The European Conquest Of Africa Chapter 1 Summary

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I am a twenty-two year old slave from a British colony called Egypt. I was not always a slave though. I once lived a life being one with the land. She provided me with all the resources to live a healthy life. In chapter 17, Prelude to the European conquest of Africa, British abolitionists create a colony called Freetown were freed African slaves settled. It was a safe haven for freed slaves. This was sort of a shift from what Europeans originally used Africa for, which was the trading of slaves and gold. Everything Europeans needed was accessible on the Western coast of Africa, resulting in the interior to rarely be ventured. One man who argued that slavery was inefficient was Scottish philosopher Adam Smith. He argues that, “slavery was an economically inefficient form of labor (Collins 252).” The changing European economy, brought about by industrialization and urbanization, particularly in England, relentlessly transformed the terms of trade on the eastern and western African coasts throughout the nineteenth century. Europe started to trade for tropical products like animal hides, palm oil, cloves, and gum Arabic, rather than just…show more content…
In this chapter, Collins explains and depicts how Europeans destroyed Africa through their actions. European countries like German, Britain, and France scrambled to gain as much land in Africa. This created sort of a rivalry between the countries, which only made them obtain more resources from Africa to Industrial their countries. They chose their colonies based on the advantage they would gain by it’s strategically location. Colonies on rivers usually gave European countries an advantage because it allowed for easier trade. The Great River Highway was the Niger. It begins in the highlands of modern Ivory Coast, Mali, and Guinea. The highway helped with a quicker route to get supplies and trade goods within

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