africa. Between 1500 and 1800, European presence in Africa was mostly about buying and selling slaves from local chiefs. With the end of slavery, European interests in the continent shifted to imperialism and seizing colonies. The driving force behind imperialism in Africa will have to due to the fact of nationalism, cultural reasons and resources and economics which helped formed colonialism.
During the 1800s, many European countries sent explorers to colonize Africa. Many European missionaries and explorers went to Africa in an effort to help their countries to achieve power, pride, and money. The main driving forces behind the imperialism that helped Europeans attain power, pride, and money were technological forces, politics, and economics.
With the ability to reach new territories and a drive to quickly colonize inferior people’s land for monetary gains, Africa became sought after by many European countries.
Global domination,that is one of the biggest selling points for a unstable continent like africa and when the europeans decided to pay africa a visit they were planning on taking africa for their king and country.That is only one of the reason the europeans decided to colonize africa and after they did africa was never the same.
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.
The scramble for Africa represents the most thorough and systematic process of colonialism in world history. The European colonial powers managed to conquer and control almost the entire continent of Africa in a short, twenty-five year period from about 1875 to 1900. Some of the European states involved were already well-established global powers; the others were up and coming nations that desired to emulate and compete with the dominant imperial states. Various factors allowed for and contributed to the conquering of the whole of Africa by European states. The slow, but ever-growing European presence on the perimeter and the completion for dominance between the major European states acted as the platform for the inevitable quest for
With the wealth of the Industrial Revolution in effect, the powerful nations of Europe were ready to expand their empires into Asia and Africa. New Imperialism, was motivated by things such as economic growth and national rivalries.[1] The colonization Africa, while beneficial to European powers, was horrible for African people because each country in Europe wanted to be part of the imperialistic race, and this led to the destruction of many cultures. Although Europeans brought new innovations to Africa, they ultimately destroyed many African cultures.