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Colonialism in africa introduction
Colonialism and its effects on africa
Colonialism and its effects on africa
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Third World History
When someone mentions the state of Africa the first thoughts that enter your mind is poverty, poor government structure, and hungry people. But that has not always been the case. This was a rich, resourceful and beautiful country. The picture of pre-colonial Africa is much different than our ideals of it today. We see it as a land stricken with poverty. The colonists saw it as a land with unlimited resources full of people that did not take, what they thought was full advantage of it's treasures. Europeans used agricultural and religious differences to create a gulf between them and the Africans. Using such differences Europe colonized Africa for the ever growing European market. The depletion of the African resources forced the people into a food crises. The only hope exists is the organization from within the rural class. Such organizations are fighting for basic human rights and others are coming together to make labor sharing possible.
Pre-colonial Africa was full of resourceful and time honored farmers that knew the land that their ancestors have given them. They had the ability to know exactly which seeds and what soil to use under various planting conditions to produce not just enough food to keep their tribes alive, but produce a substantial surplus in event of a natural caused or political drought. Bill Rau states " The ability of African people to feed themselves was based on a intimate knowledge of the resources needed for agricultural production. (p 22) " He is trying to say that these people knew their land. A land that has it's uncertainty.
Weather that has an ability to wipe out tribes, and unpredictable political structure were all hurdles that these gifted farmers has to endure. As Europe was going through an industrial boom, their markets started to expand. Capitalists saw that it became harder maintain the profit at the current level. Outside resources and raw materials that were used for production were needed. Africa was the answer. Bill Rau writes " The increasing demand and competition for both resources and markets among Europe's capitalist economies led them to carve out territories in Africa that offered the prospect of vast mineral and agricultural wealth.(p 29)" What Bill Rau is saying is that, for the capitalist to survive he must maintain a high profit.
The Belgian Congo, located in the interior of the African continent became extremely attractive to the Europeans. “Beginning in the 1870s, Europeans brought much of the world under their influence and control. The new imperialisms exploded out of a combination of causes.” (Esler 564) As a result of the Industrial Revolution in Europe, some of the world’s most powerful nations experienced a change in economics. There was a shift in the economy from farming to mass production, and what followed was an economic depression. “Africa provided a source of cheap raw materials for the factories while providing the customers for products manufactured in Europe” (http://project...
...nturies of both its resources and its people; a continent dived by borders that suited foreign powers, leaving nothing but volatile power vacuums. Those who did somehow manage to receive an education were taught that their heritage and they themselves were inferior. Despite everything Africa has endured, there remains hope. Some form of stability is establishing itself in an increasing number of regions, including Nigeria, with Lagos becoming an economic powerhouse in West Africa. Across the continent more and more economic development projects are being funded by African banks.
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 what extent the scramble actually happened due to these factors. I am of the opinion that the scramble happened in different places for different reasons, some economic, some not, therefore each area of Africa will have to be analysed to be able to examine the extent of economic factors in the scramble.
For most of the Africans they change they wanted to see after independence were economic. The problem is the economy that the Europeans left behind. Europeans left Africa in worse shape when it comes to the economy then before they came. The European abused the Africans they tricked them into thinking they were there to help, but that was not the case. They used their resources for their own benefit. But the worse thing the Europeans did was put the African in dept. African leader inherited economies that were reliant on on the international market. Agricultural crops and mineral due to colonialism limited colonies to production of just those raw materials. Therefore each colony on exported a few different goods so they were subject to a rise in prices. According to Watson “most goods that newly independent countries exported earned less than the goods they imported. This imbalance- paying more for imports than a country earns in exports-drove many African countries into dept.”(Watson). By the European not caring about the better good of Africa they drove them right into dept... Going back to education, the new African leaders had no idea how to properly deal with a felling economy. The European powers made each African colony dependent on the production of only a handful of goods. Which in the end made European grate profits. So now that African leaders are in charge they have all this dept. on their hands. As stated in the article “Colonization and Independence in Africa”, “Africans were at grate disadvantage in this trade, because prices for raw material were significantly lower than the prices of manufactured goods”(Colonization). The money that was coming in was less than the money going out. Africa was left with an economic unbalance. Also the population went up but not enough jobs. Therefor Africa had to work harder to work
Africa has always been mysterious to the rest of the world. The Greeks and the Romans traded with the peoples of Northern Africa. However, they thought that the land mass went no farther south than present day Somalia. In fact, Alexander the Great even considered shipping supplies for his armies around this smaller Africa to India. This same idea continued well into the 15th and 16th centuries until it was discovered that Africa has an extremely large southern protrusion making the second largest continent in the world after Asia. These vast areas used to bring Africa wealth well into the 18th and 19th centuries, trading gold, salt, and also people. Their greatest wealth actually came from this slave trade; they wouldn’t trade their friends and brothers but the enemies that they captured in their inter-tribal wars. As the slave trade wore down after the 1880’s the Europeans started to take over large swaths of land. Like in Arabia the strongest European countries came together with a map and some straightedges and divided the continent among them. Soon the countries put in provisional governments and wrote up constitutions in French and English and left them on their relative lonesome. Most of the problems associated with Africa are caused by the misconceptions that Africa got poor but that the rest of the world got rich.
