More handpicked essays just for you.
Colonialism in africa and its impact
Effect of colonialism on african culture and civilization
Impacts of colonialism on africa
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
For centuries Europeans had a skewed view of Africa. The only reports they had on Africa were those of white missionaries and explorers. These groups explained how the indigenous were immoral and primative and needed to be tamed. Further fueling Europeans justification of the colonialization of Africa. However this thought process was just a guise for many Kings and explorers to use to cover up their greed for the riches that Africa held. In the novel King Leopolds Ghost by Adam Hochschild, King Leopold and Henry Morton Stanley, are innacurately portrayed as men of honor who conquered Africa in the name of religion or to advance civilization because of the way Europeans ignore the brutality of their methods which were more for personal gain …show more content…
than helping the native people. The psyche of the men who were some of the main instigators in Africa needs to be examined.
While their actions should not be condoned, there is a similar pattern to their minds when you examine their back stories and their motivation to why they did what they did.
Starting in the prologue, the destruction of Europeans on Africa is seen in the Kongo when King Alphonse writes letters to King Joao of Portugal explaining his disdain for traders coming to the Kongo and kidnapping his people and sending them back to Portugal as slaves. While he himself was a slave owner, he did not want to see the population of his people diminish so greatly. However, many natives were amazed by the wonder of European goods and were willing to trade family members to get these goods. This was the beginning of the Europeans conquest and colonialization of Africa. Europeans wanted to use Africa's raw materials to help support the Industrial Revolution. They would take ivory, rubber, diamonds, and gold from Africa and become wealthy while Africa suffered the loss. After this time many countries sent troops and officials over to take part in the scramble for Africa. In the later 19th century a young
…show more content…
merchant/writer/ explorer by the name of John Rollins, later changing his name to Henry Morton Stanley, heard about this scramble and wanted to take part in the exploration. John grew up poor and abused but was also very bright. Many would claim that he was too much of a liar and someone who exaggerated his stories but that made him a great storyteller. The scramble for Africa made explorers into celebrities. The people back in their home countries wanted to hear all the stories about Africa and their primative people. In 1872 Henry Morton Stanley was commissioned by his publisher in America to go find British explorer David Livingstone who had gone missing after searching for the source of the Nile River. Stanley's account of his expedition was melodramatic and exacerbated his stories of killing anyone who got in his way. This story would go on to become a best seller and make Stanley famous. This would catch the eye of King Leopold II of Belgium who, similar to Stanley, had a less than ideal childhood and had distasteful personality. King Leopold II was born in 1835 to Leopold I and Louise. He was desribed as odd and was never his parents favorite child. His father called him a sly fox. He was always obsessed with trade matters. Since the beginning of his reign Leopold wanted to gain colonies for Belgium. He wanted to be in the race for the scramble for Africa with the rest of Europe. He studied the way British colonies acquired land. For Leopold it was not just about wealth or growth it was about power. His reasoning behind his ruthless ways of gaining colonies was based upon his sense of incompetency growing up. He had to be particularly sneaky in his attempts to gain colonies because the Belgian people were afraid that colonization would lead to the country going broke. Leopold eventually decided he wanted to explore the Congo. He decided to enlist Stanleys help. Stanley could write the book but Leopold would edit it. A pairing of these men would be particualry troublesome considering Leopold's ruthlessness and Stanley's embellishments. Leopold gave Stanley what he wanted for the exploration which included two novice crew memebers that he could exploit and use for his story to make him sound like an even better explorer. The next step was how it was going to be percieved by the public. Leopold, a sly man, made it out to look like a philanthropy exploration. He rationalized it by saying that he was exploring Africa to “Curb the slave trade, moral uplift, and the advancement of science” (Pg. 42) Knowing how many Europeans genuinely wanted to make Africans Christan and help educate them with western teachings he was able to gain public support. He even stated that there is a clause that stops him from getting any political gain from this exploration. He decided to create an organization called the International African Association to promote peace and stop the slave trade. This organization turned out to be a cover up so the public wouldn't know who was funding and what they were funding for.“Monsters exist,” wrote Primo Levi of his experience at Auschwitz. “But they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are ... the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.” This quote became unfortunately too true for the people who listened to what Leopold said without questioning him. This drove his quest for power even further. He became so obssessed with power he eventually created his own slave labor system to get rubber and ivory making him and his supporters wealthy. He became most concerned with Ivory when Stanley finished his expedition and reported that the Congo was a great place to take over since there was little military threat and would be a great place to create a colony and transportation system. He continuted to try and keep up the philanthropic facade for a while sending underlings throughout the world speaking of the good deeds they were doing there. However other countries such as France tried to take over after hearing about its wealth of rubber and ivory. Eventually Leopold was able to get other countries to recognize it as the “Free State of Congo”. Leopold eventually went back on most promises he made. He ran out of money so he stopped free trade, he stopped using the facade that it was for philanthropic means, and when people such as George Washington Williams traveled there they saw just how atrocious Leopold was. He saw how Africans were treated as second class citizens in their own native land. They were tricked, kidnapped, and in some cases murdered if they didnt do what Leopold wanted. He claimed Leopold was committing “crimes against humanity” (Pg. 112) not just creating a colony. More people began to catch on to his behavior such as Edmund Morel who realized nothing was coming back in to the Congo after all that was being sent to Europe. This made it obvious that Leopold was using forced labor and once the findings were published the people started to turn on the King. Leopolds reign of terror lasted until 1908 when he was forced to give control over to the Belgian parliament. The mental states of both Leopold must be examined to understand how they go to the place they did.
