Reasons European Colonize Africa

The main reason for European imperialism in Africa was for political reasons. According to Document A, the purpose of the colonization of African countries was for political competition between European countries (Doc. A). The partition of Africa in 1884 through 1885 showed that France and Britain were the biggest winners in seizing Africa. The British took most of north and south Africa, when the French took most of western Africa. According to Document B, John Ruskin said,” This is what England must either do or

Resources,they carry a country financially.A big driving force for imperialism at the time was resources,and Africa just so happened to have an abundance of them.Ranging from diamonds to slave labour ,Africa was a gold mine in the eyes of the Europeans.Proof of this is the

European domination in Africa began because the Portuguese wanted to establish a faster route to India. Yet, when the Portuguese arrived they began to set up a trade of gold, slaves and ivory. The Europeans pretended to be Christian humanitarians and attempted to convert the Africans to Christians. They used god to justify their mistreatment of the natives. Many of the natives did convert to Christianity and accepted the Europeans mistreatments. The Europeans set up port cities on the African coast in order to help their ships on their journey to India. At the port cities, they could stop, rest, and replenish their supplies.

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

Europeans were able to colonize Africa because of the many advantages they had over them. Firstly, the Maxim gun had been acquired. This was the first automatic machine gun to be produced. The Europeans were able to travel much more easily due to the steam engine.

     There were many reasons for the European countries to be competing against each other to gain colonies in Africa. One of the main reasons may be that Europeans believed that the

The imperatives of capitalist industrialization, including the call for guaranteed sources of raw materials, especially copper, cotton, rubber, tea, and tin (European consumers had become accustomed to, and thus depended on these resources), and the search for guaranteed markets and profitable investment outlets, which territories like the gold and diamond-rich Egypt and South Africa provided, caused the European conquest for Africa. Therefore the primary reason for European colonization in Africa was

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, 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

As Europe’s economy and standard of living rose, the need for more land flourished as well. Europe sought to split the various parts of Africa during the Berlin conference (without the approval of the Africans, of course). Eventually, Europe successfully stole most of Africa from its rightful owners. The greedy Europeans showed pretentiousness towards the colonies in Africa and wanted to seize territory in order to utilize their available resources while displaying supremacy over the other races.

Europe saw great profit in imperialising Africa. Africa had valuable natural resources that could make Europe rich.

In the 19th century Europe underwent imperialism, Europe wanted to take control of different continents one of which was Africa to gain power, civilize the African people and grow the economy of Europe. With intentions to help, the Europeans moved to Africa in order to get the resources that were grown there forcing the Africans native to those regions to move to North and South America (Document 9). By 1885 the amount of people living in Africa had increased due to the amount of Europeans (Spielvogel and McTighe 234). The Europeans took resources and goods from Africa to sell and increase their capital. These reasons changed the way of life for the Africans making them adapt to the changes without being able to fight back. While imperialism

Before the Europeans began to explore Africa, little was known about the continent. However, after some initial exploration of Africa, the Europeans soon realized how economically important this area was, and how much they could profit from it. At the time, European countries had only small colonies in Africa, but after they realized that they could make money from the resources in the inner regions of Africa, they wanted to invade the African regions and assume control. This led to “ the race” and ultimately, the partition of Africa. There were many motives for the Europeans to imperialize Africa. There were humanitarian and religious goals, political goals, military goals, and most importantly, there were economic interests. During the Berlin conference, The European powers decided that they were going to spread the three C’s (Christianity, Commerce, and Civilization) in Africa. To do this, the conference had three aims “ Ensure free trade for all nations throughout the Congo, to ensure free navigation for all countries on the Niger River of West Africa, and agree to set rules by which the Europeans could proceed to divide the rest of the continent.” (Part II: The European Conquest, Pg 11). Later in the document it states that not one African representative was present at the Berlin Conference to discuss Africa's future. The European people tricked themselves into thinking that what they were doing

The Europeans all scrambled to colonize Africa for t’s raw materials and land. THey had justified it as the White Man’s burden. They believed that is was their responsibility as a more developed race to help Africa catch up in technology, government, economics etc. Rhodes even said, “-and that the more of the world we inhabit, the better it is for the human race.” (Doc, 1) With this mindset, Europeans colonized Africa and started to export raw materials such as rubber, diamonds, gold, palm oil etc. White man’s burden led to Imperialism because they thought taking over other countries was the only to help them move forward. In doing so, they also spread their power and influence throughout the world. The White man's burden was also accompanied

Going back to the 1860s, Africa was an unknown continent to many Europeans. Most Europeans only had colonies on the coastline, such as current day Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal etc. The only people to go into the interior of Africa was missionaries, reporters and traders. As people of Europe discover more about Africa, discoveries will begin the Scramble of Africa, an event in which very rapidly, Europe was able conquer most if not all of Africa. They did this with technological and medical advances, economic reasons, and the motivation of prestige and White Man’s Burden.