By Antonio Ochoa
There were many reasons why the European people wanted to colonize Africa. From what I read I think the most important reason they colonize Africa was economic. A depression was occurring in Europe. Countries like Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, and other powerful countries were loosing money, and Africa looked like a way out of that depression. To make money from Africa the Europeans used their biggest raw goods. They hoarded oil, ivory, rubber, palm oil, wood, cotton, and gum (for paper). Because of cheap African labor, these materials were easily acquired. These materials could possibly spark an financial boom in Europe. The other reasons that make the Europeans colonize Africa was because of religion and political. Another reason why was Africa colonize was because, fights between countries. France and Britain had hated each other for centuries because of the infamous hundred years war, and they both wanted to out-do the other in Africa.however, the race of power was not limited to Britain and France. Other nations wanted to benefit as well, like Germany, Italy, and Spain. Nationalism was being really popular in many Western Europe countries, so everyone wanted their country to be the strongest. Once Africa was starting to be colonized, moral issues became an concern as well. One huge topic was to stop the Muslim Swahili slave trade. Europeans were shocked at how Africans could do this.
Some things that I consider positive of the Europeans imperialism in Africa, is that colonialism brought peace to the three hundred warring tribes of Africa. Colonialism for Africa brought more development than it had ever know before and after colonialism. Colonialists brought a lot more into Africa than they took out from Africa. It is for that reason that most world empires easily let go of the continent, with only white settlers opposing black rule. From London, Lisbon and Brussels, Africa is totally useless. Local white settlers understood the destruction the end of colonialism would bring into their lives, but for Europeans, colonialism was a waste of money and resources. The standard of living in Africa under colonialism has not been matched even despite billions of dollars of annual aid to the continent from white countries.
Some negative consequences of the European imperialism in Africa were, that the Atlantic slave trade started, for 200-300 years, the daily life for many of them was really bad, doing hard, work with almost no food, no money, they had nothing. It was so devastating that their population barely grew. In the meantime internal wars were shaping the continent same as everywhere in the world. Most kingdoms finish being destroyed, fragile and weakened. Also, the process at Berlin disrupted the natural process of state formation on the continent, colonial rule abolished the local systems of checks and balances, replacing them with a foreign system most do not take seriously. The postcolonial settlement left a bunch of exploitative big men in charge, big men who have proceeded to undermine fledgling institutions and transformed nation-states into client-states, most of them have proven inept at providing the benefits of centralized representative government to their people. The colonialists still continue to profit. Other bad things that happened where the disruption to trade human life’s, the Europeans exploited African labor, divided nations unevenly by the Europeans, created full time armies, purposely kept countries underdeveloped, discourage formal education, dictatorships and political instability, civil war, one commodity country, limited development, were left overly dependent on former colonial nations, and lack of education.
World Regions 