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Effects of imperialism africa
Effect of imperialism on africa
Effects of imperialism africa
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Within Kenya, the colonial period was a pivotal era, as it completely altered the country both in positive and negative ways. The time-honored tribes diminished, while the Christian converts grew. Democracy was born, while crops, with little materials to help them grow, died. Overall, the British colonization of Kenya had a mostly negative impact even though it established a democratic government and left Kenya a more modernized country, it completely destroyed the culture and economy of the native people in the process. The age of colonial imperialism was during the 19th and 20th century, where European powers assimilated citizens into the official religion and society of their country. Across the globe, different areas were colonized by
Kenya is still troubled in a political sense, which is clearly demonstrated by the riotous elections of December 2007, in which around 1,000 people were killed in (Sisson). During one of the more recent elections, there were numerous massacres and protests trying to obstruct the concept of democracy. Under British rule, attempts to impose models of democracy on Kenya, originally a tribal country, were made. These have influenced the corrupt Kenyan government into holding democratic elections, which turned extremely abusive. A large amount of Kenyan’s are not yet ready to take away their tribal identity to forge a national identity for Kenya. High authorities of Kenya including president Jomo Kenyatta wore clothing similar to the clothing of the Europeans (Sisson). This made people feel that their clothing was not in fashion and they had to follow the way of the Europeans, although it meant losing a cultural aspect of their tribal group. The lack traditional tribal apparel being worn was decreasing the amount of people following the culture they were raised under. With a new religion and semi-new lifestyle, Kenya’s citizens were becoming more European than Kenyan. Additionally, climatic conditions make it impossible sometimes some years in some countries to cultivate crops in Kenya. Climate changes such as drought and flood are example. Because Africa is in
Prior to the 19th century, the Europeans traded mainly for African slaves. It turns out they were not immune towards certain diseases and therefore had an increasing risk of becoming sick. For years to come this continued, but not much land was conquered. Eventually, conference between only the Europeans was held to divide up the land appropriately, and the scramble for Africa began. The driving forces behind European imperialism in Africa were expanding empires, helping natives, and natural resources.
Imperialism is when a mother nation takes over another nation and become its colony for political, social, and economical reasons. Imperialism is a progressive force for both the oppressors (mother country) and the oppressed (colony), majorly occurring during the late 19th and early 20th century. It had more negative effects than positive effects due to its domination to other nations.
A true saying is “Colonization often does more damage than contribution.” Colonialism encouraged Africa’s development in some areas, but in many others it severely damaged the natural progress of the continent. If colonialism was never imposed on Africa, Africa’s developments would be significantly different and many of the problems that the continent faces now would not exist today. In conclusion, at first it seems that colonialism has both positive and negative effects, but the truth is it only damages the colonized nation.
When the Age of Imperialism began in 1875, it effected Africa in many ways. Nowhere was the competition for colonies more intense than in Africa. Europeans went after North and South Africa splitting up the continent. Egypt and Sudan were taken over by Britain to obtain the Suez Canal. Imperialism helped to develop Africa’s economy and turned it into a continent of colonies.
In East Africa, there is an area know as the Great Rift Valley. It is in this Great Rift Valley, where the world’s most dominant long distance runners come from, Kenya. In the past three decades, runners from Kenya have simply dominated the sport of long distance running in all facets including cross-country, track, and the marathon. In the world rankings for marathon running, Kenyans hold 8 of the top 10 spots for the men and 6 of the top ten spots in women’s rankings. (Entine, Par. 2) But how can one country be so overpowering in a sport that anyone can participate in? There are a number of factors that all work together to make Kenyan runners the best of the best. Rigorous training regimens, the physical geography of Kenya, country and world support of the athletes, genetics and early participation of children are all factors in the study of why Kenyan runners are by far the best long distance runners in the world. To start off, you must look at the physical geography in which the Kenyans train.
Throughout history, imperialism by one nation on another has had many negative influences on the nation being colonized. The legacy of European imperialism in Africa in the 19th century was negative. Imperialism negatively affected Africa politically, economically, and culturally. In terms of political changes, European imperialism negatively affected Africa. Firstly, European colonization created enormous conflict between colonists and the African people.
Imperialism in the late 1800’s blossomed when a new phase of global expansion erupted. One of the main goals of this global expansion focused on new markets and sources of raw materials. Due to the Second Industrial Revolution, the demand for new markets and the exploding numbers in production compelled business leaders to search out new sources of investment for the growing economy. Rapid territorial expansion redirected the competing ideologies of agricultural demands, Native Americans, European Immigrants, and industrial capitalist in this new empire. In this search, manufacturers needed to find new raw materials in order to better equip themselves to sustain against the newly rising competitors. This caused competition with foreign market systems all around to begin pursuing an imperialistic empire. The European powers responded with aggressive nationalism when expanding their empire. This concept began trending internationally as other nations adapted the new concept of maintaining a steady nation through the new ideals of expansions.
