Factors That Lead to Scramble and Partitions of Africa - Essay Example

Scramble for Africa was the begging of colonization of the African continents at large by European powers this was characterized by the following factors; political, economic, and social factors. Africa was divided into the following major parts and colonized different European countries, East Africa- by the British; Central Africa was colonized by Belgium, South Africa by the British, and West Africa by France.
Factors that lead to scramble and partitions of Africa
Social factors
The Europeans wanted to spread their western cultures, this includes the mode of dressing religion, education, and administrative styles since like French used assimilation policy to rule, Africans were illiterate and their dressing code was skins and tree barks, Africans also believed in their own traditional God they had sacred places for worshiping and worshiped physical features and landmarks for example in East Africa in a country called Kenya a tribe called the ‘Agikuyu’ who lived on the slopes of Mount Kenya originally known as Mount ‘Kirinyaga’.
Africans who lived around the Mountain worshiped the mountain as their God they had no religion at all they only worshiped the mountain and believed that God was lived at the top of the mountain. The first European to see Mount Kenya was a missionary called Dr. Living Stone who was spreading Christian religion around that place in the 19th century.
Most of the European powers wanted to convert African to Christianity and all those who had been converted to Muslim by the Arabs who had visited Africa in the early 15th century also knew Africa as a ‘dark’ continent where no religion existed they had no information that Africans had their own traditions and believes, they only wanted to introduce Christianity so as to compete with Muslims and Arabs in Africa and other parts of the world.
Economical factor
By the end of the 19th century, there was an industrial revolution back in European countries and therefore the Europeans mainly come to Africa in search of raw materials to supply and meet the demands of their industries back at home, some of the row materials include cotton, coffee and the minerals include the gold and diamond-rich from Southern Africa and Egypt and animal products like hides and skins making shoes and much other industrial use and ivory for making ornaments.
Another factor that lead to the scramble and partition of Africa was that Europeans were overpopulated there in their own country so they needed a new piece of land to settle and exploit resources and new opportunities. Read More