Stanley was reportedly abused in workhouses as a child and was constantly passed around family members. He could never form attachments to women. He was once engaged to a woman but then went on an exploration to come back and find out that she was already married to someone else. This did not help his ego. Similar to Leopold, Stanley, was constantly tryint to make a name for himself by any means necessary. He would make stories exaggerated to get the wow factor. He famously would talk about brutality and conquering at many means necessary. “The thin-skinned Stanley was remarkably frank about his tendency to take any show of hostility as a deadly insult. It is almost as if vengeance were the force driving him across the continent” (Pg. 49). Also like Leopold he became drunk with power. Becomg a cruel leader in the Congo. Leopold on the other hand was not as boisterous. His own family called him strange. He was forced into a marriage in which both parties were miserable. It was said that they did not consumate the marriage till a meeting with Queen Victoria in which she encouraged them to. Eventually they had children but their son died at the age of 9. It was the only public show of emotion from Leopold when he broke down to his knees. After this he became comepletely shutoff from his wife and daughters. He obsession with trade and colonization may have been a result of
unprocessed and pushed aside feelings from his sons death. He wanted to focus on anything else besides his family. He clearly had a clouded mental state because no sane person would commit the heinous acts he did against other humans even if you did want power or money. It was truly a shame how long the atrocities in the Congo and throughout Africa went on. The people of the Congo not receiving independence till 1960 is despicable. The leadership system of that time was different as it is now and such crimes against humanity would be found out much sooner today. Ignorance is not always bliss when it comes to human behavior. Leaders must work together so that there is never another King Leopold type.
While my opinion is that the book itself was a good read, the context troubles me in that it took so much effort to expose Leopold’s crimes and it was forgotten. The story starts with King Leopold II of Belgium. In the scramble for Africa, many nations rushed to establish colonies, and those who did made a great profit from them. The king himself wanted to compete with them, as well as amass a profit. He traveled to several British colonies and learnt how to establish and manage a colony of his own.
In King Leopold`s Ghost, the author Adam Hochschild conveys many attempts to challenge the actions of King Leopold`s control in the Congo. This was to reach an international audience at the time of the 20th century. Protestors depended on a variety of writing techniques to make their case successful. For example the use of direct letters to officials, published “open letters”, articles in newspapers, and public speeches. These protesters were George Washington Williams, William Sheppard, Edmund Dene Morel, and Roger Casement. These protesters became aware of the situation in the Congo in different ways. They also had diversity in how they protested through their writing. Although Edmund Dene Morel and Roger Casement share a comparative approach.
In many accounts of the Africans, the Africans were in disagreement with the European's Scramble for Africa. Ndansi Kumalo an African veteran wrote in 1896 if many of them to give or keep their land. In a distrustful and agony tone he spoke of how the poor treatment of the Africans in the Ndebele rebellion against the British advances in South America to convince many others not to stay because it has impacted many Africans and many died in the process of it. He says “So we surrendered to the White people and were told to go back to our homes and live our usual lives and attend to our crops. They came and were overbearing. We were ordered to carry their clothes and bundles (Doc.4).” A German military officer in 1896 wrote in a newspaper article about the reactions of the Africans about the white settlers. In an awed tone he wrote about the 1906 account of the Maji Maji Rebellion in German East Africa and to give an example of how the Africans believed in a magic medicine would help them defend themselves against the white settlers (Doc.8). Mojimba an African chief in 1907 described a battle in 1877 on the Congo River against British and African mercenaries to a German catholic missionary. In an appalled and hateful tone he used this description to show that these whi...
One of the main reasons Europeans colonized Africa was for their useful resources. There are countless assets in the African landscape that are wanted by other nations. The European countries had access to some of the world's most needed resources such as cotton, oils, coal, gold, and diamonds because they controlled Africa. This is shown on a chart of African colonies and their exports. " Selected African Colonies and Their Exports" (269).
...ion of imperialism has evolved. In both Heart of Darkness by Conrad, and The Poisonwood Bible by Kingsolver, Africa is invaded and altered to conform to the desires of more “civilized” people. While this oppression in the Congo never seems to cease, the natives are consistently able to overcome the obstacles, and the tyrants, and thus prove to be civilized in their own regard and as capable of development as the white nations. As Orleanna says herself: “Call it oppression, complicity, stupefaction, call it what you’d like…Africa swallowed the conqueror’s music and sang a new song of her own” (Kingsolver 385). Kingsolver illustrates that though individuals may always seek to control and alter the region, the inhabitants and victims of the tyranny and oppression live on and continue past it, making the state of the area almost as perpetual as the desire to control it.