European colonization in Kenya had a large impact on Africa’s religion and culture. Africa had over 100 ethnic groups in which were effected from the colonization. (Doc.2). The Europeans believed that Africans did not have a developed religion and believed in bizarre thing such as witchcraft (Doc.6). But, in the Abaluyia Story of Creation, it told how the world and man was created, which was really like the European religion of Christianity in which Adam and Eve was made in a similar way. This proved that they indeed did have an organized religion (Doc.7). In 1962, 80% of Kenyans believed in the indigenous beliefs, but after in 2002, only 26% of the population believed in the indigenous beliefs. Because Europeans believed in Christianity, Protestant beliefs went from 7% in 1962 to 38% in 2002, and Catholic beliefs went from 3.5% to 28% (Doc. 8). Europeans felt they gave Africans the Christian religion, a “superior” form of government, and a more developed civilization (Background Essay). The colonization in Kenya changed their culture also. Kenyans changed their clothing. Leaders of Kenya including the first president Jomo Kenyatta wore clothing very similar to the clothing of the Europeans (Doc.5). This made people feel that their clothing was not in fashion and they had to follow the way of the Europeans. This decreased the amount of people wearing their regular clothing and the amount of people following their own culture. Kenya’s religion and culture truly converted, because of European colonization.
... Although the imperialization of Africa started out as a beneficial deal to both Africa and Europe, it quickly took a turn for the worse as Europe started to take complete control of African colonies. The Europeans wanted African colonies for many reasons. They wanted new land and the natural resources that can only be found in Africa, they wanted the new market opportunities that having colonies in Africa would open up to them, and they wanted to stay in competition with other European countries. The motives of the Europeans quickly deteriorated as they started exploiting the native Africans and abusing the slave trade that they had promised to abolish with the three C’s.
Imperialism is when a world power colonizes a smaller country or kingdom, and then proceeds to exploit the land and resources of the kingdom or country. Through the majority of the 18th century, imperialism was a dominant force on global relations. During the peak of the Age of Imperialism, Queen Victoria and her British empire dominated the world. British Imperialism started in the late 1700’s because of population growth and the advances in technology industrialism that occurred during the Industrial Revolution. The areas that the British imperialized during this time period include India, a large part of Africa, and Australia.
Jomo Kenyatta began his journey in the country of Kikuyu. When he was 10 years old he became gravly ill and had to have surgery. It was then that he was brought to the Church of Scotland mission and encountered Europeans for the first time (“Jomo Kenyatta”, Britannica). After being exposed to the Europeans, Kenyatta later ran away from home to become a student of the Church of Scotland mission. During this time, he studied the Bible, English, Math, and worked for a European settler to pay his tution. He later left the mission and moved to Nairobi where he would encounter his first affiliation with an African political protest movement, the East Africa Association (EAA), led by a fellow Kikuyu named Harry Thuku. Kenyatta empathized with the movement because it involved his people, the Kikuyu. One of the main goals of the EAA’s was to regain the land that had been taken by the Euorpeans when Kenya ...
During the 19th century, Europe found a way to use Africa for its own growth and power. Using Africa for their resources, the Europeans colonized Africa without a second thought. European imperialism in Africa had a negative impact because of social disarray, cultural loss, and death it caused. As the Europeans started to invade Africa and split up the land, they paid no attention to the already existing natural boundaries. Over time, villages with different cultures had set these boundaries.
In order to properly understand the effects of colonization, one must look at its history. Most of Africa was relatively isolated from Europe throughout early world history, but this changed during the 17th to the 20th centuries. Colonization efforts reached their peak between the 1870s and 1900 in the “Scramble for Africa” which left the continent resembling a jigsaw puzzle Various European powers managed to colonize Africa including Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Portugal, and Spain. This intense imperialist aggression had three major causes. The primary reason was simply for economic gain. Africa is refuge to vast, unexplored natural resources. European powers saw their opportunity and took it. Another motive was to spread the Christian religion to the non-Christian natives. The last major incentive was to demonstrate power between competing European nations. African societies did try to resist the colonial takeover either through guerilla warfare or direct military engagement. Their efforts were in vain, however, as by the turn of the century, only Liberia and Ethiopia remained not colonized. European powers colonized Africa according to the guidelines established by the Berlin Act (1885). Many of the colonized nations were ruled indirectly through appointed governor...
Kenya has a humid type of climate with little temperature variation from month to month. The average annual temperature along the coast is 27 degrees celcius, but in Kenya Highlands it is only 14 degrees celcius. About three-fourths of Kenya recieves less than 500ml of rain a year. Most rain fall occurs during the “long rains” from March to May.
Poverty. Imagine living on less than 2 dollars a day, having little to no education, being sick with diseases like cholera and HIV/AIDS, or having poor living conditions (Berrebi, D). Well, about 17,663,800 Kenyans live this nightmare according to a 2012 CIA study. Kenya, ranked the 39th poorest country in the world on a report by Global Finance Magazine, and countries like the U.S. along with organizations like The Borgen Project, and The Hunger Project are providing aid to help with reducing the number of people in poverty. The international aid to Kenya has reduced the number of people under that $2 threshold, but there have been negative impacts on the economy and financial corruption gets in the way of effective aid.