Africa under European Imperialism

The Division of Africa

The Beginning

• Portuguese Explorers like Bartolomeo Diaz and Vasco De Gama reached the African coast in the mid to late 1400’s. Once Contact was established Portugal claimed all of Africa to belong to her.

• Portuguese traders set up coastal trade centers and began taking on slaves, gold, ivory, ebony, and salt

Other Europeans jump in

• Portugal could not hold on to her claim of all Africa for long

• Soon other countries began to encroach upon Portuguese Africa

• The French, British, Dutch, Germans, and English all were willing to jump in to get at the raw materials within Africa to fuel their own financial gain

Colonialism

• Colonies could make the “mother” country rich.• Colonies offered resources for industry which

could not be found in the “mother” country.• Colonies also offered military power through

recruitment of natives and military bases around the world

• Colonies also provided bragging rights• Racism was a crucial part of Colonialism

The key invaders

• Several European explorers inaugurated the European penetration into the "Dark Continent." The most prominent among them were:

• David Livingstone, a Scottish physician, who went to Africa in 1840, as a Protestant missionary.

• Henry Stanley an American journalist who went in search of David Livingstone.

The Epic Men who brought international interest to Africa

Livingstone Stanley

Scramble for Land

• The interior of Africa was a mystery to outsiders.• Everyone (Europeans) who had ventured into

the interior of Africa had become ill with disease or were never heard from again.

• By the 1850’s European Nations began to claim land in Africa as their own.

• Wanna Be Explorers wanted to be the first to map and chart the great unknown interior

European Countries

• European nations were quick to jump into Africa using their military might to wedge themselves in and quickly subdue the natives they found

• Europeans viewed the natives as racially and mentally inferior to them due to their dress, language, and lack of technology

• Europeans began to force their culture onto the natives they conquered.

The Good and the Bad

Positive effects of Imperialism• Imperialism brought

education• Technology• Infrastructure such as roads,

bridges, telephone, electricity, railroad lines etc

• Colonialism established government, law and order

Negative effects of Imperialism• Europeans brought racism• Europeans gutted the land of

raw resources and failed to develop manufacturing

• Europeans forced their languages and expectations upon the natives

• Christian Missionaries forced religious and cultural change upon the native people

• Natives were forced to live under the rule of foreign colonial governments

Belgium Jumps In• In 1878,King Leopold II of Belgium organized a private

commercial company under the name of the International Africa (Congo) Association. He was the president and the chief stockholder. The purpose was the purchase of Congo land for the exploitation of rubber resources. The king then secured international sanction, at the Berlin Conference (1884-1885) for transforming the Company’s lands into the Congo Free State, with himself as its personal sovereign. He earned great profits in this undertaking. By 1908, the government of Belgium took over the Congo Free State as a Belgian colony, on payment of heavy financial compensation to Leopold II.

The Belgian Leader

The way he saw himself

The way Africans saw him

The Brutality of Belgian Rule

• Leopold began cruelly subduing the people of the Congo region. Rebels had their hands cut off as punishment for not agreeing to Belgian rule

Who else violated the people of Africa?

• Cecil Rhodes and Great Britain• Spain• Germany• France• Italy