Gideon’s Freedom in Doris Lessing’s No Witchcraft For Sale Essay

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.

Africa, like many other continents, was a very tremendous and a very diverse civilization that is very complicated to introduce due to all its wonderful but also diverse features and beliefs. From the differences between its society and language to its religion and politics, Africa always had the reputation that its empires, cities, and kingdoms never progressed in the developments and achievements for their civilization. Many people believed that the Europeans were actually the cause of Africa’s achievements and advanced developments for their civilizations. However, this is further than the whole truth. Before the arrival of the Europeans between the 15th and 16th century, African kingdoms, empires, and cities had many achievements and accomplishments

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’ was a phenomenon in the world between the years 1880-1914. The ‘dark continent’ was relatively untouched by Europeans up until this point, with few ports of control on the coasts in the west, which were remnants of the slave trade, and in the south, Britain held the Cape, taken from the Dutch during the French Revolutionary Wars. So, during a period of 30 years, it came to pass that almost the whole of Africa was taken by Europeans. (Except Liberia a colony for freed American slaves, and Abyssinia managed to hold out against Italian aggression). It will be my objective in this essay to analyse the economic factors which resulted in the almost complete colonisation and takeover of Africa, and also to determine to

Africa’s Discovery of Europe, written by David Northrup and much as its name implies, is a monograph detailing Sub-Saharan Africa, starting from 1450 to 1850. This broad timespread starts just before Columbus sailed the ocean blue and ends just beyond the Industrial Revolution. Originally published in 2002, Northrup intended for readers to see Europe from a different perspective; from the lense of African people. The title, Africa’s Discovery of Europe, is interesting within itself. In many cases, majority of people believe it was Europe that opened up the world and conquered the Americas and discovered all this new land, and a sliver of that is true, so many countries surrounding Europe were already major, active players in the modernizing world already. In this case, as Europe was discovering Africa, Africa was also discovering Europe. It switches the mind of the reader from a Eurocentric role to an African one. Northrup discusses how contact was not one-sided, and depicts accurate descriptions of African interactions amongst other Africans and Europeans. Northrup shows the reader that African people were discovering Europe very actively, not passively; African people physically go to European countries and have first-hand experiences with European people and lifestyles.

In Basil Davidson’s video “Different but Equal,” he outlines the European perception of Africa upon their discovery of the continent. Claims that the Europeans were making about African culture, however, were far fetched and did not depict Africa in a positive manner. History according to pre-European Africa was rich and diverse, but once Europeans saw for themselves how different their continent was from Africa, they began to make up their own version of African history.

The Great African Land Race: Expanding European Territory Since the 1500’s, Europeans have been utilizing Africa as a center for trading and slavery. But in the early 1880’s, Africa became more of an interest to Europeans like King Leopold who wanted to expand their control over the world. The rush to conquer the mysterious continent began. Many factors caused Europeans to take part in land grabbing; however, the largest force driving Europeans towards imperialism in Africa was the desire for power through riches and natural African resources, which allowed Europeans to expand their economy and territory. Europeans quickly began to seize as much land as they could in Africa in order to win the great race for power.

The European scramble for Africa can be regarded as a major historical event. The scramble for Africa started off with tranquil beginnings and then eventually transformed into violent rebellions, as evident in the documents. There was opposition with instruments of war and peace, diplomatic relations with other countries, and trade relations. These all influenced Europe’s scramble for Africa.

The reactions made a small number of African natives was to resist diplomatic responses that promised the ability to maintain peace with the nations of Europe. When diplomacy failed, Africans resisted with violence, while others drew upon their religious traditions for strength in remaining independent. Yet another reaction among Africans was to encourage other Africans to fight back. Some Africans, meanwhile, complied with – and even willfully participated in – the continent’s colonization by Europeans.

When the Europeans scrambled to colonize Africa, the reactions of the natives was progressively more apprehensive. At first the natives found that they could be peaceful with this strange new white man. Soon after, though, they found that these new men mistreated and cheated them greatly, and had superior military technology. Given these new conditions of the relationship the Africans decided it was in their best interest to take up arms against the Europeans and try to rid themselves of the harmful White Man.

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

Through this course, we have discovered many ways to look at the continent of Africa. Each topic that we covered looked at a specific aspect of Africa that makes it unique and unlike any other part of the world. What makes it so unique is that it had its own history before the Western world interrupted the progress and altered the identity of Africans. It has taken many years to recover from the atrocities of the Western world’s invasion to create the recovering continent that is now Africa. While there are certainly aspects of Africa that are more contemporary and are certainly important, it is even more necessary to understand the history of Africa and what has caused Africa to adapt to its current state.

South Africa was a rich country with a beautiful landscape and a rich culture. There were tremendous natural resources in South Africa and spectacular beauty. South African society was fluid and accepting, allowing people to move from one tribe to the next, without discrimination. This accepting and truly benevolent moral system, perhaps turned out to be a fatal flaw, manipulated and abused by European colonists who arrived in 1652 and have left an indelible legacy on the nation of South Africa (Thompson, 33). Upon their arrival, the Dutch and then the English systematically exploited black South Africans, taking advantage

Contrary to popular beliefs, Africans encountered Europeans years before the slave trade. The early relationship between Africa and Europe was more of a business partnership. Africa was able to discover themselves by adopting cultural traditions and then adapting them to their own. Certain stigmas give power to Europe as it takes away Africa’s agency. To claim Africa as a victim is one stigma that robs Africa of its agency giving more power to the other side. Trade, religion, and the concept of different but equal all contribute to the broader knowledge of Africa’s agency through history.

Africa during the early 15th century was just another country separated into tribes and nations, but by the late 15th century colonial rule was brewing after one European after another decided to settle. “Europeans arrived on the South African scene as Aliens-visitors, and settlers- and then preceeded to dominate the indegineous people.” (browne, 2008, 119). By the 20th century what was done to the colonies of the caribbean was done to South Africa. Their best lands had been taken, their minerals loss, no hope of developing themselves, their dignity and worse of all their freedom all snatched away with the coming of the europeans.