Why Did The Spread Of The Colonization Of Africa

Colonisation, at least in a political sense, can be defined as the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically, which can be seen to be true in almost all cases of the European conquest of Africa. However, a ‘colonisation of consciousness ’ can be seen as far more about the changing of ideas, morals and traditions, than the actual physical act of conquering a land, as would be the case in the political sense discussed previously. Therefore, in terms of the African people under European rule, it becomes more difficult to pinpoint to whether a colonisation of consciousness occurred at all, and if it did, how far conversion to Christianity,

The map (fig.1 see appendix) shows the spread of both Christianity and Islam post-decolonisation. Despite the later information on the map shown, the far-reach of Islam, especially in the east of the African continent, shows that Christianity did not have influence across the whole of Africa. Large scale conversions to Islam also occurred much earlier than with Christianity, and was not the force of colonisation, but because of long standing trade routes. Also, similar to the missionary schools set up by the European colonial government, many Koranic schools where also set up. They became an alternate option for education, and at least at the primary level, offered similar skills to mission schools, with the British even allowing these schools to take the brunt of the responsibility of education, at least to start off with. Pre-existing Islamic leaders were worked with by British elites and contributed to the political system far more than converted Christian African were allowed to. In Nigeria, the British used indirect rule through the already Muslim leaders in place, like in Northern Nigeria, where the British exercised colonial authority through the Emirs. This can be seen as Islam contributing more to the ‘colonisation of consciousness’ than Christianity as it, in some ways, held more power to make change than the colonised people. However conversion to Islam was made easier for many African converts as it allowed them to keep many of the practices of their traditional belief systems that Western Christianity would not e.g. polygamy. This similarity therefore throws doubt into the argument that Islam could truly colonise the consciousness of the Africans who converted as it somewhat conformed to the ideals that were already in place in there, as opposed to Christianity which would implement far more change