Colonialism In Africa Essay, Research Paper

Colonialsim in Africa

+As the Roman+s laid the foundations of modern civilization, and led the wild barbarians of the British Isles along the path of progress, so in Africa today we are repaying the debt, and bringing to the dark places of the earth, the abode of barbarism and cruelty the torch of culture and progress, while ministering to the material needs of our own civilization.+ Hi my name is Trevor and the argument that I will be proposing to you is that the colonization of Africa was inevitable. Africa could not alter the path that the European powers had chosen. In the late nineteenth century Europe had begun to expand it+s economic horizons. Africa was not united, this allowed Europe to stage African states against each other for control. The colonization of africa was bound to occur , even Britain was once a colony. The European economies had reached a point where they needed more markets for the products they produced, they also wanted to attain a favorable position with a land that had plentiful natural resources. Europe wanted to expand outward. We as a people cannot say what the Europeans did was correct, it was not. They violated a continent for their own selfish reasons. However you have to realize that Colonialism was going to occur on the path that Europe had chosen after internally expanding it need to expand externally.

Europeans wanted to expand their empire and to follow the examples of past empires. Britain was a perfect example, it had low natural resources, it needed to expand if it wanted to maintain it+s economic power. Great Britain+s industry was growing at a faster rate than her natural resources could supply. If Britain wanted to maintain it+s economic stature it needed to find larger markets, and more natural resources thus it turned to colonization. The rest of Europe was eventually put into the same position, if they wanted to keep up with each other. Africa supplied everything that Europe needed at a close range. As stated above with these factors in mind it was inevitable that Africa sooner or later would have been colonized by Europe.

African+s could not prevent Europeans colonizing their continent for they could not efficiently defend themselves. Once the first European had landed on the African coast, he in a way had sealed the fate of the colonization that took place. The Europeans had guns. Almost every person that inhabited Africa at the time had never seen a gun and the damage they could inflict. African+s fought back, but not under unification. This gave the colonizers a major advantage that turned out to be one of the ruling factors due to the size of the African continent. If all of Africa had united under one ruler, a unlikely situation, Europe would not been able to win due to the pure numbers that inhabit the continent. But this did not occur so the Europeans played the African states against each other like a well tuned flute. One state would enter a alliance with a European power to be able to demolish their enemy, and in the process they would be sucked in to being controlled by the country that was originally supposed to help them. For instance in Uganda a civil war was raging in the 1890+s. It consisted of three rival factions fighting for control, Britain entered and sided with a faction and ended up colonizing Uganda. Nigeria followed suit ten years later. So in this aspect Africa in a way brought the European colonization into areas where it might not of penetrated.

It is not like colonization is a new thing it has been practiced since the time of the Roman empire, even Britain was once a colony. Africa is in a perfect and convenient position in the world for Europe to start colonies there. After the first colonies were settled in africa it became a race for land, each country did not want to be left behind. So over a twenty year period Africa was invaded by every European country that could afford a colonization expedition. They had no regard for the inhabitants of the land, neither did the Roman’s have any regard for the inhabitants of the British Isles. I am not saying that this is an excuse, but it shows that Africa was not the first land to be colonized, nor the last.