African Imperialism Essay

Since 1960, the imposition of colonialism on sub-Saharan Africa has affected the continent in many ways. Pacifically political and economic development. Africa has gone through so much just to become an independent country. Going back 1870 when Belgians began to trade with Africans in the Congo. The other European countries began to worry about missing out on the many amazing raw materials Africa possessed. The most important factor that motivated European colonial expansion was economic gain. This is due to industrial revolution, which began in Britain in the second half of the eighteenth century. The industrial revolution transformed the economy in Western Europe. Also they didn’t want to fall behind in the race to national prominence and
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