Causes and Results of African Colonialism



Causes and Results of African Colonialism

Colonialism is generally defined as the occupation and control of one nation by another. Over the last few hundred years, various European nations have colonized many areas of the world. These European colonies were in North and South America, Africa, Asia, Australia, and various smaller islands around the world. European nations colonized Africa from the late 19th century until the middle to later 20th century. Although Europeans had had contact with many parts of Africa much longer than this (for example, through the Atlantic Slave Trade), they did not impose a formal rule of law over Africa until this time period.

There is a general consensus among historians that colonialism is morally wrong. It is not difficult to understand this conclusion! Colonialism, after all, is a political system in which an external nation takes complete control of a territory in another area of the world. Moreover, the colonized people do not invite the colonial power, nor do they have any say in how they are governed. Colonialism is by definition and practice un-democratic!

Causes of Colonialism in Africa

The 19th century in Europe was a time of industrialization. Factories in Europe required raw materials to be manufactured into marketable products. As a result, Europeans sought both a source of raw materials as well as a market for manufactured goods in Africa. This economic motivation played a large role in the colonization of Africa.

Politics in Europe also led to the colonization of Africa. Nationalism in Europe resulted in the formation of the nation-states in Europe that we are familiar with today. Nationalism-a strong of identification with and pride in one's nation-resulted in competition between European nations. One of the causes of the Scramble for Africa, (1885-1910) which resulted in the colonization of all of Africa in just twenty-five years, was the competition between European nations. No major nation wanted to be without colonies. The competition was particularly strong between Britain, France, and Germany, the strongest European nation-states in the late 19th century.

In addition, many Europeans of the time viewed themselves as the most advanced civilization in the world, and some saw it as their mission to "enlighten" and "civilize" people in the rest of the world. This feeling of “racial superiority” and "responsibility" was strengthened by the many inaccurate and racist stereotypes of African peoples, which existed at the time and were also used to justify colonialism in Africa. Thus, Europeans had a falsely superior view of themselves, and a falsely inferior view of Africans.

The colonization of Africa occurred along with the expansion of Christian missionary activity in Africa. Parts of Africa, such as Ethiopia and Egypt, were home to Christians right from the beginning of Christianity as a religion. However, Christianity was introduced to the rest of Africa starting during the period of the slave trade.

Christian missionary activity in Africa gained strength in the 19th century as European countries were becoming more involved in Africa. Evidence suggests that while many missionaries opposed the harsher aspects of colonialism, they were supportive of the colonization of African countries. Missionaries who supported colonialism believed that European control would provide a political environment that would help missionary activity in Africa. The idea of “Christianizing” Africa also made many Europeans look favorably on the colonization of the continent.

The Results of Colonialism in Africa

Political Results

Since colonialism was practiced differently throughout Africa, the consequences of colonial rule differ from colony to colony. In spite of these differences, though, all colonial governments shared certain attributes.

Borders were random. The borders of African countries today were imposed from the outside by European nations. Often the people who drew these borders paid no attention to cultural groups or existing political leadership at the time of colonization. Sometimes they grouped together people who had never been united under the same government before. Sometimes they divided existing groups of people. The creation of these borders, therefore, had negative impact on Africa’s political and social structures by either dividing groups that wanted to be together or combining groups that should have been apart from each other.

Colonial political systems were un-democratic. No matter what form colonial rule took, all colonial systems were un-democratic. Colonial governments did not allow people to participate in choosing their government. Decisions and policies were made with little or no input from the African peoples. Even in the case where decisions or policies may have benefited some people, they were still un-democratic since there were no ways for the people to officially express their opinions.

Law and Order ("Peace") was a primary objective of colonial governments. Colonial rule was most often imposed without consent from the African people. Understandably, people were not happy with being governed without any representation, and colonial governments faced the possibility peaceful or violent resistance to their rule. Consequently, the maintenance of "peace" and law and order was a top priority of colonial governments. As a result, in most African colonies, more money was spent on developing and maintaining a police force and an army than was spent on education, housing, and health-care combined!

Colonial governments lacked funds. Most colonial governments were not rich. The European colonial powers were not willing to give up profits gained from the colony, which enriched the home nation, and instead spend it on governing the colonies in Africa fully. Each colony was therefore responsible for raising most of the money needed to pay for governing itself. No matter how rich in resources a colony was, the colonial government lacked the money necessary to go beyond maintaining law and order. This meant that colonial governments were not able to provide basic infrastructure, such as roads and communication networks, nor were they able to provide basic social services such as education, health care, and housing.

Colonial governments practiced "divide and rule." Given the lack of funds for infrastructure and services, and the strong emphasis on keeping law and order to maintain control, all forms of colonial rule engaged in practices that intentionally weakened indigenous power networks and systems. To do this they turned different African groups against each other by implementing policies that created distrust and jealousy between different groups.

