Positive And Negative Effects Of Imperialism On Africa

Africa's history has been a rocky one, plagued by various forms of exploitation and imperialism. These blights had a strong negative effect on the development of Africa. While different methods such as slavery, unequal trade and forced ideals were utilised to manipulate Africa and to simplify its imperialism, the end result was the same When the Europeans exploited Africa it experienced a period of terror and imperialism that still echoes within it today.

When Africa’s past imports and exports are looked at one notices unusual trends that lead to the conclusion that African trade was skewed towards the Europeans, additionally it can be seens that other methods of economic exploitation were exercised. Africa’s trade was manipulated in

order to exploit their economy in ways that benefited the Europeans. While Africa had many raw materials, the Europeans had all the manufacturing power. In order to profit from Africa's raw goods the Europeans exported them in large quantities and then mass manufactured them into other products which were then sold back to Africa. Such items included things such as Alcohol and Jewelry, which were sold at a significant mark up when compared to the materials exported to make them. To make matters worse many of the imported products were not beneficial to Africa, such as Brandy and Tobacco. In other areas land was given to French concessionaires (or other equivalent WHITE individual) who terrorised the area and claimed rights to every piece of property, breaking up the French ruled areas into small isolated pockets that were then exploited to maximise profit. Through several types of underhanded tactics the Europeans managed to economically exploit Africa in a way that impaired their economic development for decades.

Africa's Economy was not the only thing that the Europeans exploited. The Europeans also exploited the loss of cultural identity they had created to inject their own ideas into African culture. The Europeans thought that their ideas would help the African people and that it was good for their ideas to be demonstrated in more of the world. Unfortunately, pushing these ideas on the African peoples seriously damaged much of their history to such a degree that, even with modern techniques, it is difficult to recover. The Europeans jumbled a diverse mixture of ethnic groups together, in turn diluting their individual identity and ignoring their cultural incompatibilities. It is due to an irrecoverable history, destroyed by the Europeans that Africa has forever lost much of its cultural history, a setback that greatly impairs their social development.

Slavery also played a key role in Africa becoming less developed than many other nations. The effect of slavery was a degradation of the African people and the weakening of their society as a whole. Slavery took away the strong, young men needed to advance their society and instead sold them off to various other parts of the world. Additionally it led to the acceptance of the idea that the Europeans were better than the Africans because it made it seem as if the enslavement a people requires the slavers to be better than the people they were enslaving. A similar destruction of culture was exhibited in the white denial of African history. Slavery led directly to the loss of a strong labor force due to a lack of young people to do hard manual labour and a degradation of the African society as a whole.

By manipulating the social, economical and geopolitical relations of Africa the Europeans simplified the imperialism of Africa, this had the additional effect of placing a huge roadblock in the way of Africans trying to develop their continent. The destruction of much of their cultural history and the removal of a strong workforce, coupled with a dying economy proved to be a setback that is to this very day still being sorted out.