Which countries colonized africa
In many others, independence was achieved only after a protracted revolution. A few newly independent countries acquired stable governments almost immediately; others were ruled by dictators or military juntas for decades, or endured long civil wars. Some European governments welcomed a new relationship with their former colonies; others contested decolonization militarily.
The process of decolonization coincided with the new Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, and with the early development of the new United Nations.
Decolonization was often affected by superpower competition, and had a definite impact on the evolution of that competition. It also significantly changed the pattern of international relations in a more general sense.
The creation of so many new countries, some of which occupied strategic locations, others of which possessed significant natural resources, and most of which were desperately poor, altered the composition of the United Nations and political complexity of every region of the globe.
In the mid to late 19th century, the European powers colonized much of Africa and Southeast Asia. During the decades of imperialism, the industrializing powers of Europe viewed the African and Asian continents as reservoirs of raw materials, labor, and territory for future settlement.
In most cases, however, significant development and European settlement in these colonies was sporadic. However, the colonies were exploited, sometimes brutally, for natural and labor resources, and sometimes even for military conscripts. In addition, the introduction of colonial rule drew arbitrary natural boundaries where none had existed before, dividing ethnic and linguistic groups and natural features, and laying the foundation for the creation of numerous states lacking geographic, linguistic, ethnic, or political affinity.
After the Japanese surrender in , local nationalist movements in the former Asian colonies campaigned for independence rather than a return to European colonial rule.
In many cases, as in Indonesia and French Indochina, these nationalists had been guerrillas fighting the Japanese after European surrenders, or were former members of colonial military establishments. These independence movements often appealed to the United States Government for support. While the United States generally supported the concept of national self-determination, it also had strong ties to its European allies, who had imperial claims on their former colonies.
The Cold War only served to complicate the U. Several of the NATO allies asserted that their colonial possessions provided them with economic and military strength that would otherwise be lost to the alliance. Hardly any crops were produced, and the food shortage which followed caused the death of many people and animals. The little crops that were produced were destroyed by a plague of locusts. This led to even more deaths of animals and people, and due to their physical and mental weakness, they were unable to fight against European powers.
European powers could easily take control of any source of land by using force and violence. This gun could fire eleven bullets per second, and outdid the weapons that the African forces had. African armies did not manage to get hold of European weapons because it was not sold to them.
Thus Africans were at a military disadvantage. The Europeans who were already in Africa had developed immunity to these diseases due to past experiences of these outbreaks in Europe. The indigenous African population had no immunity or resistance to these diseases and thus weakened the African population. A large number of the African population thus died out, or became too weak to fight back. The impact that colonisation had on Africa can be described as both good and bad.
In terms of European political practice in Africa, all colonising countries share similar attributes. Colonial political systems were un-democratic; Law and Order, as well as Peace, was a primary objective of colonial governments; Colonial governments lacked capacity and Colonial governments practiced "divide and rule.
Secondly, the African population was not satisfied with the way that Europeans imposed on their governing system without any proper representation, thus the maintenance of peace under the African population was made an important priority for the colonial government.
Thirdly, seeing as most colonial governments were not rich, they did not fund the governing of their colonies fully. Although they were responsible for raising the money for their own colonies, they still lacked the incometo properly develop and maintain a successful governing system.
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.
Due tothe lack of revenue within the colonies, little attention was given to promoting social change or development. Although all the colonies did not experience the same extent of social change, these colonies share the same characteristics in terms of social change.
Firstly, colonial and political practices caused a large scale movement of people. In some areas, migrations were primarily from one rural area to another. In other places, the migration was from rural areas to urban areas. These movements resulted in dislocation of peoples that impacted society and culture. Social and cultural beliefs and practices were challenged by these migrations.
Long-held practices had to be adapted, and at times were completed abandoned, to fit the new colonial circumstances. Secondly, and partly due to the first consequence, the dislocation of families also occurred.
Men mainly left the household to work in mines and on plantations, leaving their wives and children behind. As a result, women and adolescents were forced to take on new roles and to cope in absence of their husbands and fathers. Due to colonialism, the African family structure had been severely changed.
Thirdly, urbanization emerged as colonization was imposed. During colonialism, urbanization occurred fairly rapidly in many African colonies. 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. 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. Fourthly, the religious beliefs of Africans were adapted or changed. A small percentage of the African population regarded themselves as Christians, and today more than half of the African population is 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. Lastly, the public education system of African was also changed. The majority of colonial governments did little to support schools.
Most formal schooling African colonies were a result of the work of missionaries. Missionaries felt that education and schools were essential to their mission. Their primary concern was the conversion of people to Christianity. Missionaries believed that the ability of African peoples to read the Bible in their own language was important to the conversion process. However, most mission societies were not wealthy, and they could not support the number of schools that they really wanted.
Consequently, with limited government support, most African children did not go to school during the colonial era. In fact at the end of colonial rule, no colony could state that more than half of their children finished elementary school, and far fewer attended secondary school.
West Africans developed an extensive self-contained trading system, based on skilled manufacture. From the 8th century Muslim traders, from North Africa and Arab countries, began to reach the region.
Gradually, communities began to convert to Islam. By the end of the 11th century some entire states, and influential individuals in others, were Muslim. At the same time, West African trade slowly expanded towards Egypt and possibly India.