The location and vast array of natural resources in Africa have led it to settled and exploited by many Asian and European countries in the past. The events in Africa’s past have greatly influenced its political, social, and economic well being today. Africa is situated below the continent of Europe and is west of the continent of Asia. It is boarded on its north coast by the Mediterranean sea and lies in between the Atlantic and Indian oceans. Because Africa is almost completely surrounded by water and near large trading areas like the Mediterranean, it became very susceptible to colonialism from European and Asian countries. Colonialism and the discovery of natural resources in Africa’s past have caused the volatile political climates, social inequality and economic opportunities, that are seen throughout Africa today.
... There are those who postulate that the state of Africa today is due solely to colonialism, that the current leaders take plays from Europe's colonization playbook: oppress, squash any uprising, horde capital from the rural peasantry, and refuse to contribute to social services. To be frank, Europe left Africa in a state of disarray, and the fact that they did not help them to gradual self-rule was done on purpose: to continue a state of neocolonialism. When one looks at the political, social and economic factors, it becomes obvious that the state of Africa today is due to nearly a century of direct rule. While the rest of the world experienced the Industrial Revolution, Africa is just beginning to experience the modern technologies and amenities that have been a staple of the western world for a very long time.
Many of today's distant countries are underdeveloped or not developed at all. People are going through famine and even dieing of starvation. These countries have demanding governments, and not enough money. Many countries with in Africa are just like this. The colonization of modern Africa has had many life changing effects on the people of Africa. Some of the effects of colonization are on the governments, the farming system, and the educational value.
Africa by far is the poorest continent, where the bottom eighteen countries on the Human Development Index all belong to Africa, 36.2% of the population lives on less than a dollar a day, and the total GDP of all of Africa is 1.184 trillion USD (about one sixteenth that of the United States). Researchers, reporters, and NGO’s alike go into Africa and bring the west back images; images which society as a whole connects with Africa; pictures of the homeless, the utterly distressed, the displaced, and the hungry. This is the Africa that the west as a whole knows. So the question is put into place; how can a continent of over one billion, spanning over thirty million square kilometres, just be a land of despair and tragedy? Where are the good stories, where are the stories of business, of social programs, of success? To answer this, let’s examine where Africa is going.
In order to help the people of Africa, trust must be regained between the people and the government. The people of Africa do not have the same privileges that wealthier countries do. Simple things that we take for granted, like education and emergency health care are not available to the majority of the population. They also do not have regular access to the media, or proper educational information to keep themselves safe from disease. Nor do they have proper access to information regarding the proper hygiene to prevent the spread of disease.
The problem of entrenched poverty is extremely difficult to solve because of different factors at work, all interacting with one another. African leaders are unwilling to work for change and do not recognize the fact that there is a big problem. Most African leaders are corrupt and make things worse for their fellow Africans. The only solution for Africans is should be ready to eliminate unethical leaders who are not eager to improve the country and giving the right people the opportunity to their work right in order to eliminate poverty in
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney, was one of the most controversial books in the world at the time of its release. The book seeks to argue that European exploitation and involvement in Africa throughout history. This is the cause of current African underdevelopment, and the true path to the development is for Africa to completely sever her ties with the international capitalist economy. Rodney describes his goal in writing the book in the preface: “this book derives from a concern with the contemporary African situation. It delves into the past only because otherwise it would be impossible to understand how the present came into being and what the trends are for the near future” (vii). Rodney writes from a distinctly Marxist perspective by arguing that the inequalities inherent in European capitalism and required exploitation of certain countries in order to sustain capitalism.
The Scramble for Africa, named for the speed at which Africa was partitioned and colonized, began with King Leopold II 's conquest of the Congo. However, it did not end with the Belgian occupation of the Congo. Just as Leopold 's Congo was demarcated by the vast extraction of raw materials, most notably rubber, other European powers used African colonies as resource markets. However, economic motivations were not the sole stimulus for colonial expansion into Africa during the late 19th century. The causalities of the Scramble for Africa, and subsequent partition, are the result of a complex interplay between social, political, and economic forces both within Africa and within Europe. The colonization of Africa could not have been as extensive
There is no doubt that European colonialism has left a grave impact on Africa. Many of Africa’s current and recent issues can trace their roots back to the poor decisions made during the European colonial era. Some good has resulted however, like modern medicine, education, and infrastructure. Africa’s history and culture have also been transformed. It will take many years for the scars left by colonization to fade, but some things may never truly disappear. The fate of the continent may be unclear, but its past provides us with information on why the present is the way it is.
Underdevelopment of Africa Underdevelopment in Africa is a problem that has been plaguing the countries all over the continent for a very long time. It has so many negative effects on Africans. It has brought about so many consequences, but of all, the economy is the most affected sector because the economic sector controls all other aspects of the society. Underdevelopment in Africa is as a result of many contributing factors which include poverty, illiteracy, very large extended families, corruption and lack of accountability. Poverty is one of the causes of underdevelopment in Africa.