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.
Though the Atlantic Slave Trade began in 1441, it wasn’t until nearly a century later that Europeans actually became interested in slave trading on the West African coast. “With no interest in conquering the interior, they concentrated their efforts to obtain human cargo along the West African coast. During the 1590s, the Dutch challenged the Portuguese monopoly to become the main slave trading nation (“Africa and the Atlantic Slave Trade”, NA). Besides the trading of slaves, it was also during this time that political changes were being made. The Europe...
King Leopold II of Belgium, a German prince, was a kin to Queen Victoria. He was an avaricious man, who would do anything for his personal benefit and comfort. He had decided to use every possible means, whether legal or illegal, to expand his empire even before he assumed his position as a King. He was still quite young when he got the opportunity to take over the crown. The easiest possible way to turn his dreams into reality was to find a state and make it a colony to his
The first leg of the journey was from Europe, mainly Portugal to Africa. Many of the goods produced in Europe were not available in Africa or America. The Europeans traded manufactured goods, including weapons, guns, beads, cowrie shells (used as money), cloth, horses, and rum to the African kings and merchants in return for gold, silver and slaves. Africans were seen as very hard workers who were skilled in the area of agriculture and cattle farming. They were also used to the extreme temperatures that people of lighter complexions could not bear. There had always been slavery in Africa amongst her own people, where men from different tribes/villages would raid other villages to kidnap the women for their pleasures, and the men to use as slaves. To learn that they could actually profit from this activity made the job of getting slaves very easy for the Europeans. Slaves acquired through raids, were transported to the seaports were they were help prisoner in forts until traded.
Africa has had a long and tumultuous road of colonization and decolonization; the rush to colonize Africa started in the 17th century with the discovery of the vast amounts of gold, diamonds, and rubber, with colonization hitting a fever pitch during World War I. However, the repercussions of colonization have left deep wounds that still remain unhealed in the 21st century. Early on, European nations such as Britain, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany and Belgium scrambled for territories. Countries wanted land so they could harvest the resources, increase trade, and gain power.
...ermore established imperial rule in the Congo. The Force Publique was Leopold’s governing army. They were to oversee the work of the now colonized people of the Congo. Another of Leopold’s objectives was to gain wealth from his acquired colony. With the Force Publique, he would force the Congolese to gather ivory from the land. Those who refused had their elders, women and children held hostage until they complied. Leopold’s International African Association was to be a humanitarian project that would help to end slavery, however, by forcing the people to work for him, he was enslaving those he supposedly sought to help. When the popularity of the bicycle rose in the late 19th, manufactures were in need of rubber for their tires. Leopold saw this as an opportunity to gain more wealth and quickly had the Force Publique force the people into harvesting rubber.
While the economic and political damage of the scramble for Africa crippled the continent’s social structure, the mental warfare and system of hierarchy instituted by the Europeans, made the continent more susceptible to division and conquest. The scramble for partition commenced a psychological warfare, as many Africans were now thrust between the cultural barriers of two identities. As a result, institutions for racial inferiority became rooted in the cultural identity of the continent. This paper will expound on the impact of colonialism on the mental psyche of Africans and the employment of the mind as a means to seize control. I will outline how the mental hierarchy inculcated by the Europeans paved the way for their “divide and conquer” tactic, a tool essential for European success. Through evidence from a primary source by Edgar Canisius and the novel, King Leopold’s Ghost, I will show how colonial influences heightened the victimization of Africans through psychological means. I will culminate by showing how Robert Collins fails to provide a holistic account of colonialism, due to his inability to factor in the use of psychological warfare as a means to the end. By dissecting the minds of both the colonizer and the colonized, I hope to illustrate the susceptibility of African minds to European influences and how psychological warfare transformed Africans from survivors to victims during colonialism.
The colonization of Africa officially began in 1884 with the Berlin Conference. Western European powers began to split up the land and resources in Africa among themselves. This period of history became known as the Scramble for Africa. The Scramble for Africa occurred because as the slave trade ended, capitalists saw Africa as a continent that they could now exploit through legitimate trade. European capitalists found new ways to make money off of the continent. With greater exploration of the continent even more valuable resources were found. The encouragement of legitimate trade in Africa brought Europeans flocking to colonize Africa. Africa lost their independence, and along with it, their control over their natural resources. Europeans used the term the "White Man's Burden," a concept used by white colonizers in order to impose their way of life on Africans within their colonies, to ...
The Europeans saw Africa as being a great place to obtain all types of resources, from labor to natural materials. Items such as cotton, coal, rubber, copper, tin, gold, and other metals were considered very valuable and readily available in Africa (Nardo). The industrial revolution had already become a strong influence on the countries that attended the Conference. They had spent the past 400 years gathering slaves from Africa that provided cheap labor for them. ....
There are a lot of causes of the scramble for Africa, and one of them was to ‘liberate’ the slaves in Africa after the slave trade ended. The slave trade was a time during the age of colonization when the Europeans, American and African traded with each oth...