Exploitation in Africa over the centuries

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The unbalanced relationship between Africa’s resources and European and American financial interest can first be analyzed from 1600 to 1860 leading up to the emancipation proclamation. This era was characterized by Africans giving up their human capital, or human resources in the form of slaves to European’s to trade over to the Americas to support the plantation economy. This was the largest loss of humans for Africa as they sent millions through the slave trade. Many Europeans, such as the Dutch West Indian Company and the Royal African Company, made an enormous amount of money running the slave trade while African’s got little to nothing in return. American’s profited by having free labor for a one time fixed payment to acquire the slaves. This fueled the plantation economy in which Americans deepened their pockets leading up to the civil war. Overall, this relationship heavily favored the westerners and caused Africa to lose a great deal of human resources.
The next time period in which the unbalanced relationship between Africa’s resources and European and American financial interest can be shown though is from 1884 – to the late 1950s/early 1960s. This period was started by the Berlin Conference and ended with the civil rights movement and African countries’ independence movements. The Berlin Conference started a period of European colonization in Africa where European countries got together to “chop” up Africa with no consideration for cultural lines. The division of African countries effectively ended any potential conflicts and Europe that would be caused because of colonization clashes between countries, so this also effectively benefitted Europeans. But what was wrong is that Europeans took over and formed these new co...

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... at which they can grow as a society. Also, in all instances, the consumers (western consumers) have turned their heads and allowed this type of activity and exploitation to continue. From 1600 – 1860, the consumer’s could have rejected slavery as a source of labor. During the next era, we could have chosen to receive our natural resources from non-colonized areas, or even pay a premium for such products to support the native workers. And in today’s society, as Awon as stated in class, we as consumer’s vote with our dollars. It is up to us to choose which multinational corporations to support with our dollars. If consumers choose to not support coffee shops until they offer fair trade coffee beans, then they will listen or else they will go out of business. It is up to scholars like us who are aware of this blatant exploitation to make a difference in our society.

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