Colonialism In Africa Essay

610 Words3 Pages
The causes of colonialism in Africa within the 19th century Back in early African history, European countries colonized and infiltrated African civilizations. By doing this, European colonists abolished the traditional African lifestyle. African’s were willing to let the colonists join them, but the Europeans went too far when they took over governments and tried to rule over the Africans. This colonization led to many problems that still affect the modern day Africa. One might think ‘how could anyone be so harsh as to take away the culture, lifestyle and religion of these people?’ To answer this we must look at the causes of this event. After the Industrial Revolution in Europe there were many factories in need of raw materials to manufacture goods. These included palm oil, timber and rubber. Europe was struggling to cope with the demand for raw materials so they took their troubles else-where.…show more content…
Europe was going into a crisis in which there were too many people and not enough food to feed then, another reason for them to colonise Africa. Europe mined the African land. They used young strong men to mine the minerals. This was not a good decision as these men were not getting the education that was needed. We see this in source (I). Different countries colonized different parts of Africa. It began in 1884 with the countries along the coast of Africa that were colonised by the French, British, Portuguese, Spanish, Germans and the Belgians. By 1914 the only independent countries were Ethiopia and Liberia. Other reasons for colonialism in Africa were due to Christian missionaries. Many had very close relationships with the African leaders and people. They began to take over the tribes and spread their own religion amongst them. They did this to make Europe more powerful to try to spread Christianity to the rest of the
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