Arabic texts mention that from the late 8th century Ghana was considered 'the land of gold'. Mali also possessed great wealth. In , when Mansa Musa, its emperor, made a pilgrimage to Mecca, he took so much gold with him that in Egypt, which he also visited, the value of the metal was debased. Prior to the European voyages of exploration in the fifteenth century, African rulers and merchants had established trade links with the Mediterranean world, western Asia, and the Indian Ocean region.
Within the continent itself, local exchanges among adjacent peoples fit into a greater framework of long-range trade. The Ashanti kingdom, or Asante, dominated much of the present-day state of Ghana.
Gold Coast began encountering European traders in the mids, when the Portuguese began trading with coastal peoples. By the seventeenth century, many European trading giants including the British, Dutch and French began building fortifications along the coastline in order to assert their positions.
These interactions were to have a profound effect on African coastal settlements and African institutions came under considerable European influence very early on. West Africa had a long history of connection to trans-Saharan gold trade, and from the 15th century was drawn into trade with Europe, in gold and increasingly in slaves.
The Ashanti kingdom had emerged from the mid- 17th century, benefitting from access both to rich agricultural resources and gold, much of the labour for production of which was provided by a domestic slave trade. The Expansion of the Asante Kingdom, Image source.
Many parts of West Africa was still unknown to the rest of the world, thus By the late 15th century and early 16th century many European nations like Portugal started to send the missionaries and explorers to investigate various parts of Africa and West Africa in particular. As early as in the 19th century European powers like France, Germany, and Britain likewise sent number of missionaries, explorers, traders and philanthropists in West Africa. When the Ashanti kingdom showed ambitions to expand its control southwards in negotiating treaties with African authorities and protecting trading interests, the British invaded Ashanti in and burnt its capital.
The majority of European Explorers spent their time to investigate and to detail the interior and coast of West Africa to help European powers that were searching areas with potential materials as European countries were experiencing mushrooming of industries.
Explores assisted the European merchant groups; penetration of west Africa interior in 18th century was real a hard and difficult but with the aid of explorers, European merchant groups had advantage of trading in West Africa freely with assurance of security of themselves and their trading commodities.
As Britain increasingly colonised more and more African countries, the British had become the dominant power along the coast, and they began annexing and laying claim to territory gradually. The expansion of the Asante kingdom towards the coast was the major cause of this, as the British began to fear that the Asante would come to monopolise coastal trade in their place.
The British placed the Governor of neighbouring Sierra Leone, which was already annexed, in charge of British forts and settlements along the coast. He formed an unfavourable opinion of the Asante, and began the long process of attempting to bring them under British control.
However, disputes over jurisdiction of the area known as Ashanti led to war between the British and the Asante, and in , the Asante succeeded in killing the Governor as well as seven of his men. In retaliation, the British with the help of tribes oppressed by the Asante, including the Fante and the Ga beat the Asante back in , and successfully ended their dominance of coastal regions.
The establishment of British law and jurisdiction in the colony was a gradual process, but the Bond with the Fante is popularly considered to be its true beginning. This recognised the power of British officials and British common law in the Gold Coast and over the Fante people.
A supreme court was established in , and led to British common law becoming enforced. However, all of this brought financial challenges, and saw the policy of making the colonies pay come in to force in the Gold Coast for the first time.
European troops entering Kumane during the second Anglo- Ashanti War. The British fought against the Ashanti four times in the 19th century and suppressed a final uprising in before claiming the region as a colony.
It ended with a standoff after the British beat an Ashanti army near the coast in After two generations of relative peace, more violence occurred in when the Ashanti invaded the British "protectorate" along the coast in retaliation for the refusal of Fanti leaders to return a fugitive slave. The result was another stand-off, but the British took casualties and public opinion at home started to view the Gold Coast as a quagmire.
In , the Second Ashanti War began after the British took possession of the remaining Dutch trading posts along the coast, giving British firms a regional monopoly on the trade between Africans and Europe. The Ashanti had long viewed the Dutch as allies, so they invaded the British protectorate along the coast. A British army led by General Wolseley waged a successful campaign against the Ashanti that led to a brief occupation of Kumasi and a "treaty of protection" signed by the Ashantehene leader of Ashanti, ending the war in July This war was covered by a number of news correspondents including H.
Stanley and the "victory" excited the imagination of the European public. In , the Third Anglo-Ashanti War began following British press reports that a new Ashantehene named Prempeh committed acts of cruelty and barbarism.
Strategically, the British used the war to insure their control over the gold fields before the French, who were advancing on all sides, could claim them.
In , the British government formally annexed the territories of the Ashanti and the Fanti. In , a final uprising took place when the British governor of Gold Coast Hodgson unilaterally attempted to depose the Ashantehene by seizing the symbol of his authority, the Golden Stool.
The British were victorious and reoccupied Kumasi permanently. The change in the Gold Coast's status from "protectorate" to "crown colony" meant that relations with the inhabitants of the region were handled by the Colonial Office, rather than the Foreign Office.
That implied that the British no longer recognized the Ashanti or the Fanti as having independent governments. It arrived in Kumasi in January The Asantehene directed the Ashanti to not resist.
Shortly thereafter, Governor William Maxwell arrived in Kumasi as well. Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh was deposed and arrested. Britain annexed the territories of the Ashanti and the Fanti in , and Ashanti leaders were sent into exile in the Seychelles. The Asante Union was dissolved. Robert Baden-Powell led the British in this campaign.
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