European Colonization Of Africa Dbq Essay

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Eduardo Galeano has once said, “The Spaniards owned the cow, but others drank the milk” (goodreads.com). For centuries, the Europeans had been trading slaves and resources from Africa, but they did not know all about the continent. In the 1800s, they decided to explore Africa for more information on what it had. They had discovered that there were many more things they could import and export, and more people they could use for slave trade. They held a conference that evenly split up Africa between the European nations. The reasons they did this were for economy, power, and responsibility. Africa has many resources that wouldn’t be able to grow in Europe. When Europe went into Africa, they discovered a whole new world of economics. They decided to take advantage of this and export what they wanted out of Africa and into their countries. Just one example is the French, who exported gum, …show more content…

One way to gain power is to imperialize other, more weaker and nations. Europe decided to do this with Africa. Freidrich Fabri, a German author, was inspired and impressed by England colonizing so many nations, and supported Germany following in their footsteps. He was quoted saying “Should the New German Reich wish to prove and maintain its newly won position of power for a long time, it will have to… delay no longer to acknowledge its colonial task anew” (Document B). Freidrich and many people in other countries believe that by going into Africa and taking it over, the strength of their country will continue to grow. Their power did grow, and it also grew when they came up with new inventions to make imperialism an easier process for them. Europe used things like the maxim gun and the repeating rifle for the first time, both of which made it easier to kill because they shot more bullets faster than muskets (Document C). Not only did they grow in power by colonizing Africa, but grew in power with their

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