Economic Results

Two primary factors influenced colonial economies. First, from early in the 19th century, Europeans believed that Africa was rich in natural resources, and one of reasons for colonialism was the desire to gain control of Africa's rich natural resources. Secondly, as indicated above, European colonial powers did not want to spend their own money to establish and maintain their colonies in Africa. Rather, they insisted that each colony supply the money necessary to govern itself.

Meeting these two goals of generating wealth for the colonial power in Europe while at the same time generating money for ruling the colony led to the following similarities between all types of colonial economic practice:

1. Emphasis on exploitation of raw materials for export, not African industrial use. In mineral-rich colonies, the emphasis was placed on mining. In other territories, the colonial power identified agricultural products suitable for export to Europe. In either case, the emphasis was on developing the resources for export, not for local use or consumption. Therefore, local industries were not created to make use of these raw materials. Profits from the export of mineral and agricultural goods were also sent to Europe. Profits that could have been used to promote social and economic development in the colonies were therefore not available. The small taxes on these exports went to support colonial rule.

2. High demand for labor. Mining of minerals and the production of crops for export needed inexpensive labor. At times colonial governments resorted to policies of forced labor in order to provide adequate labor for mines and plantations. At other times, their tactics were not as harsh, but in almost all situations, Africans labored in poor working conditions, for long hours, with inadequate pay. To improve the pay and working conditions of the labors would have lessened profits.

Social Results

The colonial experience had a dramatic impact on African societies. Once again, it is important to remember that the colonial impact on Africa was not uniform across the continent. However, some social consequences were experienced in most African colonies.

1. Movement of People. Colonial economic and political practices resulted in the massive movements of people in most African colonies. In some locales, migrations were primarily from one rural area to another. In other places, the migration was from rural areas to urban areas. In either case, these movements resulted in dislocation of peoples that impacted society and culture. Social and cultural beliefs and practices were weakened by these migrations.

2. Dislocation of Families. Families were often split up by migration. For example, men recruited to work in mines and on plantations often had to leave their families behind. As a result, women and adolescents were forced to take on new roles and to cope in absence of their husbands and fathers. Even when families remained unaffected by migration, they underwent considerable stress and change as the result of the colonial experience. Prior to colonialism, the extended family structure was practiced in most African societies. But by the end of colonial era, the nuclear family was becoming common in many African countries.

3. Urbanization. A number of pre-colonial African societies had towns and small cities. However even in these societies, most people were engaged in agriculture in rural villages or homesteads. During colonialism, urbanization occurred fairly rapidly in many African colonies. Urban living resulted in changes in economic activities and occupation, and in changes in the way people lived. These changes often challenged existing values, beliefs, and social practices.

4. Religious changes. At the beginning of the colonial era, less than five per cent of the people in Africa identified themselves as Christian. Today, nearly fifty per cent of the people in Africa identify themselves as Christians. Colonial rule provided an environment in which Christianity, in many forms, spread in many parts of Africa. While Islam was widespread in Africa prior to the coming of colonialism, it also benefited from colonialism. British and French colonial officials actively discouraged Christian mission work in Muslim areas. Peace and order established by colonial rule provided an environment in which strengthened Islam in certain African colonies. However, in spite of these significant changes, many Africans continued to hold to and practice traditional religions

5. Education. Throughout human history, all societies have practiced a form of "public" education. Education is the method by which families and societies transfer beliefs, values, and skills between generations. Throughout human history, education has mainly been informal. That is, values and knowledge were learned in informal settings in the home, church, and through work and play. It is has only been in the past 200 years that public education has become more formalized, taking place in schools with an added emphasis on reading, writing, and mathematics.

Quranic Schools were widespread in the Islamic areas of Africa prior to the coming of colonial rule. Quranic schools focused on learning to read the Quran, the holy book of Islam. The Quran was written in Arabic. Consequently, students learned to read Arabic, and not their local language, at the Quranic schools. However, schools that emphasized literacy and mathematics in African languages were not common.

Remember that Europeans in favor of colonialism claimed that it was necessary in order to enlighten and civilize African peoples and societies. Given this concern, you would think that colonial governments would have made a major effort to introduce schools throughout Africa. The truth is that most colonial governments did little to support schools. Most formal schooling African colonies was a result of the work of Christian missionaries who believed that the ability of African peoples to read the Bible in their own language was important.

Most missionary groups were not wealthy, and they could not support the number of schools that they really wanted. So most African children did not go to school during the colonial era. In fact, at the end of colonial rule, no colony could boast that more than half of its children finished elementary school, and far fewer attended secondary school.

In spite of lack of support for public education, however, schooling had a dramatic impact on children who were fortunate enough to attend school. Indeed, most of the leaders of Africa's independence movements and leaders of post-independent African governments and economies, were products the few mission or fewer government schools.

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